As soon as I announced that I was writing Think Like a Rockstar, a lot of people began asking me if there would be a book tour.  Of course there will be!  I have been holding off on locking down dates till we got a bit of clarity about the book’s production schedule.  We now know that Think Like a Rockstar – How to Create Social Media and Marketing Strategies That Turn Customers Into Fans will be available for pre-order in August, and will be on-sale in April of 2013.

Now since this whole writing/publishing a book deal is new to me, I’ve begun to learn just how incredibly important it is that your book get as many copies pre-ordered as possible.   Here’s why:

1 – Higher pre-orders signal to book resellers like Amazon and B&N that they need to order more copies.

2 – Higher pre-orders signal to your publisher that they need to do a larger print run.

3 – Pre-orders count when the book ships, which can greatly impact your book’s sales numbers in the first week it’s on-sale.  Which also greatly impacts its chance of making all those bestseller lists!

So, that means I am going to do everything I can to encourage pre-orders of Think Like a Rockstar from August through April!  Which means I am going to do a LOT of speaking.  And I’m going to do everything I can to make it as easy and affordable as possible to bring me to your company or event to present Think Like a Rockstar!

If you want to be a part of the Think Like a Rockstar Book Tour, there’s three options available (All rates are for speaking in the continental United States only and don’t include travel):

1 – You can book me to present Think Like a Rockstar for $1,000.00.  This is HALF what I normally charge to present Think Like a Rockstar, and this rate is only valid for the remainder of 2012.  Half this fee will be due 60 days before the event, the balance due when I arrive at the event.  So for example if you wanted me to present on Aug 1st, I’d need $500.00 by June 1st, and the remaining $500.00 would be due when I arrive at the event.

2 – You can book me to present Think Like a Rockstar for $500.00 plus pre-ordering 50 copies of Think Like a Rockstar through Amazon.  The $500.00 fee will be due 60 days before the event.  The best part about this option is Amazon won’t charge your credit card for the pre-orders until the book goes on sale (April 2013).  Think Like a Rockstar will be paperback, so the price will likely be $14-16 dollars.  Also note that you can always take the books and resell them to recover most of your cost.

3 –  You can book me to present Think Like a Rockstar if you pre-order 100 copies of Think Like a Rockstar through Amazon.  Again, Amazon won’t charge your credit card for the pre-orders until the book goes on sale next year.  And you can always take the books and resell them to recover almost all of your cost!

I am offering such low rates on presenting Think Like a Rockstar because I want to build as much momentum as possible for the book prior to its launch.  The presentation will be 60-75 minutes including 15-30 mins for Q&A.  We can also add this with other services, for example if you’d like to bring me in to present Think Like a Rockstar PLUS do a Live #Blogchat, I can work out an impossibly affordable deal for that.

The bottom line is that I want to make it so affordable for you to bring me in to present Think Like a Rockstar that you can’t say no!  I’ve already confirmed a couple of events in October and February 2013, but can’t announce them yet as the organizers are waiting to make that announcement.

If you have any questions about these options and want to discuss locking down a date, please email me.  Or if you really want to have me present Think Like a Rockstar but none of these options work for you, email me and tell me what your situation is, I’ll try my best to work out a scenario that works for us both!

BONUS: I will do Option #1, presenting Think Like a Rockstar for just $1,000$500 to the FIRST taker(plus travel)! I can only do this for $500 one time, and it’s dependent on you paying the $500 by June 1st.  After June 1st, the offer goes away.  Please email me if you are interested in discussing this or any other option to have me present Think Like a Rockstar at your company, event or organization.

I’m currently knee-deep in writing the manuscript for Think Like a Rockstar (should be 40% done by the end of the week!), and I’ve had a few people and friends that are considering writing a book ask me about the experience.  I’m not gonna comment too much on the actual writing process, since I’m still going through that, but I wanted to talk to y’all about the steps you’ll need to take to get your book published (and we are assuming this is a business/marketing/social media book):

1 – Figure out what you want to write about.  This sounds very easy, but it’s not.  You need to figure out what book YOU were meant to write.  The book that no one else could write.  Four years ago I was approached by an editor to write a book on marketing on YouTube.  Remember this was 2008, and there were very few social media books at the time.  I was really excited at the prospect of having my own book for about 5 mins, till I realized that I wasn’t really interested in writing a book about marketing on YouTube.  And I also didn’t want to tour the country speaking on the topic.  I was pitched on a couple of other book ideas over the next couple of years, but I finally decided that Think Like a Rockstar was the only book I wanted to write.

