It’s officially released today and is a MUST READ.

While you’re waiting for the book to arrive, you should also check out the free e-book that vividly details David’s scoop on how Fortune 100 companies respond to news queries, how real-time marketing and PR should work and what you can do to capitalize in this 24/7 environment.

To quote David, “In my research, I contacted the communications departments of the Fortune 100 companies and found that only 28 percent engaged with me in real-time. Many of those 28 companies have comprehensive real-time communications programs in place, which I describe in the ebook.”

Check out David’s post announcing the book here.

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Today I flew out from San Francisco after speaking to the Northern California Book Publicity and Marketing Association luncheon yesterday on ”Online PR and Social Media,” and spent the flight listening to the Dead on my iPhone.

This was shortly after having coffee in Sausilito this morning with my friend Ann Matranga at The Depot. We sat outside and watched the kids play in Lytton Square which Bill Graham helped create and we talked about the Dead.

So it seems synchronistic, speaking of the Dead that David Meerman Scott and Brian Halligan today announced, Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from The Most Iconic Band in History (Wiley, 2010).

There are so many reasons why this book is cool, but I have to be honest and say I love Chapter 8: Encourage Eccentricity and the whole focus on the fans and marketing.

I love it because it reveals how a company or band or individual can tap into the power of differentiation and eccentricity to make their way in the world.  Not only can this bring you success, but it’s the right thing to do!

To quote from that chapter, “The Grateful Dead teaches us that we are all eccentric in some ways. Smart companies understand eccentricities and create a market from them.”

I also like this from the book,  ”Deadheads are your neighbors, coworkers and friends.” As a dancing bear tattooed Deadhead I’ll have to confess, I know the deadheads, the deadheads are friends of mine, and I am proud to still be one!

As Bill Walton says in the foreword of the book, “Like other daring visionaries The Grateful Dead rejected conventional wisdom.”

That’s why we are still dancing – and that’s really how you can build a fan base that even after all these years is still trading Dead stories, tapes, t-shirts and mementos of their time drifting with the Dead.

So any marketing lesson that Scott and Halligan share in this book you definitely should tune into.

Go see David’s post all about the book tour at his site.

And check out his new tie-dye pic on the site too. Wonderful.

Meanwhile, me and my dancing bear will be digging the marketing nuggets of this extraordinary and timely book on marketing!

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Every once in awhile I’m amazed by how many PR people, who’ve actually never had the experience of being a journalist, write “how-to” articles focused around what you should and should not do in interviews with journalists!

I am a card carrying member of the Internet Press Guild and the Online News Association. Having been a journalist/reporter online since 1996, I can tell you that journalists are people too. They’re just like us. They’re trying to do their job well, get paid and stay alive in what has become an increasingly competitive and low pay market.

The majority of journalists write because they love to write. They want to create good stories – they’re not out to get trap you in an interview or take things out of context. I’m speaking primarily in terms of major offline and online publications, not tabloids.

Journalists are not out to get you, they are out to get the story. The story includes your personality so the best thing you can do is be yourself. Don’t be a robot, be a real person. Stop listening to PR flaks who tell you that you have to ONLY talk about your brand or in polished soundbites.

Good content comes from good conversations, real conversations where you present the full picture of your life. Good reporters create amazing stories by making authentic connections with their interviewees.

When I was a full-time dot com journalist you would be amazed at how many CXO level interviews I did where it was heartening to find out the CEO or business leader had a life outside of just their job and their title. In fact, I always tried to share a little bit about my life (stay-at-home Mom wearing journalist cape by day and night between storytime, naps and Cheerios on the floor), and what that did is help my interviewees feel comfortable to share their real lives as well.

Putting the heart first in connecting with journalists who interview you will keep you in their hearts, and more importantly their contact Rolodex, much longer than if you simply choose to not interact with them on a real human level.

Oftentimes the most interesting part of a story comes from you and the journalist realizing you have more in common than just the story. What some PR flaks consider small talk is actually gem talk. These little beautiful gems that come through connecting on a real level with one another.

As a bonus, if you become a source of bigger insight than just your brand, it will help the journalist depend on you for other stories long-term.

Reporters are generous, smart, hard-working writers and their goal is to create valuable content, help them do that by being a valuable human first, and brand spokesperson second.

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So grateful to be included in the “Age of Conversation 3: It’s Time To Get Busy” book.

This book is an incredible tome of leading marketers, writers, PR folks and others on the Web. Hope you’ll take time to check it out. And below are all the fantastic folks who contributed to the book itself.

