The comic-book style eBook is a great read for anyone involved or wants to get started in marketing via social media.

Twitter to many seems like a waste of time and as many tweets revolve around what I ate for breakfast or what my dog just did. As a result of this and not surprisingly there is a lot of scepticism as to whether Twitter is a fad and how long will it last. I myself have times where I tweet a lot and then days go by without a single tweet.

Many smart businesses are now finding that Twitter is a great tool to communicate with customers, make offers and answer support questions. This is based on Twitters ability to connect quickly with a large audience that can see your messages on all types of devices from Internet cafes, to computers, to phones. While I cannot mention the exact number Andy Lark recently told me how much business Dell does via Twitter which was simply astounding.

While we are starting to use Twitter increasingly for our Cadimage Tools business (@cadimagetools) initially we have also found it beneficial as a way of receiving information. *

For those who want to read more here are some recent links that may be of interest:

Twitter 101

Twittering on about Business

Twitter marketing tool of the future

Seth Godin outlines on his blog he doesn’t have time to Twitter but does at least have his blog ‘hooked up’ to Twitter so that a Tweet is created everytime he posts a blog item.**

Twitter and Business

* There are many ways to receive Tweets I find Seesmic Desktop particularly good as I can easily create different lists or groups of tweets so I can easily review them.

** There are a number of ways of having Tweets automatically created when a blog article is published. I use Twitter Tools, Seth uses twitterfeed - there are many more but once set up it is a great way of publishing content to multiple sources in a simple and efficient way.

The book follows a series of studies undertaken on neuro-marketing and looks at various influences in our buying decisions.

The book deals with subjects like whether grotesque anti-smoking advertisements discourage or encourage smoking, and how rituals and religions can influence buying decisions.

The findings in the book are extremely interesting and certainly made me stop to think about what thoughts go through my mind when I’ve made various purchasing decisions.

More and more companies are actually conducting brain studies prior to launching new products, tv shows etc.

It is definitely a worthwhile read for anyone involved in selling and marketing, or who simply has an interest in how we tick.

From the many interesting studies and examples the following information regarding a well known ritual may interest/surprise you:

Let’s pretend we’re at a beachfront bar in Acapulco, enjoying the mellow ocean breeze. Two ice-cold Coronas coming right up, along with two slices of lime. We give the limes a squeeze, then stick them inside the necks of our bottles, tip the bottles upside down until the bubbles begin to get that nice fizz, and take a sip. Cheers.

But first, let me pester you with a multiple-choice question. The Corona beer-and-lime ritual we just performed – any idea how that might have come about? A) Drinking beer with a lime wedge is simply the way Latino cultures quaff their Coronas, as it enhances the beer’s taste. B) The ritual derives from an ancient Mesoamerican habit designed to combat germs, since the lime’s acidity destroys any bacteria that may have formed on the bottle during packaging and shipping. C) The Corona-lime ritual reportedly dates back to 1981, when on a random bet with his buddy, a bartender at an unnamed restaurant pooped a lime wedge into the neck of a Corona to if he could get other patrons to do the same.

If you guessed C, you’d be right. And in fact, this simple, not-even-thirty-year-old ritual invented on a whim by a bartender during a slow night is generally credited with helping Corona overtake Heineken in the U.S. Market.