2 – Figure out why your book is unique and fills a market need.  Once you figure out the topic of your book, you’re then going to realize that your book’s already been written several times.  You need to figure out what you bring to the table that hasn’t been discussed before. For me, there’s plenty of books on why companies should connect with brand advocates and evangelists.  The ‘Rockstar’ analogy helped me differentiate Think Like a Rockstar, but even that didn’t make the book completely unique, as there’s been a few other books written on what companies can learn about branding and marketing from the music industry.  I had to go deeper, and when I release the full outline of the book in a few weeks, you’ll see why Think Like a Rockstar is different.  But the point is, you’ll need to figure out what your ‘hook’ is.  What are you going to bring to the table that’s unique, but that will still have value for your readers?

3 – Find 3-5 books that you think are similar to your idea.  For each book, you need to explain what your book offers that the competing title misses.  And try your best to pick newer titles.  If you propose that your book idea will be competing against 5 books that were all written in the mid 1990s, that tells the publisher that your idea is dead, otherwise someone would have written about it in the past 15 years!

4 – You need to create an outline and table of contents for your book.  This is where it starts to get serious, and we find out if you really want to write a book, or if you are just toying with the idea.  This will be a lot of work, but you’ll have to show this to a potential publisher, plus it will make the writing process much easier once you have a gameplan to follow.

5 – Write the first 1-3 chapters.  This is another good test to prepare you for the process.  If you can hand a publisher a solid proposal for the book that includes 1-3 solidly-written chapters, you’re making an excellent case for why your book needs to be published.  And writing those chapters will give you a great idea of how long it will take you to write the entire book.  For example, if it takes you 3 months to write the first chapter, that could be a big red flag.

6 – Create a proposal for the book.  Thankfully, you’ve already done a lot of this by simply completing the first 5 steps.  You’ll need to tell publishers who the market is for this book, why YOU are the person to write it, what it’s about, competing titles, etc.  You’ll also need to include the table of contents and any of the chapters you have written.  Also, you’ll need to explain to the publisher how you will market the book.  This is where you want to mention any speaking you will be doing on this topic over the next year, as well as your online profile, your following.

7 – Having a killer idea trumps your online presence every single time.  When I started talking to publishers about writing Think Like a Rockstar, I assumed that my ‘online footprint’ would be a big plus for me.  It wasn’t.  Most of the publishers I and my agent talked to had no idea who I was, in fact most of the rejection letters we got started ‘We think Mark has a great idea, but…’  If your idea is great and publishers think it will sell, that’s far more important than how many Twitter followers you have, so don’t think you need X number of followers/friends before you can talk to a publisher.

8 – Figure out if you need a literary agent, or want to go it alone.  I’ve been talking to publishers about Think Like a Rockstar since 2010.  For the first year, I didn’t have an agent, then I realized that I was spinning my wheels and needed to get one.  There’s only a few publishers whose editors are actively trying to connect with potential writers in this space.  If you can get a suitable deal with one of them, fine.  I could not, and decided to go with an agent.

There’s a couple of obvious differences in going with an agent.  First, you’ll have to pay an agent, typically a cut of any money you get from the book, including your advance, royalties, etc.  The huge immediate benefit is that you get access to several dozen publishers and these are publishers that the agent works with regularly.  The agent can also look over any contract you are offered, and help you with the terms.  As you might can guess, I’m pretty happy with my agent (Linda Langton), and you can learn more about her here.

9 – If you go with an agent, you will likely get a LOT more rejection letters.  This makes sense, if your proposal is going out to 30 publishers, expect to hear ‘No’ a lot.  For me, while a bit disappointing, this was also a big help.  Because most of the publishers would explain WHY they turned down the book.  Maybe they didn’t think the book covered something that it actually did, or maybe they didn’t understand the actual focus of your book.  As long as they explain WHY they are saying no, that gives you something to work with when you send it off to the next publisher.

