How u doin', MySpace?

At this point Mr. Obie Joe wonders if the old becomes the new in the ever dizzying swirl of social networking tools. All of advertising appeals to the fantasy within, and we are driven by similar desires by choosing which social network to use for ourselves and our book.

So, Facebook is in, MySpace is out. Facebook is for younger, hipper, richer, more active people. MySpace? Sniffed one social media researcher to NPR this morning: MySpace is too brown and too poor. How does she know this? "Because, she says, low income people are more likely to click on ads, in MySpace," notes NPR.

If social networks are like our neighborhoods -- welcome to only those who live there -- then how to expand your book's presence within social networks? Well, for one, don't believe the balderdash of these "social media researchers." There are a few teenagers in the Obie Joe family, and judging by the average 1,000+ count of friends on their Facebook accounts, we'd say teens are a lot more open to new ideas and friends than we think.

So, start up a MySpace page. Use MySpace's wonderful capacity to post calendar, audio clips, and segments of your book. Granted, it's more difficult to filter in MySpace to find your prospective readers (try typing in names of your favorite authors to see what MySpace groups they are placed in), but not impossible.

Plus, you know those fickle teenagers: if you think they'll be on Facebook by graduation, they have a Tweet for you.

Blackhatting your book on FaceBook

Technically, this could be another Tip from Mr. Obie Joe, but since it's just evil, perhaps not.

Tag the name of every one of your FaceBook friends on your book cover, and just like that, your book cover appears on hundreds of pages in FaceBook.

How cool! What little time needed on a nifty marketing technique.

Except -- leaving aside the possible revulsion your friends feel -- it's a get rich quick kind of promotion. If you're in the game of developing your career beyond one book, it's not a technique used for gathering an audience for keeps. Tagging doesn't cultivate your audience; other, more content-rich, individualistic techniques do.

Remember, most social media tools are only enhancements, not the thing. Use FaceBook to cultivate your already burgeoning audience (which probably got its start with your real-life F&F). FaceBook can't create your audience; only you can.

(The icon is from "booktag," a Shelfari type application in FaceBook, which might be a good way to build new FaceBook fans for your book.)

POD it the Facebook way

While reading about the amusing tactic by possible Facebook founder Aaron Greenspan to find an agent --he sent out 800 identical solicitations -- Mr. Obie Joe wondered if the young man could better spend his time with another effort in getting his book to market.

To us, Greenspan’s authorial attributes don’t include his Harvard term. If you’re a guy who spins technology gold for online social networks, wouldn’t you really, really be keen on publishing, marketing and selling the book yourself? The revolution we’re seeing from the democratization of the tools in book production and promotion could make Greenspan’s book a perfect experiment for the last missing piece: a killer app for connecting books and audiences.

Greenspan, take on the book yourself (but make sure to hire a very good editor, cover designer, too), test out a variation of the social networks that have brought others so much success, and include us in the success.