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#tweetsmart--New from O'Reilly Media: 25 Twitter Projects to Help You Build Your Community

Sebastopol, CA—"We're at a moment in time where businesses and organizations know that they need to be participating in social media—but they're still working out how best to do it," says Jesse McDougall (@jsmcdougall), author of #tweetsmart (O'Reilly Media, $19.99 USD).

McDougall continues, "The first tendency of most marketing teams is to transplant old strategies onto this new technology, which can be fatal. Would-be marketers on Twitter can do more harm than good in a very short amount of time. This new approach to marketing—one based in discovery instead of interruption—is only going to grow in popularity in the coming years. This book will give folks a good foundation for understanding the concepts in what will be the future of marketing."

Twitter is not a marketing channel (and should never be used as such) but it is a community of interested, engaged, and influential people. Meeting and getting to know these people can help you build your own community. #tweetsmart provides 25 creative projects to help your business, cause, or organization grow in ways that are strategic, measurable, and fun.

• Put a new wrinkle on an old contest: "be the 10th person to tweet"
• Create a hashtag game around your company or products
• Instead of polling, ask your followers to help you make a product decision
• Make MadLibs out of your marketing copy or mission statement
• Hold a scavenger hunt, and relay clues via Twitter
• Organize a weekly Twitter chat on various subjects
• Solicit funny product shots, using Twitter's photo-sharing utility
• Spontaneously tweet from a store location: "Meet me now and win!"

"I'm often asked: 'OK. I signed up for a Twitter account. Now what do I do?'" McDougall chuckles. "This book is my answer."