10 – Don’t expect to get rich from writing a book.  You’ll likely get an advance of $5,000-$10,000 if a publisher accepts your book.  Remember this is an ADVANCE, which means you’ll have to pay this money back to the publisher.

EDIT: I should have been more clear here, your advance is against the money you will make from royalties on the book.  So if your publisher gives you a $5,000 advance, you have to pay that back first from your royalties.  Which means you won’t get any royalty payments until you’ve covered your $5,000 advance.  If you never sell enough to cover your advance, then you don’t get any royalty payments.  But either way, you keep the $5,000 advance.  Thanks to Andrew and Don for the clarifications.

So in closing, if you are serious about writing a book and getting a publisher’s attention, absolutely kill the first 6 steps.  If you can hand a publisher a well-organized and written proposal detailing what the book is, who will buy it, and with 1-3 well-written chapters, you’re in great shape.

I’ve been using a computer since 1983, and have been active in online communities and sites since the late 1980s.  I’ve seen everything from Prodigy and CompuServe to AOL and MySpace come and go as THE popular online destination.  But none of these sites could even sniff the popularity that Facebook has right now.

But it’s not going to last.

I was chatting about this with Jill McFarland on Facebook this morning.  From my experience, All the online community sites/socnets I have been active on since 1990 have had the same problem:  The user base expands to a certain level, and then the site goes overboard in its attempts to monetize that user base, the user experience suffers, and eventually everyone scatters.  A lot of people left CompuServe because it was charging $25 a month for 20 hours, then AOL went to an unlimited model (and having the Instant Messaging technology didn’t hurt either).  Then internet providers started offering internet access at a rate that was the same or lower as AOL’s price for its online site, and that began to eat away at AOL’s base.

MySpace is/was a free site, monetized via ads.  It offered a lot of what AOL had, without charging a monthly fee.  But the ads became more intrusive and the entire experience became more spammy, and a lot of us decided to jump sideways off MySpace onto Facebook.

Now, we are just a couple of days away from Facebook’s Initial Public Offering.  And just today, it was announced that Facebook’s owners are going to up the amount of their company that they are willing to sell by 25%.  There has always been one common problem with all major internet community sites or socnets or whatever you want to call them.  Whenever they attempt to monetize, almost all of their monetization efforts come at the expense of the user experience, instead of enhancing it.  Come Friday evening, Facebook will suddenly have millions of additional shareholders to answer to.  What they want (better return on their investment) will likely be placed above, and probably at the expense of, the user experience.

In that Huffington Post article I linked to above, there was a fascinating comment left by a user that hit me right between the eyes.  The user was replying to the idea that Facebook was free and always would be with: “If it’s free then you ain’t the customer, you’re the product.”

Do you think Facebook has a future?  Will it still be around in 5 years?  Bigger than today?  Smaller?  What do you see?

I think a lot of us struggle with what to write about and WHO we are writing for.  I’m also glad that Gini touched on a similar topic today because it reminded me to write about it here.  Here’s what Gini said:

“When this blog gained a little bit of popularity, we began to have internal conversations about the type of content we should be writing. You see, what I consider the “smart” posts are never the ones that get shared a lot. Sure, people read them, but not as many comment nor share on their social networks.

The ones that do get a lot of comments and shares? The top 10 this or the such and such is dead.

It kind of makes me nuts. I won’t pretend it doesn’t.”

I am in the same boat.  A few years ago on The Viral Garden, I began to notice something.  Every post I wrote would get 5-15 comments like clockwork, UNLESS I wrote about music marketing, those posts always got 1-2 comments at best.  Most of them got none.  This drove me insane, because I really thought there was so much that marketers could learn from how music artists connect with their fans, but my readers never wanted to talk about that, it seemed.

So the next time I wrote about music marketing, I ended the post by pointing out how passionate I am about this topic, but that I noted that the readers never responded to it. I asked if this was really a topic they cared nothing about?  Several readers commented that they loved my music marketing posts, but had no idea what to add.  Some felt the topic was ‘over their heads’, which is why there really wasn’t much discussion happening around the posts.

And back to Gini’s comment, those Top 10 Reasons Why….posts ALWAYS get shared and linked.  I had a guy tell me once that writing list posts was ‘beneath’ me, and that he would never do it.  Well, if your readers want that content, and you are writing for your readers, then what choice do you have?  Sure, you can play the role of blogging hipster and look down your nose at list posts, but if your readers get value from that type of posts, why not write them?

