Banking on social media to help you move product in 2011? You might not want to lean so heavily on Twitter, if this campaign is an indicator.

Call it a case of “What if they tweeted a book — and nobody bought it?”

Celebrity tweets barely budged sales of a book — a whole four copies (or three, depending who you ask) were moved after celebs Alyssa Milano, Bill O’Reilly and Susannah Fox recommended it to followers.

Milano and O’Reilly have 2.7 million Tweet followers between them. And the one sale between them was attributed to O’Reilly’s followers.

Here’s a bit of irony: The book in question is about social media: Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks & How They Shape Our Lives.

What’s going on here?

If you want to use social media to push sales, you need to identify and target the Mass Influencers (MIs), according to a recent report from Forrester Research.

Only about 16% of the buying public is identified as MIs.

The best strategy for marking and marketing to these movers and shakers:

1. Closely monitoring your social networks, to see which people are talking about you
2. Identifying and breaking down the different types of consumers visiting your sites, and
3. Engaging those consumers with a clearly defined message.

Note: If you want to learn more about the book, click here to view Amazon’s site that includes 35 reviews of it.

Tags: Alyssa Milano, Amazon, bill o'reilly, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks & How They Shape Our Lives, Forrester Research, mass influencers, social media, social networks, susannah fox, Twitter