They started out as web designers, but the members of the 37signals team have shown themselves to be excellent content producers, having authored several successful books, and maintaining a blog that garners several hundred thousand visitors per month.

To be sure, I highlighted a number of great excerpts throughout the book, but one particular quote sums up our philosophy here at Merc:

You can also see it in people who want to blog, podcast, or shoot videos for their business but get hung up on which tools to use. The content is what matters. You can spend tons on fancy equipment, but if you’ve got nothing to say … well, you’ve got nothing to say.

As we’ve posted here, here, here and here – it’s not your “Facebook strategy” or “Twitter strategy” or “Flip Cam Strategy” that matters.

Focus less on the tools.

What matters is your content, plain and simple.

Louis C. Williams, ABC, APR, a leader in applying social sciences research to the practice of public relations, was awarded the Jackson Jackson & Wagner Behavioral Science Prize by the PRSA Foundation at the Public Relations Society of America ( PRSA) 2009 International Conference.

Lou was a great boss, and is a renowned pioneer in the public relations industry — namely in using qualitative research to drive strategic PR campaigns.  I treasured the time I spent while working for Lou (and the entire team) at L.C. Williams & Associates — learning skills I still utilize in my work today.

Thorough research.  Smart, strategic campaigns.  That’s the hallmark of Lou Williams.

Congrats, Lou.

Far from a “techie” book, and definitely not a Twitter-for-Dummies-type book, Israel provides a book of stories about individuals and organizations that are using Twitter — each in their own way — to get results.

Now, certainly Shel provides stories of big corporations that are using Twitter — but I was more intrigued by the small businesses who are using it to get real results.

Take, for instance, United Linen and Uniform Services of Bartlesvile, OK, which uses Twitter (and a variety of other social media tools) to communicate with its customers. Rather than just using these tools as a broadcast device for company news, they have an ongoing conversation with their customers and provide them with unique information using online video, their blog, twitter, etc. (Incidentally, United Linen’s efforts also have been highlighted by the Wall Street Journal and Forbes.)

It’s stories like these that make Twitterville such a good read.

Observing the online successes of a company like United Linen also drives home an important point that many still seem not to understand:  it’s not the number of your Twitter followers (or Facebook fans) that drives success — it’s the quality and engagement of your community.

For example, United Linen only has 44 Facebook fans and 665 Twitter followers — somewhat “smallish” numbers compared to many others on these networks.  But these numbers of followers are exactly the right size for them.  What good is a million followers if only a few hundred of them engage and provide any type of return-on-investment to your company?

So, please read Twitterville.  It’s a great read — especially for those small businesses who are considering engaging with Twitter, or are struggling to get their Twitter efforts off the ground.