But that also doesn’t mean that you should ONLY write for your readers, you as a blogger still have to have a passion for your blog, else you’ll lose interest.  Personally, I think there needs to be a balance when you are writing your blog.  If you decide that you are just writing for yourself, to hell with your readers, then you’d better have a voice that other people LOVE and seek out.  Few bloggers are this popular with their readers, IMO.  On the other side, if you only write for your readers, I think you’ll eventually lose interest because you won’t be addressing all of the core issues that are important to you.

I think there needs to be a balance, and like it or not, there probably needs to be room for an occasional ‘Top 5 Ways To’ post.  What do you think?

I had to chuckle at reading this article from Billboard which ponders why Lil Wayne gets more interaction on Facebook than Akon does:

“Lil Wayne was sending out short little posts – it could be ‘hi’ or ‘go Green Bay Packers,’” RootMusic’s doctor of pages, Matt Conn, said at the NARM panel “Social Music, Marketing and Monetization.” “Those things were his personality. Akon’s page would be posting three or four line paragraphs with no new pictures  and they were usually about new shows being announced or songs.”

So Lil Wayne is actually trying to connect with his fans, while Akon is trying to promote to his.  And we are somehow surprised that one Rockstar has an engagement level that’s 3 times that of the other?

And here’s the article’s takeaway: “The conclusion? Facebook updates need snappy text, high-resolution photographs and items that the artist asks fans to share. The focus in building fan bases has shifted in the last two years from the collecting of email addresses and sending out blasts to accumulating valuable “likes” on Facebook where an artist interacts with fans.”

No, Facebook updates need to be real.  So does your communication on all Social Media channels.  Want to know a big reason why Rockstars like Amanda Palmer and Lady Gaga are so popular on Social Media sites?  Because they share themselves as much or MORE than they promote themselves.  They snap pictures getting ready backstage, they show you pictures after their concerts with them out partying with their friends.  Even when they do promote themselves, they are honest about why they want you to support them and what it means to them.

Recently, there’s been a few articles claiming that companies are dumping their blogging efforts for Twitter and especially Facebook,because they feel they can get more ‘engagement’ on these sites.  A Like or ReTweet is only great if it leads to some other action.  People want to engage with companies they trust, companies that are real.  That means sometimes you have to forego promoting yourself for instead sharing content that helps your audience.

BTW for the cynics out there that wonder how you monetize this whole ‘being real’ stuff, and how Rockstars can make money off trading jokes on Twitter with their fans, there’s this:  On May 1st, Amanda Palmer started a page on Kickstarter trying to raise $100,000 to fund her new record and a tour to support that record.  She was hoping to raise $100,000 from her fans by May 31st.

Today is May the 14th, and she’s currently raised over $600,000 from over 12,000 fans.  By the time her funding window ends on May 31st, she will have likely raised over a million dollars for this project.

Not a bad return on ‘being real’ on Twitter.  Be straight and honest with people, don’t BS them, and you’ll be amazed at how much more ‘engaged’ they’ll be with you.  And you might even find out that they’ll give you their business, as well.

PS: Are you signed up for my newsletter that helps companies better understand and utilize Social Media Marketing?  It comes to your inbox every Wednesday, and features original content that you won’t find here.  If you want to subscribe, click the link, and thanks! 

Their back!  I offered a sale on my phone consultations around this time last year and they were a big hit, so I wanted to bring it back this year!  The normal price for my 30-minute phone consultation is $150.00, but for the next 10 people, a 30-minute consultation will only be $75!  Please note I can ONLY do 10 calls at this price!

I understand a lot of y’all are running a small business and may need social media advice, but don’t have thousands of dollars to spend.  Or maybe you are an individual consultant that needs advice on setting prices, or getting more speaking gigs, whatever.  This is an inexpensive way to work with me, and also give you a way to get some guidance on your business’ social media marketing efforts!

