I’m really happy to announce that I will be speaking, at the Blog World & New Media Expo, on a panel called “Avoiding Diaster: How Not to Use Social Media”.

I’ll be joined on the panel by:

Lee LeFever – Principal, Common Craft

Jason Falls – Social Media Explorer, Doe-Anderson and Blogger, SocialMediaExplorer.com

Darren Rowse – Owner, ProBlogger.net; Co-Founder, Sixfigureblogging.com; Co-Founder and VP Training, b5media and Co-Author, “ProBlogger: The Book”

(Darren is to be confirmed. He’s hoping to come, but it’s not 100%).

I am delighted and, honestly, quite honored to be on a panel with them. All three are great, brilliant and truly good guys. It should be a total blast.

The panel aims to discuss how not to approach social media for people looking to promote themselves and/or their companies through blogs, forums, social networking sites and other social spaces online. We’ll highlight and discuss strategies and tactics that can damage you and your brand, such as introtisements and adverquestions (veiled advertisements), lying about your affiliations, never giving anything of value, being ignorant of your surroundings and much more.

The takeaway from the panel will be a better understanding of how to utilize the social web to get the word out about yourself and/or your organization. We learn not only from best practices, but from poor practices. Who you want to be, directly relates to who you don’t want to be.

This is definitely a subject that I am passionate about. It was also inspired, in part, by an awesome post by Wendy Piersall called “10 Social Media Blunders that Can Destroy Your Brand”. The points discussed during the panel will be based, to some extent, off of this post, with permission from Wendy, who we wanted to be on the panel – but she’s already rocking the conference pretty hard, from what I gather.

We don’t know what day the panel will be on, yet – either September 20 or 21. The conference is being held in Las Vegas, Nevada. If you are coming out for it, please let me know as I’d be happy to meet you! It’ll be my first time going and it looks like an awesome conference. I am hoping to do more, especially with the book and their bookstore. So, hopefully, I’ll see you there!

I love forums. There are tons of forums out there, including many, many large forums. Contrary to what some may say, forums are not dead. Far from it, I don’t think forums always get the credit they deserve in the age of MySpace, Facebook and the like.

Forums are an incredibly important part of the social web and where the bulk of my online community management experience is based out of. As such, the book focuses on forums and is named “Managing Online Forums”. I’m proud to say we got a “forums” book published. That’s awesome.

That said, I think that it’s important for it to be known that this book is not just for managing online forums. And that’s why I have launched a new page on the book website. This page is dedicated to briefly explaining how this book is not just valuable for people who manage online forums, but also for people who manage any or most types of social interaction online. Here is the content of the page:

The word forums is in the title of the book and the book itself is focused on forums. That much is true. But, this is not a book that is only for forums. This is a practical guide to managing social interaction online. Besides just forums, this can also include:

Blogs

The most successful blogs are communities, in and of themselves, that need to be managed, including blog comments and interaction between readers.

Groups

Groups and forums share a number of similarities – mainly, people talking and discussing issues. While the media may be different, the result is often similar and many of the same principles apply.

Chat Rooms

Chat rooms, like groups, are home to interaction between people. This interaction needs to be managed so that the chat room can flourish. This includes the creation of guidelines and firm, but fair enforcement of them, just like forums.

Social Networking

Yes, even social networking sites feature discussion between people. In fact, forums represent an important feature for many social networks. They may or may not call them “forums” depending on the site – but, they often have similar features and are, more or less, forums by a different name.

In so many words, this book can be a valuable part of the arsenal for anyone charged with managing any location online that allows people to interact, talk, discuss issues and get help, whether or not they are called “forums”.

If you have an Amazon Kindle, the book has now been released in that format and can be purchased on Amazon.com. I’m hoping for it to become available in other eBook formats, as well.

I just thought that I would give a book coverage update, since it’s been a few weeks since I did my last one. I had interviews with Jeff Chandler on Performancing (part 1 and part 2) as well as the WordPress Weekly podcast. The WordPress Weekly interview garnered a mention by Lorelle VanFossen on the Blog Herald. I’m going to be coming back onto the podcast soon to talk more about the book.

Lefora, a free forum host, reviewed the book and interviewed me. I was interviewed by Tom Perkins on Fitness Business Radio. Midwest Book Review, Andy Staple and Ray Angel have reviews of the book, as well.

An excerpt of the book was adapted into a feature in the American Management Association’s Moving Ahead newsletter, which was highlighted by Jack Vinson.

