Reading: The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web

Tamar Weinberg is plugged in. She is a social media consultant and self-proclaimed tech geek at heart. She maintains Techipedia, a blog where she discusses all things social, and she is Mashable’s Director of Community.  In July 2009, O’Reilly Media released her book, The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web.

I hadn’t heard of Weinberg until today when I searched Google for social media books. The amount of web publicity for this book is astounding. The book has a website that features close to fifty links to reviews by other social media experts. Some of the reviews are embedded videos, in case potential readers need further proof of the genius of Weinberg. It makes sense that a social media guru would use the tools of the trade to share her book, and no surprise that the community helped to share her message.

In addition to the social media buzz around The New Community Rules, Amazon’s marketing features helped me decide which book to choose. Based on Amazon’s recommendations category, I almost bought Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels of Separation.  The product detail page offers an embedded book trailer that I watched and an editorial review from Publishers Weekly. Scrolling further, I found a customer review titled “Not a Howto Book” by reader Boo. The decisive excerpt:

My problem with it is that a huge chunk of space is devoted to convincing the reader how important the internet is, how useful it can be in creating a successful business model in this new and exciting digital world. I already know I want to create a presence. I think anyone who picks up this book already knows s/he wants to create a presence. The question is how, but this is not a howto book.

User Boo’s review presents one of the biggest risks of having comments or forums and illustrates why many companies are still loathe to release control over communication. From a user standpoint, this is a fantastic offering, and I’ll likely be very satisfied with Weinberg’s book, which is Amazon’s ultimate goal. I can't wait to start reading!