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REALITY: There are tons of absolutely free and  in-depth social media  help sites. If  you spend just one hour a week on them, you can learn everything you need to do.

REALITY EXTRA: You cannot possibly learn any of this stuff by just reading – you have to start doing!

5  Sites That Give You LOTS of GOOD FREE Social Media MOJO:

1. For Facebook turn to Allfacebook.com – superb, updated daily and tons of tips to instantly use.

2. Mashable.com - one of my faves on all things social media. Fantastic resource.

3. Twittip.com - Twitter tips you can instantly use.

4. Linkedin.com – read their blog! You get the insider scoop on the latest, like today they’re showing folks how to reorder your profile information. Tons of guest articles too. Cool beans!

5. SocialMediaToday.com – another daily must read.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Is your social media social or anti-social? (socialmediatoday.com)
• Social Media Marketing for Dummies (socialmediatoday.com)

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It’s astounding to me how long the “long tail” has really grown on the Web and what a short amount of time it’s taken to get to where it is now. I was lucky enough as an online journalist to have worked prior to the dotcom burst and after it, and I’ve witnessed astounding changes in that time.

I’m also spending more time thinking about how social media has impacted the Web and what it can and cannot do for you. My focus is how it can help individual platforms. I do think that if you’re not participating on some level using Web 2.0 tools you are missing a conduit for real engagement and outreach.

I also think we should be wise and wary and careful about drinking all the Web 2.0 kool-aid and going full force without really understanding which tools will work best for us.

I came across this recent Business Week article titled, “Beware of Social Media Snake Oil” and I think it makes some very good points. If you read through the whole article, you’ll find a reference to “The Cluetrain Manifesto” which has influenced many Web marketing consultants and is still an extremely valuable book.

With that in mind, I thought I would post this interview I did with David Weinberger, one of the authors of the book. This is the first of a series of interviews I will post occasionally under the Classic Interview headline and most of them were conducted from 2000 to 2002.

The timeframe was one of the most interesting in Web history and marked both the best and the worst of the dotcom frenzy.

2001 – Classic Interview: David Weinberger

by Nettie Hartsock, February 2001 (Ibiz)

Part 1: “The Cluetrain Manifesto” and conversations

Nettie: Do you still play “Quake”?

David: Yes. And as continued practicing improves my skills, the continued aging process removes them.

Nettie: Do you think the presidential websites had an impact on this year’s election and, if so, how?

David: The Republicans were apparently quite successful in raising money on their site. But, at least as important, political websites – like commercial ones – train people to expect to get complete and full information that just a few years ago would have required much more effort. Now, does having more information at your fingertips make you a more informed voter? Judging from the outcome, apparently not.

 Nettie: Tell us how you came to write “The Cluetrain Manifesto” with your other well-known co-authors?

David: The four authors had been talking via email and phone calls about why the media were, in our opinion, so wrong about the Web. We discovered that we agreed with one another in interesting ways, each approaching the issue from a different point of view. So we put up ClueTrain.com hoping to express some of what a lot of people on the Web were feeling.

Nettie: What does it mean that “markets are conversations” and “businesses are conversations”?

David: The old business model says a market is the demographic slices you can reach by broadcasting to it. A market in this view is the lowest common denominator of statistical information. But markets used to be much more than this. They used to be places people went to shop, to talk, to exchange news. And now, thanks to the Web, markets are once again becoming real groups of people with real names and real voices.

We find one another on the Web and talk about the products that matter to us. Likewise, all of the real work of business is accomplished through conversations at meetings, in the hallways, over intranets. Constant talk.

Nettie: Why doesn’t it work on the Web for a business to talk in jingles?

David: Because we’re not sitting there passively, waiting for the next show to come on. We’re not captives.

Nettie: What is the most important issue to consider in marketing to your customers on the Web?

David: Ack. Just one? I’m having trouble deciding among “Tell the truth,” “Let people talk in their own voice,” “Drive out fear,” “You’re not the center of your customers’ universe,” and “Don’t be a jerk.”

Nettie: Why are customers desperate for stories?

David: Because we want to understand, and the richest understanding is through stories. Stories show how events unfold, how the end is contained in the beginning. And stories are always told by a real person in her or his own voice. They’re the opposite of the jingles you just mentioned.

Nettie: How should the conversations that occur between business and customers via e-mail or the customer feedback page be viewed by a company?