There was a cool discussion of the book over at vBulletin Setup, a vBulletin support community. vBulletin Setup is planning a review of the book in the future, as well.

Martin Reed of Community Spark gave the book a quick mention in a post about the value of community features. Martin will be reviewing the book in the future, hopefully, and an interview is coming, as well. James Seligman mentioned that he’d be reviewing the book and interviewing me soon.

Finally, Twing, a community search engine, gave away 100 copies of the book at the recent Online Community Unconference 2008.

Thank you to everyone for the continued interest and support!

Do you use MySpace, Facebook, StumbleUpon and/or Twitter? If you do, please add/stumble/follow ManagingCommunities.com or the book! :) You can do so via the links below:

ManagingCommunities.com:

MySpace
Facebook
StumbleUpon
Twitter

“Managing Online Forums”:

MySpace
Facebook
StumbleUpon

Thank you for reading. I appreciate your support.

Since the book was released, I’ve had a number of people taking pictures of the book on shelves at Barnes & Noble stores and sending them to me so that I could include them in a blog post. I took a couple myself, as well. In all, I have pictures from 11 different locations in 10 different states. One of the coolest things about releasing the book has been seeing it on shelves. So, a big thanks to everyone who took pictures and sent them in. Here they are:

Barnes & Noble (Greenville), Greenville, NC
(taken by me)

I was interviewed by Jake McKee of Community Guy and Andrea Hermitt from Families.com’s Homeschool Blog (her article also includes a review of the book). Izzy Neis gave the former a nice mention on her blog.

On the reviews front, David Berkowitz of Inside the Marketers Studio, Jonathan Bailey of PlagiarismToday, Jason Bean of Uncover the Internet, Ramona Iftode of wTricks.com, Miranda Marquit of IdeaScope and Jeff Henrichsen of JKT Network all have reviews of the book.

Domaining.org.uk mentioned the book as part of three books that could help you increase the value of your domain names.

Finally, Wendy Piersall of Sparkplug CEO recommended the book in her “10 More Work at Home Internet Business Ideas You Can Do in Your Fuzzy Bunny Slippers” article. For each idea she mentioned, she recommended a book. “Managing Online Forums” was recommended under the “Niche Forums” idea.

Thanks to everyone for the interest and consideration!

Last Friday, I had my first ever appearance on television, appearing on the Early Sunrise show on WITN, an NBC affiliate located in Greenville, North Carolina.

It was a live interview and it lasted about a minute and a half. So, my focus was on giving short, but descriptive answers that did the book justice. The interview was just after 5:50 AM and I had to get up at 4:00 AM. Let’s just say… that’s not the time I usually wake up. That said, I had changed my sleep pattern a little bit in the days leading to the interview and I slept… well, let’s go with “half way decently.” So, I was feeling alright and I think the interview went well, all things considered.

The anchor’s name is Heather King. She was very nice and was the person at the station who expressed interest in the book, first and foremost. Thanks, Ms. King.

The clip is below, posted on Yahoo! Video (it’s also posted on YouTube). Please take a look and let me know what you think. Thanks!

Programming note (hehe): I’ll be appearing on WITN 7 News Early Sunrise sometime between 5:40 and 6:00 AM ET on Friday, May 23. WITN is an NBC affiliate located in Greenville, North Carolina. It will be a 2 minute (approximate) live interview.

They have told that that, although they post videos on their site and have a YouTube account, morning show segments are currently not posted online. However, I have some people recording it for me and I will try to see if I can get the OK to post it. I hope so!

But, if you happen to get the station and also happen to be one of the 3-4 people up at that time, please watch if you can and tell me what you think. :) Thanks!

I gave a number of interviews recently that are now online. On the text based end, I did an interview with Website Magazine that is on their website and featured in the May issue of their print publication. I did a live chat (sort of) interview with Forum One’s LIVE Interviews Online. The transcript has been posted.

I appeared on the Meet the Experts, phpBB Weekly, Way of the Geek and JKT Network News podcasts. The hosts of the middle two shared their thoughts on the book during the show. The JKT Network News show featured a rebroadcast of the interview I did on the phpbbireland podcast.

The book was recently reviewed by Miranda Marquit of Yielding Wealth and Gary Pollock of searchoptimizepro.com. James Fintel of Cult of Cheese also gave the book a quick teaser review, with a longer one planned soon.

Thank you to everyone at these publications, podcasts, etc. for their interest in the book!