Unlike a lot of people who receive free books, I tend to read them, even when I feel like I’m proficient on the topic at hand. In this case, the book is How To Tweet And Thrive On Twitter by Lisa Sicard of Inspire To Thrive, and I earned a free copy by winning it during a Twitter Chat that Lisa holds weekly… although I don’t remember the time (I’m sure she’ll let me know lol). It’s about Twitter and it gives a lot of information, most of which I already knew. However, I learned a few things I didn’t know, as well as read it in a format I wasn’t familiar with, so I felt it deserved being reviewed; here we go.
 by Lisa Sicard |
First, the link above will take you to Amazon, and since I’m not an affiliate I don’t have to disclose anything. Then again, I just told you where you’re going so I guess I did disclose something. lol
Second, it’s a fairly short book in kind of a unique style. On Lisa’s page she says it’s 31 pages but my copy is 41 pages, which either means she updated it or it’s a typo. In either case, you have to read it using the Amazon app on your phone or tablet, which might explain why, instead of pages it’s listed in locations. The title stays consistent at the top while you flip through the book. I’m just mentioning that because it’s something new to me and I’m fascinated by it.
She starts off telling you how to set up a new Twitter account. The initial part is easy to do; setting up a Twitter header image might be a bit more difficult unless you know how to use an image editor. As she says, it’s a great way to capture people’s attention when they visit your Twitter page. She also recommends you add what’s called a “pinned tweet”, which can be something you want to highlight without ever changing or changing it up from time to time to highlight something special going on.
Next she tells you how to start getting followers… the legitimate way! In other words, never pay for followers; be organic and start following some people. If you know people there it’ll be easier to get started but if not, Lisa gives you some tips on how to start finding people you might be interested in.
Next she tells you how to start tweeting. The book says you get 140 characters, which was true until last week when everyone suddenly got 280 characters; no matter. She gives great tips here on what to tweet, telling everyone not to just tweet about yourself or your business but to try to be more broadminded in what you share, including sharing things other people are writing about. She also offers ideas for how much time to think about spending on the platform if you’re serious about it but also don’t want to get overwhelmed; it can be addicting sometimes.
Instead of highlighting what each of the other chapters are about, I’ll just tell you what the rest of the headings are:
* The Basics of Tweeting
* Trends, Lists, Muting and Jail Time
* Watching Out For Spammers on Twitter
* Other Ways to Get More Activity on Twitter
* Twitter Automation
* Mobile Apps for Twitter
* Twitter Analytics
* Why Twitter Today?
Now the real review of the book. I think Lisa’s put together something that will be very helpful to new bloggers and also helpful to those of you are hoping to grow your channel. She’s grown her own personal channel organically and has more than 23,500 people following her, so she knows what she’s talking about. It’s a nice step-by-step way of learning about the platform, and it’s a very easy read. She even warns people about being in “Twitter jail” and how to get out of it; lucky it’s something I’ve never experienced. 🙂
She not only teaches people how to tweet, but talks about websites and automation tools you can use to help increase your Twitter presence and possibly get more followers. She spends a good amount of time talking about these things and describing how to use them. Some of these I didn’t know so it was nice to learn about them.
It’s a very nice book and will be a major benefit to anyone looking to get onto Twitter. Go ahead, buy the book and then give Lisa a hookup on Twitter; you might even see me there (of course you’ll see me there lol)!
Oh my goodness Mitch, I was surprised to see this one today! Thank you.
So glad you liked it and found it helpful.
I do like keeping things simple. I always find it hard to follow when I read things that get complicated.
(Of course Twitter changes things and the character count changed after this one published.)
I’ll have to see what the difference is on the page count, sometimes it is the different formats.
Thanks so much Mitch and have a great rest of the week. Stay warm!
I’m glad to share my thoughts on this Lisa. It was definitely easy to read, and you brought up a lot of things I didn’t know. As for consider… well, you know how I can be on that front. lol I wish you well in your sales.
Hi Mitch,
What a roundup review of Lisa’s book. I haven’t read it though, but your review gives readers a complete overview of what they’ll get from the book, which is fascinating.
I have also seen something interesting from your review of the book, the “Twitter Jail” and how to get out if it is something I never knew about. This means that the book is a must read!
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for commenting Moss. It’s a very easy read and has information the novice certainly won’t know… and I’m not a novice! 🙂 Twitter Jail is interesting; I’ve never been in it myself but Lisa owns up to being there once.
Although I do have a twitter account I am not active there. This book however seems interesting but is not available for sale in India. Sad.
You can’t buy things from Amazon in India, or is Amazon country-specific? If so… never knew that…
Thanks for the great book recommendation. Twitter really hasn’t done much for my business. I’ve found other social media to be more effective, especially pinterest.
Rich, you probably don’t get much traction from Twitter because most of your titles have “Long Island” in them. I have to admit that the first article of yours I visited was one that didn’t have that in it. lol Check out Lisa’s book; she offers a lot of ideas.