David: Customers and their conversations aren’t assets of the company. They’re not owned by the company. But they’re of tremendous value to the company. (These conversations don’t only occur via email or feedback pages.) Customer conversations tell the truth about the company. They’re passionate. And more and more, networked markets know more about the products than the company ever could. So, learning how to participate, as humans, in these conversations is of tremendous importance. The trick is that you have to really do it as a human, and not as a marketing ‘droid dressed up like a human, or like a Marketing Professional out to manipulate the conversation.

Part 2: Stop pretending and talk without fear…

Nettie: Tell us why it’s a good thing that the Web is always going to be “a little broken” as Berners-Lee has said?

David: Because every large structure is. And every human being is. We’re fallible, wee creatures and what we build is always at least a little bit broken. Recognizing and accepting that fallibility is liberating. Yet most companies insist on being “anal-perfective,” pretending that everything they do is perfect.

Nettie: Can “traditional” companies stop pretending and become fearless enough to have “real” conversations with their employees and their customers? Do you think the change will be embraced by the companies ultimately when the bottom line is at stake?

David: Yes and yes. The fact is that businesses are made of people, and people are much more complex than org charts. Without its “social networks,” a business literally can’t move, much less succeed. And you’re right to put this in terms of fear. So much of the structure of business is built around fear of employees and fear of customers.

Nettie: Will universal broadband contribute further to the demand for “real” conversation?

David: We already have “real” conversations every day on the Web, unless by “real” you mean “face-to-face.” I’ve made friends and kept in touch with old friends by email. Those conversations are real. Some people will prefer to use video or voice instead of email, but email will continue to be an important new way people talk with one another. Email is here to stay.

Nettie: What is the role of a CEO or CMO in a hyperlinked organization?

David: To help the company be smart. Companies are smart not because they have lots of data or lots of smart individuals but because they have smart conversations happening all over the place, crossing all the organizational boundaries, including with customers.

Nettie: In three years time, in your opinion,  are companies going to be if they continue to stay in a state of denial about the power of the Internet and the need for “conversations”.

David: If they continue to view the Web as a very slow broadcast medium, they will at best be ignored, and at worst treated with the contempt they’re showing to their customers.

Nettie: Does the book have a large following of established CEO’s who are embracing its ideas?

David: Lots of senior managers, including CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, have read the book, had one or more of the authors in to talk, given out copies of the book to their teams, and so forth. But the book very purposefully stays away from giving lists of things to do or programs that can be “embraced” and that will “work” for a company.

The book says: This is the most exciting and promising time any of us have lived through. Stop reading business books and go out and invent!

 Nettie: Thanks for the conversation, David!

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Twitter has just passed 5 billion tweets.

In celebration of that, I wanted to post some new tips for Twitter usage.

And if you’re not yet using Twitter, I would urge you to at least register your name because it will continue to drive opportunities for peers, partners and customers to connect and at some point you will have to come to the Twitter-dark side. And hey, it’s not really all that bad!

No one wants to know that you ate oatmeal for breakfast, but there’s alot of amazing people on Twitter that you might not otherwise ever connect with. Guess what? Those folks do want to know your insight and wisdom and who are you to not share it? Why not choose to use every tool you can to get your message out?

Are journalists on Twitter? Yes. Go to Muckrack.com and find them.

Is Twitter gaining over Facebook? Yes. Go here and read about it.

Here are 7 new tips for using Twitter:

1. Make sure you have a savvy bio line and that you include a clickable URL link in the bio itself.

2. Make sure you have your tweets connected to your Facebook account.

3. Make sure you do Friday Follows every Friday. #FF Use those to follow new people and champion people you follow.

4. Use your Twitter account to canvas your followers. Ask questions in your tweets and encourage people to answer them.

5. Always tweet a link out to your best blog posts. Don’t tweet something like, “Yet another brilliant blog post,” instead tweet out a strong excerpt from the blog post.

6. Don’t use RT (retweet) as the lazy person’s way to seem like you’re tweeting often. Use RTs sparingly and take special care to tweet out actionable insight from others you follow.

7. Tweet others as you would have them Tweet you. (Thanks Michael Murphy for that one.)

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If you’re still feeling hesitation about the importance of social media and all that it can do for you, here are 10 free tools to aid you out of your cynicism.

1. Use Google Alerts for your company name, book or brand and see how many other folks are already talking about your brand without you. Join the playground.

2. Use Technorati.com to register your blog and track other like-minded – link-minded blogs. Revel in link-love and cross-promote one another with glee.

3. See what the absolutely free tool  HowSociable reveals about your brand’s Web 2.0 visibility with its 22 metrics.

4. Want to track trend buzz in real time for free? (And who wouldn’t?) Use Trendpedia and see what’s happening.

5. Get TweetBeep to track in real-time mentions of you on Twitter. (It’s just like Google Alerts but for Twitter instead!)