We can use our call to:

• Review your existing social media strategy, or get you started building one
• Talk about how to get more engagement on your blog
• Use Twitter and Facebook with your blog to connect with customers
• Structure your pricing if you are a fellow consultant (this was actually popular last year among people that purchased phone consultations)
• Advise you on how to get more speaking opportunities

These are a few examples.  Again, I only have room to do 10 calls at this rate.  Last year I did a sale on the 1-hour phone consultations and they sold out in about a week, I expect these to go even faster.  We can do the calls either this month or next month.  My schedule allows for me to do all 10 this month, but if you need to move it to June that’s fine.  I just don’t want to go past that when scheduling the calls.  I’ll update this post when the 10 calls are gone.

So hopefully you’ll be able to take advantage of this opportunity, and you can click the Buy It Now button below to pay with PayPal.  If you would rather pay with Google Checkout, then email me, and I will send you a payment request.  After I receive your payment, I’ll email you within 24 hours (will likely be within an hour or two, but definitely within 24 hours) to set up a time and topic.  You can send me any links or information that you think would be relevant for our call.  Please note that this opportunity is only open to businesses/people in the United States and calls must be placed to a phone number based in the United States.

Also, if you have any questions about what we could discuss, please email me.

(NOTE – This post originally appeared in the first issue of my newsletter that’s aimed at helping companies better utilize Social Media to connect with their companies.  Each week’s issue includes original content like this that’s aimed at helping your company or organization improve its Social Media Marketing efforts.  Please click here if you would like to subscribe to the newsletter.  And thanks!)

I’ve been working with a client that has a problem I bet a lot of you can relate to.  They have several blogs, and are constantly struggling with finding enough compelling content for each blog and each channel they have.  The Social Media Manager has been trying to get help internally from Subject Matter Experts, but that’s been a frequent dead-end.  So instead of actually managing the company’s Social Media efforts, she often becomes the defacto content creator.

Let’s tackle this problem by looking at three different areas:

1 – What type of content can you create?
2 – Can you re-purpose any existing content?
3 – How can you better ‘encourage’ your Subject Matter Experts to become more involved?

What Type of Content Can You Create?

Let’s be honest, creating compelling content is an issue that all social media users face, and it can be an especially difficult challenge for companies.  I think that most companies aren’t sure how to handle this, so they default back to what they know best: Their products and services.  As I wrote about recently on my blog, Social Media doesn’t function well as a direct-selling channel.  So think about the type of content you can create that will be valuable for your customers.  I am a big fan of content that teaches vs content that promotes.

For example: Let’s say your company makes cameras.  Is it better to write blog posts that tell me why your cameras are the best on the market, or is it better to write blog posts that teach me how to take better pictures?  That’s probably what I want, I don’t want to buy the best camera, I want to take the best pictures!  If you can teach me how to do that, then I am more likely to give you my business!

Now when it comes to the actual type of content, think about mixing up your media.  Don’t focus just on posts and whitepapers.  What about videos?  Photographs?  If you can alternate between different forms of media, that makes your content more interesting.  Also think about creating content that can be used in more than one place.  A short video interview can go on your website, in a blog post, on Facebook, and on your YouTube channel.  That’s four destinations from one piece of content!

Here’s another example; Let’s say you’re going to attend an industry conference.  There’s several opportunities for creating content:

1 – You can live-blog the event!  All you need to do is recap your experience each day on your blog.  This gives your blog unique content that your competitors probably won’t be publishing.  Plus, it’s content that people in your industry will find value in.

2 – Take pictures.  These pictures can be included in your recap posts on your blog, but can also be shared on your website, Facebook, Flickr, etc.

3 – Do short video interviews with speakers and industry experts in attendance.  This is a GREAT way to create content that others will be interested in.  Chris Yates at Huddle Productions does a fascinating job with this.  Chris and his team attend Social Media events and interview speakers and industry experts, then post those interviews on the company’s blog.  Earlier this month at SXSW, Chris snagged an interview with Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore.  As luck would have it, right before Chris posted the interview, a major rumor was reported that CNN was going to buy Mashable.  So suddenly everyone was looking for any recent interview with Cashmore, and that meant more views for Chris’ video interview with him!

What About Re-Purposing Existing Content? 

The odds are you have already created a lot of content that you can re-purpose and use in a new way.  A classic example of this is whitepapers.  Many companies have whitepapers on their website.  Why not take some of your most popular ones, and break them up into multiple blog posts?  You can break them up, update any information that needs to be changed, and you’ve got a few new blog posts!

