This looks like a must read for anyone wondering how to make the most of the microblogging trend best illustrated by the spectacular growth of Twitter.
In Twitter Means Business, Julio Ojeda-Zapata offers practical advice for businesses hoping to connect with the “remarkably vocal and energetic crowd” that will make Twitter the media phenomenon of 2009.
We have already witnessed the power of Twitter to mobilise a mass protest, when a group of angry moms in the US (connected by Twitter) forced J&J to pull an ad for the Motrin painkiller.
A few companies have started to use Twitter as an early warning system about upcoming issues and to respond directly to their critics. Dell even uses it to publicise product promotions. It was also one of the many social media tools deployed during the Obama campaign, with over 100,000 people regularly accessing Obama’s ‘tweats’.
Ojeda-Zapata’s book will hopefully give more companies and agencies the confidence to experiment with microblogging, especially if they don’t worry about making mistakes or occasionally upsetting the social media purists (for whom social media should always be a commercial-free zone).