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Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods Hardcover – September 3, 2009

by Shel Israel (Author)

4.1 37 ratings

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Twitter is the most rapidly adopted communication tool in history, going from zero to ten million users in just over two years. On Twitter, word can spread faster than wildfire. Companies no longer have the option of ignoring the conversation.

Unlike other hot social media spaces, Twitterville is dominated by professionals, not students. And despite its size, it still feels like a small town. Twitter allows people to interact much the way they do face-to-face, honestly and authentically. One minute, you’re com- plaining about the weather with local friends, the next, you’re talking shop with a colleague based halfway across the globe.

No matter where you’re from or what you do for a living, you will find conversations on Twitter that are valuable. Despite the millions of people joining the site, you’ll quickly find the ones who can make a difference to you.

Social media writer Shel Israel shares revealing stories of Twitterville residents, from CEOs to the student who became the first to report the devastation of the Szechuan earthquake; from visionaries trying to raise money for a cause to citizen journalists who outshine traditional media companies.

Israel introduces you to trailblazers such as:

· Frank Eliason, who used Twitter to reverse Comcast’s blemished customer service reputation
· Bill Fergus, who was on the team at Henry Ford Medical Center during the first “live tweeted” surgery
· Scott Monty, social media officer for Ford, who held off a mob of misinformed Ranger fans and averted a PR crisis
· Connie Reece, who used Twitter to raise tens of thousands of dollars for cancer patients in need
· The Coffee Groundz, a Houston-area coffee shop that uses Twitter to pack the tables (and fight off Starbucks)

Twitterville features many true stories as dramatic as these. But it also recounts those of ordinary businesspeople who use Twitter to get closer to their customers. And it explains how global neighborhoods will make geography increasingly irrelevant.
It even explains why people sometimes really do care what you had for lunch.

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Print length

320 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Portfolio
Publication date

September 3, 2009
Dimensions

6 x 1.25 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

1591842794
ISBN-13

978-1591842798
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Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5

37 global ratings

2 star

1 star

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Customers say

Customers find the book easy to read and provides good information about Twitter. They also describe the reading experience as excellent and say it gives them a better understanding of the impact and benefits of the social network.

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Content Reading experience

5 customers mention "Content"5 positive0 negative

Customers find the book easy to read, with good information and points to ponder. They also say it provides ideas and pieces of the puzzle.

"...What you get with this book is ideas, points to ponder, little pieces of the puzzle that assist you in developing or spring-boarding your own ideas,..." Read more

"...In terms of coverage its pretty comprehensive. B2B and B2C usages, as well as individuals.Tools mentioned: [...] and [...]..." Read more

"...Here's why: Twitterville offers an outstanding insight, through case studies, into the different ways that individuals and businesses..." Read more

"...I really really liked that book.. It was witty and informative...." Read more

5 customers mention "Reading experience"5 positive0 negative

Customers find the book an excellent read for those wanting to better understand Twitter. They say it provides background and gives a better understanding of Twitter, the impact, and benefits.

"Great and easy read, and while I thought I was getting a book with tips on using Twitter, I actually got a story book with many delicious anecdotes..." Read more

"...And it's a great read for Twitter business users - providing them with priceless information on how to leverage the medium...." Read more

"...I can about Twitter - this book gave me background, gave me a better understanding of Twitter, the impact, and benefits...." Read more

"good read" Read more

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Top reviews from the United States

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Dawn D Boyer PhD - Author of 100+ Big Kids Coloring Books for adult coloring hobbyists

This book is WONDERFUL - Love the Anecdotes & "Tipping Point" style

Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2010

Verified Purchase

Great and easy read, and while I thought I was getting a book with tips on using Twitter, I actually got a story book with many delicious anecdotes on how others used Twitter - business, charities, government, and regular people.

The reason I bought the book was I couldn't figure out - why people would want to Twitter? Wouldn't it just be silly, uninteresting tweets about boring, mundane life events. I had heard about Twitter crowds (everyone is tweeted to show up at a place and time and peacefully meet with others for five minutes, then disperse). But - how could my business use this media? This book opened my eyes.

What you get with this book is ideas, points to ponder, little pieces of the puzzle that assist you in developing or spring-boarding your own ideas, or building upon others. Within days I had almost 25 followers, knew what to look for, what not to do (don't follow more twitterers than are approximately following you to avoid Twitter programmers from marking you as a spammer), etc. I would say this was one of the more entertaining "how-to" books I've purchased yet on Social Media Networking.

I would highly recommend using this for general knowledge, and use a highlighter to note unusual and interesting pieces, then go back afterwards to type up notes to use in your sales, marketing, and PR pieces as well as using a few of the sources such as websites to which the author alluded.

Good read - easy to read - good information.

Follow me: #Dawn_Boyer

One person found this helpful

Helpful

ForAnEqualWorld

Should have been a blog not a book.

Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2010

Verified Purchase

Covers quite a few case studies on Twitter usage, successes and failures.
In terms of coverage its pretty comprehensive. B2B and B2C usages, as well as individuals.
Tools mentioned: [...] and [...]

This should have been a blog though and not a book. It lacked the depth that most books related to social media/web marketing have.