Another idea is taking customer questions or issues, and addressing them via new content.  For example, if you see that many customers are having the same question/issue/complaint, why not write a new blog post that addresses it?  This will also drive more search traffic to your blog because the odds are if some of your customers are writing about an issue, that other customers are encountering the same thing.

Finally, check your blog’s analytics and see what search terms are leading people to your blog.  If you see keyword phrases like ‘How do I…’ or ‘What’s the best way to…’, guess what, those are blog posts!  Write a blog post that answers that search query, and you’re set!

How Can You Better Encourage Your Subject Matter Experts to Become Involved?

When it comes to trying to get more involvement from Subject Matter Experts, a frequent mistake companies make is trying to ‘push’ only one method on them.  If you are trying to convince a SME to write a monthly blog post for you and they aren’t comfortable with their writing skills, the odds are they won’t want to do it.  So give them other options.  For example, ask them if they would mind if you interviewed them and had them talk about what they do for a few minutes.  Then you could take the video, give a bit of background in a blog post, and you’ve got your post!  Or maybe a SME doesn’t want to blog, but they might like the idea of dealing with customers directly on Twitter or Facebook and helping them with their product issues!

A great way to get more involvement from your SMEs is to approach them with the mindset of ‘What would YOU like to do?’ versus ‘Here’s what we’d like for you to do.’  Give them several options, and you greatly increase their chances of contributing in some way.

I hope you enjoyed this post and found it useful.  If so, please consider subscribing to my newsletter which every week gives you original content like this that’s aimed at helping your company improve its Social Media Marketing efforts.

Tonight (Sunday) I am thrilled to welcome back as co-host of #Blogchat the one and only Lee Odden!   This will be Lee’s second time co-hosting #Blogchat and he’ll be teaching us how to Optimize our blog content for both search engines PLUS social media!  The best of both worlds!

The format for tonight’s #Blogchat will be this:

1 – From 8:00-8:30 pm Central, Lee will walk us through how to optimize your blog posts for search engines.

2 – From 8:30-9:00pm Central, Lee will walk us through how to optimize your blog posts for social media!

Now there’s a couple of twists to this week’s #Blogchat.  First, Lee has been in Belgium for the past few days speaking at an event, and it will actually be 3am there when #Blogchat starts!  So big thanks to Lee for agreeing to join us so late/early!

Second, you’ve probably heard that Lee has a new book out called Optimize, which shows you how to integrate and optimize your content for search, social, and your content marketing.  Well Lee has agreed to give away two copies of Optimize right at the end of #Blogchat!  Want to win one of these copies?  Here’s a hint: Participation will be rewarded

So thanks so much for Lee for joining us tonight at #Blogchat.  Please make sure you are following Lee on Twitter, reading his blog, and you can also check out Optimize!

See y’all at 8pm Central!

PS: If you missed #Blogchat, here’s the transcript!

…I’m writing a book!  Actually I’m writing the only book I’ve ever wanted to write, Think Like a Rockstar!  Rockstars have passionate fans that absolutely love them, so why can’t brands as well?  The short answer is they CAN, and Think Like a Rockstar will show companies and organizations how they can cultivate advocates for their brands and the business value in doing so!

Here’s some of the main areas that will be addressed by Think Like a Rockstar:

• Who are your brand’s fans, and why you need to connect with them instead of simply trying to ‘acquire’ new customers.  I’ll walk you through how to not only recognize your fans, but how to connect with them and even how to convert ‘ranters’ into ‘ravers’ (If your company has been struggling with how to respond to ‘negative’ feedback online, this is for you!).  I’ll also profile individual brand advocates so you can learn what makes these customers so very special.
• I’ll walk you through exactly what Rockstars do to connect with and cultivate their fans.  And a lot of what they do is completely confusing and counter-intuitive to most marketers.  They do crazy things like give away their product to the people that are most willing to buy it, and instead of trying to blast marketing messages to millions, they go out of their way to connect with only a dozen or two customers at a time.  But their methods work, and you’ll learn why.  Also, if your company is one of the many struggling to build engagement around your social media marketing efforts, Think Like a Rockstar will teach you how to solve this common marketing problem.
• An overview to becoming a Fan-Centric company.  Yep, after this you’ll have no more excuses!  This will show you what needs to happen both internally and externally in order to create a framework where you are directly connected to your brand’s fans, and they to you.
• And oh yes, there will be case studies, lots and lots of case studies!  I’ll look at dozens of examples of how both Rockstars and brands are embracing and empowering their biggest fans.  I’ll walk you through exactly what they did, explain why it worked, and show you how you can apply those lessons to YOUR marketing efforts!

