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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If you’re ready to truly have independence and thrive both online and offline, then you need to also declare your independence from naysayers.

You know who they are and  you have to compassionately say goodbye to them. They are not only the people in your life that are always the first to say no to a new idea, but also your own negative beliefs about your brand, your offerings or your value to the world.

Does this mean once you say goodbye to them you don’t have to do any more work? That things will just happen? Absolutely not. To make anything happen in this world, you absolutely must be scrappy, persistent and unyielding in your desire to attain your dream.

If you want to attain the dream of being more visible online then you should:

1. Stop listening to people who say social media tools like Twitter and Linkedin.com are useless.

2. Stop listening to viral marketing agencies and PR firms who tell you the only way to get your message out is through bait and switch content and endless affiliate marketing spam techniques.

3. Build your thought leadership online by sharing your insights freely, honestly and often. Stop waiting for people to give you permission to share your expert knowledge. Start providing your community a way to freely access your content on your blog/website in conjunction with other social media networks.

4. Stop listening to people who promise a quick method way to gaining thousands of followers on social network communities with very little real work or effort on your part. There is no quick, easy way to community-building, start one click at a time and keep going.

5. Stop buying into the idea that only a giant PR or marketing firm can do conversational sweeps, define social media touchpoints, or find relevant communities for you to participate in. You can do alot of this work on your own and you can collaborate with the agencies if you do determine to work with them.

6. Stop letting the fear of social media and all those folks who say it can’t be used effectively keep you from you USING it. If you choose not to let your voice be heard through online channels, then you’re missing out on the opportunity to truly effect change in the world.

No go and be vibrantly independent!

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• 10 Beautiful Social Media Infographics (mashable.com)

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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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Here are 5 tips for inspiring journalists, readers and followers to keep coming back for more!

1. Tell them everything, be transparent and ask lots of questions that you don’t know the answer to.

2. If a journalist writes a story about a topic you’re familiar with then take time to dig deeper for your readers in an accompanying post. Recognize the journalist by name (it’s only respectful) and contrast and compare their insights with your own. Stop listening to PR folks who tell you that you have to get your requisite, always the same soundbites down pat. Pat is boring!

3. Be endlessly curious. Every single part of business has its own mysteries. Sometimes we’re all asking the same questions over and over again instead of challenging ourselves to look at something differently. Don’t be a lemming constantly leaping off the dull edge with everyone else. Step back and create new ideas.

4. Don’t make it about becoming a celebrity in your field, make room for everyone to rise to your level of understanding. Do these by asking your readers to ask questions, comment and guest post on your blog. Choose to be different, not “celeb-boring.”

5. Stop trying to be “quotable” and start trying to be perenially memorable.

6. Soundbites don’t drive curiousity, they just get us stuck in the mud of old traditional PR.

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Total disclaimer: We will actually give you real advice that you can use after the seminar. We do not want to offer ten week e-classes, we only provide actionable insight and tried and true tips for you to immediately implement.

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Key things to ask yourself no matter what your profession if you’re on Twitter and intend to use it for truly connecting with folks:

1. Am I really as funny as I think and will that come across on Twitter or will it seem snarky?

2. Don’t I always want to manage and directly contribute to my social media initiatives so I’m the only wizard behind the curtain?

3. How can I really connect with the hip fans who are tweeting and make it about them, not me?

4. #3 again because it’s worth asking twice

5. If I followed 1000 folks and half of those followed me back because they really love my music, wouldn’t that be a great way to help foster viral love across the Web and do so authentically?

Answer to #5 – Yes!

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Go here to check out this great riff on the end of marketing and PR.

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She has some good insight in terms of blogging and why to blog. She also highlights Seth Godin’s blog as a blog that works, but I would say his blog works for marketing Seth (and I think Seth is great) but it is not a two-way conversation because Seth doesn’t allow commenting on his blog.

And no one has to enable comments on their blog by the way, but if you’re a book author or a fiction book author, one of the ways to engage folks is to leave your comments on. Also comment on other blogs and get the blog convo happening both ways.

Look at David Meerman Scott’s blog for a good example of convo both ways.  Or Toby Bloomberg’s blog. For literary agents look at Nathan Bransford’s blog. Look at how Liz Strauss does her amazing Open Mike nights on her blog. Read B.L. Ochman’s blog. Read Jennifer Robenalt’s blog.

Or my own personal favorite blogger Steve Kayser. 

Whatever you do online, always make it balanced with offline even if you make your living online. You don’t need to make it 24/7.

At the end of M.J.’s article, is basically a couple of paragraphs about bloggers who’ve died in the past couple years of heart attacks, which seems to beg the question, “Can blogging kill you?”

Guess what??? It doesn’t!

Stress kills us. Smoking kills us. Not spending enough time being crazy or having fun can slowly kill us. Greed and “not enough itis” can kill us. But blogging? I don’t think it can kill you.

But just in case here are some pointers to ensure you’re a healthy blogger!

1. Don’t spend 24/7 blogging, twittering, facebooking, or on any other online shenanigans.

2. Don’t believe that to be viable or visible online you have to incessantly be communicating.

3. Don’t be a blogging-downer. Don’t post a ton of negative things on your blog or website to build yourself up.

4. Step away from the blog and go outside once in awhile.

5. Don’t engage in flame wars.

6. Reach out to like-minded folks and revel in their spirit, blog posts and take on business, life, work etc.

7. Make peace with your inbox always being a bit too full.

8. Twittering during a movie date with your husband is not kosher.

9. Be mindful that juggling too many blogs makes Jack or Jill a dull boy or girl in real life.

10. One blog at a time, one post at a time, one reader at a time and always focus on expanding your ideas and your reader’s ideas.

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Actually, you can feed your blog posts into Twitter,  you should do it with some catchy phrase if the blog post is useful to your Twitter followers, and you can do this from your WordPress platform easily!

Here’s the link for the plugin – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-tools/ .

By using TwitterTools you can add the option to send the feed from your blog to Twitter. Twitter actually uses tinyurl.com to reduce the link so of course it’s not posting your whole blog post (which would be too long) it’s just posting a blurb and link to the full blog post. Why would you not want to do this? (That is a rhetorical question.:>)

Here’s a sampling of recent blog posts I’ve also shared on Twitter and what they look like: (Notice, on the ones directly from my blog it says “New blog post…”)

My recommendation is that if you have a cool insight on your blog that will help other folks (and is not an “all about me” post) that you should definitely tweet it so your followers can have the opportunity to go read it on your blog in full!

A good thing always to keep in mind as well is that even though there are a giant amount of Web 2.0 tools, only use the ones that will really be of value to you and make certain you’re not setting yourself up to be in front of the computer 24/7 just managing social media tools!

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