In 140 characters:
Keep it personal,no mass messaging,respond quickly.Almost everyone on twitter the 1st time wonders what its all bout, 2nd time they get it.

One person found this helpful

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Marylene Delbourg-Delphis

Citizens of Twitterville, Shel Israel is your special correspondent

Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2009

Verified Purchase

Each culture has its ideal cities. We also have our own form of utopia, Twitterville. This Utopia is really what the word actually means: a no-place that is nowhere, but in anyone's mind, unconstrained by geography. However, instead of emanating from one single thinker, Twitterville is a fully crowdsourced utopia.

Shel Israel takes us through Twitterville with the fervor of a proud resident and engaged storyteller -- eventually adding autobiographical details to enliven his narrative. And here we have in one breath an archeology of Twitterville, the history of its first settlers, famous people, unknown entities or businesses of all sizes, and dozens of Twitter addresses for the reader to try. He takes us though a chronicle of local adventures and mishaps as well as successful interactions between users and notoriously unfriendly providers both on earth and in the skies - and we can only wonder what U-Haul can do to recover from its repeated blunders or Motrin from the headaches that the brand created for itself. For, in Twitterville, bad rap might last just as long as they did in old-time villages. Everybody talks in the megalopolis and news, good or bad, true or false, uncontrollably propagate. Twitterville is all about conversation, i.e. any talk from babble to debate, and as a result, conversational marketing as much about reputation as it is about content.

Twitterville is not simply a marketing manual and is often really entertaining: it is a collection of stories for whomever wants to have a feel of what it is like to live in Twitterville and experience its continuously morphing precincts and innumerable downtowns. The conversational marketing manifesto side of the book comes across as summary rules and principles by which twitterers abide to be part of the community. In many respects, Twitterville is a free-style sequel to Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers, a book that Shel Israel wrote with Robert Scoble. However, while Naked Conversations discussed how to talk to people and customers through blogs, Twitterville is more about how to talk with people as you talk to them. "Spinning and targeting are outmoded," and selling products is not the starting point of a conversation, only the symbol of an established social relationship. Basically Twitterville makes us rediscover the beautiful ambiguity and complexity of the definition of the word "commerce" which refers to 1) a "social intercourse: interchange of ideas, opinions, or sentiments"' and 2) the "exchange or buying and selling of commodities on a large scale involving transportation from place to place."

5 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer

Twitterville by Shel Israel - Would you live there?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 25, 2009

Verified Purchase

Yes I would, and I think I'd probably want to own the pub on the corner ;-)

Disclosure: I contributed to the book.. page 262\263.

@ShelIsrael is a great, well respected guy; his blog posts have great insight and his Twitter stream is diverse and one of my (@SoulSailor) favourites and, assuming he ever makes it over to England, I can't wait to have a few pints and talk about twitter and life at an "English pub" in Rugby ;-) just like he promised!

Firstly, let me make it clear that book reviews aren't my thing... I read, I enjoy and I move on so be warned!

This is a book that you absolutely need to read if you're not sure about Twitter, your just dipping your toe in or if you wanna know the hows and the whys...The book is in three main sections... a kinda "how it started", "what people are doing" and a sort of "beginners guide".

For me, Twitterville is a positive journey through the characters and impacts that Twitter has had since its inception. Some have said in previous reviews of the book that it's too positive, well Twitter is what you make of it and I think that Shel does a great job showing what is possible to achieve with the platform..

The sub-title of the book is "How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods" well absolutely yes they can, but it's clear that although a positive book, Shel makes no bones in the stories he tells, as to how freaking hard it is, the dedication, innovation, foresight and determination that one needs to succeed, but the platform is there, the villagers are waiting to hear what you've got to say, you just need to bring to Twitterville the catalyst, that's what is key!

I'm not going to comment on the last section of the book.. this is clearly aimed at the newbie.. a kinda step-by-step approach to getting engaged into the conversation and adding value... I can see this "completes" the journey depicted in the book, especially if this is a whole new world to you, but for me it gave nothing that I didn't know or agree with; it doesn't detract from the books value, just skip it as Shel suggests :-)

The apparently random (to me) tweets through the book give some light as to what can be said in 140 characters... but to some extent they felt a little too random... but hey maybe that's a true reflection of the twitter stream?

I really enjoyed the first sections in the book, how it all got started was explained very well with some great insights into both Twitter and the early adopters, really gave a sense at how far the Twitter platform had come over it's short life and how much it has been shaped by the community rather than inside Twitter HQ...

The bulk of the rest of the book is a demonstration through well articulated stories of how a cross section of Twitterville are using Twitter to help their personal, business or charitable aims... I found the stories compelling, realistic and in most cases I was reassured that my own visions were being played out elsewhere in some way and were therefore attainable.

As many have said already Twitterville seems like the younger sister of "Naked Conversations", it's arrival is timely and the context seemingly flows naturally from what was said by Scoble and Shel previously but applied to the platform of the present; I'm sure Twitter won't be around in the future but platforms supporting the subscription and publication and reuse of a stream of SAM's (Simple Activity Messages) will absolutely be an integral part of the future technology landscape.

Overall this is a great book, rounded, accurate, appropriate, educational and most importantly eminently readable...

Go grab a copy, get a pint and sit down in your local pub and educate yourself...

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