I’ll be sharing more in the coming days/weeks/months about Think Like a Rockstar leading up to its publication (I’ll be sharing with you those dates as soon as they are nailed down).  Think Like a Rockstar will be published by McGraw-Hill and I could not be happier to be working with them.  Plus my editor, Casey Ebro, immediately ‘got’ why the idea behind Think Like a Rockstar was so big, and has been so enthusiastic about this project.  That’s critical, if you are thinking about writing a book, the importance of having a passionate editor that believes in the potential of your idea cannot be understated.

For the last four years, people have been asking me ‘So, when are YOU going to write a book?’  I haven’t written a book because I didn’t want to write a book, I wanted to write THIS book.  Seriously, this is the only book I’ve ever wanted to write, ‘writing a book’ is not on my bucket list but I wanted to write this book because I believe in the concept that strongly.

This wouldn’t be happening without the help and advice of many people, but I wanted to mention a few friends that really helped me turn this project into reality.  They are Beth Harte, Lisa Petrilli, Lou Imbriano, Ann Handley and Amy Africa.  And an additional thanks to Lisa for introducing me to my agent, Linda Langton, who was an immense catalyst in helping this project see the light of day.  I’ll have a future post on the value of getting an agent versus going it alone when trying to get a book deal (and I tried both!).

Thanks to everyone that’s been so supportive of my being able to write Think Like a Rockstar.  Now if you don’t see me blogging as much here for the next 4-5 months, hopefully you’ll understand why

I participate in a lot of Twitter chats.  Granted, I’m no @LttleWys, but I at least lurk in a few every week.  The one thing I’ve noticed is the ‘power’ Twitter users, say those with over 50,000 followers, almost never join Twitter chats.  UNLESS they are the co-host/guest host.  In other words, if they can’t be the center of attention, it’s not worth their time.

In fact, I started looking at the Twitter streams for a few of the ‘big name’ Twitter users.  I saw the same pattern:  Twitter bigshot throws out statement, such as ‘The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing at all’, or some-such business witticism.  Then the Twitter power-user spends the next 30 minutes answering @ replies to his statement.

Folks, that’s not engagement.  I even tweeted this, saying something like ‘If all you do is answer tweets directed at you, then you aren’t engaging, you’re responding.’

Then after about 5 minutes of responding to ‘amen!’ replies to my statement, a tiny voice inside my head said ‘hey dumbass, you just did the same thing you were trying to call out the Twitter ‘power’ users for doing’.  Oops.

Is that being social?  Really?  And if you think about it, that’s how most of us use social media, because that’s how these sites have trained us to do it.  Go look at your Facebook newsfeed: It’s an endless stream of friends and connections throwing content out there, then other people responding to it.  We’ve been taught that the content that gets the most reaction is the ‘best’.

In other words, we’ve been taught that social media is about creating content that gets the most Likes, the most RTs.  We’ve been taught that these represent levels of engagement.

Folks being engaged with someone’s content is NOT being engaged with them.  And if someone IS engaged with your content, that doesn’t mean you are engaged with them.

‘Dude get off my back, the majority of my tweets are replies!  I engage!’  Really?  Are those replies where you tweet someone out of the blue and ask them how their day is going, or do those replies come from you sitting back and fielding replies to your cutesy statements that you tweet out every couple of hours?

Think about it.

We don’t always have to be the center of attention.  Social Media is a wonderful idea, but instead of focusing on the SOCIAL part, it seems we are gravitating more to the MEdia part.  It’s all about creating content that draws attention to ourselves.  And to be fair, I’m just as guilty of this as anyone.

So what do you think; Is Social Media making us more or less social?  We’ll be getting all social and discussing this tonight at #DadChat, starting at 8pm Central on Twitter.  #DadChat is run by my friend Bruce Sallan, who has asked me to co-host tonight’s topic.

I’m looking forward to the discussion, hope to see you there!