6. Let’s not leave out MessageBoards and metrics for those – try BoardReader which can track several boards at once and forums too.

7. Google Groups – lets you search usenet groups.

8. Use Bit.ly to track free all your links and where they resurface in link-love-land.

9. Use SocialMention to see how social your presence is.

10. Use BlogPulse Trends to check the pulse keywords and phrases for optimal SEO on your site or your blog.

Bonus Tool: Use Facebook’s free Lexicon to track buzz on Wall posts!

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2. Always focus on the end-user never on YOU.

3. Use 2.0 tools to heighten your visiblity on the Web. Tie these tools in with offline traditional marketing/pr efforts.

4. Make sure your messaging and storytelling empowers viral word of buzz.

5. Think perennial platform, not short-term gain.

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Here they are:

1. HubSpot’s superb and (did I say free) Websitegrader – it will take your site through the veritable ringer of analysis and give you actionable insight on how to improve your SEO in a nifty little report delivered right to your email box.

2. HubSpot’s PressreleaseGrader – cool FREE tool that grades your press releases for higher searchability and good usage of keywords. FREE!

3. The latest tool in their vast grading empire - co-developed with one of the finest brains on the Web today David Meerman Scott, this tool is the Gobbledygook Grader. Use it and be free of gobbledygook. (I have to give a Web-hat tip to David Henderson who talked about this tool last night at the IABCHouston Quill Awards during his keynote.)

And no, I’m not an affiliate of HubSpot – I just like Mike Volpe and think they are doing a great job of giving real tools that people can use…for FREE!

Now I’m off to go see a “two tix for the price of one” show at HydeParkTheater in Austin!

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 We’ve all seen the commercials urging us to buy a Chia Pet, the low cost alternative to actually going outdoors to watch something…anything grow. And who amongst us has not  lovingly admired our own bear Chia pet and how quickly it sprouted?

My, my, no time at all and you have the whole pet covered in bright green tiny leaves. Oh the happiness and instant green-gratification of my little bear Chia pet. Which just as quickly dies in the next two weeks no matter what the watering, praying, or even a lighting of the Patron Saints of Plants candle.

What’s a Chia Pet have to do with social media? A lot more than you might think. The bigger the corporation, the more the Chia Pet mentality comes into play.

With bottom lines shrinking and pressure to be the next YouTube 50 million views breakthrough, the more the pressure for producing quick growth, beautiful sprouts and bounties of Chia Pet revelers to comment on how wonderful and unique your Chia Pet is over all the others out there.

Here’s the real truth. Social media initiatives are not Chia Pets. They don’t grow that easily, they don’t sprout all over that quickly at the onset, and they aren’t in a perfect shape of a bear, ram or even an Obama. The good news is they also don’t wilt after two weeks never to sprout again. If you plant the seeds correctly your social media initiatives will live on as perennials, one might even say as wildflower perennials.

The challenge lies in getting your team of marketing gardeners to understand that social media has to have time to really take root.

Here are some tips to good rooting:

1. Find the sunniest spot (or the best product attributes), and foster the growth of your wildflower perennials (products, services, software.)

2. Don’t over-fertilize the garden. (No bullshit allowed in this ‘long-tail’ garden.)

3. Don’t overwater it, or protect it too much from the outside community.

4. Don’t put a gate on it that has a combination so only a few can view the highest blooms. 

5. Keep your soil fine-tuned (rake out all the marketing speak and keep the soil deep and real.)

6. Open your perennial garden up to anyone and let them offer insight, tips and their seeds along with yours. Let them help water your perennials.

Make your social media initiatives such that people feel as if they’ve absorbed them through the Cosmos (defined as “the biggest tree in existence.”)

Chia Pets, according to the commercial, grow in just two weeks. Social media initiatives take months to plan and months to bloom.

Wildflowers just like strong social media plans take seeding in all types of climates, locations and weather. Social media initiatives take seeding in Facebook, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, online communities, forums, and blogs.

Wildflowers bloom despite the wind, rain, sun, and temperature. The California Poppy, The Purple Coneflower or even the Bluebonnet find their way along the highways and byways across the world. Good social media initiatives seed and bloom as well along the World Wide Web-way.

Social media lets us slowly and transparently grow our garden, in this highly over-Webbed world, and proudly see our perennial seeds root by correctly utilizing all the Web 2.0 opportunities that exist. 

(Thanks to Sharon Goldinger for her inspiring convos.)

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