I was lucky enough to meet Mark Shaw a while back at a local tweet-up and he seemed like a nice guy but I have to be honest when I read his profile and it said Yoda of Twitter and Guru, it put me off slightly (sorry Mark). Why on earth would anyone pay to learn how to use Twitter? But after reading his e-Book, Twitter Your Business, it proves that he does know what he?s talking about and I learned a lot. On a side note, I?ve spoken to two people, in the last week, who?ve worked with Mark; Alan Stevens from the Media Coach and Matt Bigg from Collective Design and they both said exactly the same thing ?he?s a great guy!?
Firstly, I think it was very clever and not coincidental, that the e-Book was exactly 140 pages the same number of characters permitted in a tweet. While reading the book I kept finding myself nodding as I was going along. There was one or two dead links, but I?m sure the publishers have sorted these out and I would?ve liked to see more on using Twitter?s search facilities to find a meaningful network and a mention of RSS feeds, however the majority of it was very solid.
But, the thing I liked the most was the case studies, not only because I know two people personally who are featured (Matt Bigg and Sue Wybrow) but I?ve recently started working one on one with small businesses showing them the merits of Social Media and they often say, yes, I get the feeling I should be using Twitter, as everyone is raving about it, but why, what will it do for my business? Being able to say to them one company gained 2000 followers in a year, another increased hits on their website by 20% and 40% of another?s company?s new clients come from social media! I think that says it all.
Well done Mark and you should be very proud! Thank you for giving me the opportunity to review it!
