WILEY Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business

The subtitle says it all: "How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and more) that Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business" This book is divided into four parts, entitled: `The Content Rules' `The How-To Section' `Content that Converts: Success Stories' `This Isn't Goodbye' Part One explains what content is and why you should need to create it. There are 10 chapters in Part One that essentially set out the Content Rules, with headings that include: Reimagine; Don't Recycle: Anatomy of a Content Circle of Life, Share or Solve; Don't Shill, and the intriguingly titled: Attention B2B Companies: This is the Chapter You Are Looking For. Part Two has 8 packed chapters with step by step instructions on how to create content. Included are Blogs, Webinars, EBook & White Paper, Using Case Studies, FAQs, Videos, Podcasting and Photographs. This is gold for anyone wanting to get started creating their own content. In Part Three, there are 10 concise chapters, each one a case study, which the authors prefer to call Success Stories, and all have `Ideas You Can Steal'. Part Four contains just one short chapter inviting connection online & also linking to a couple of bonus downloads! I found this book extremely helpful (my copy is full of colourful sticky bookmarks for reference)and happily recommend it to anyone who needs to know how create content and use it as a way of marketing their business (large or small). It certainly isn't a stuffy textbook and is written in a humorous and conversation style. It's choc full of great tips, explanatory screenshots and diagrams.

I've determined to read my way through "The New Rules of Social Media" series from Wiley, ignited by David Meerman Scott. The series includes Social Media Metrics by Jim Sterne, Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Sha, Get Seen by Steve Garfield and Beyond Viral by Kevin Nalty. The series was kicked off by Scott's New Rules of Marketing and PR. The third book I've tackled in the series is Content Rules by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman. Hanldey is Chief Content Officer at Marketing Profs and Chapman is founder of Digital Dads. Both have more than enough experience and pedigree to back up their writing. There's a quote in the introduction that is the essence of content marketing: "Produce great stuff, and your customers will come to you. Produce really great stuff, and your customers will share and disseminate your message for you." This book is a solid resource for building a strong three-legged stool for social media optimization: search, social and content. I first ran across the three-legged stool idea from Jay Baer, and it's has changed the way I train businesses and organizations to do social. When online marketing first came along, I focused on teaching people to integrate social into their traditional marketing plans. Now, I've learned that the need is not just in social integration, it's in social optimization. It's in measurement; it's in SEO; it's in good content; it's in inbound traffic. It's in much more than just learning how to put a Facebook page together. This book helps build that content leg. What good is great SEO if your content sucks? People can find you, but they won't stick around if there isn't a good reason to. What good is a social media outpost if the content isn't good enough to facilitate an action like sharing or donating or purchasing? While SEO experts scream about meta tags and titles and headers and keywords, they sometimes miss the whole picture of search-boosting by social sharing. That's where good content enters the picture. The book expounds on 11 basic content rules in a fashion that is fun, engaging and knowledgeable. Even though the material is process-oriented, it is backed by successful case studies and experiences of both authors. I think I can honestly say that if you followed their "formula," you can achieve content success. But one thing is for sure, it takes calculated work--it just doesn't happen. Good content is a commitment. Generating great content doesn't turn everyone's crank, as the #1 rule emphasizes," embrace being a publisher." But, it can be achieved by anyone who wants to do the work. If you don't like to blog, produce videos, podcasts, and other kinds of content, you better find somebody who does...and will. One of my favorite chapters in the book is on re-imagining--taking stuff you've already done and putting it into different formats or presentations. The book is divided into three parts: the rules, the how-to section, and the success stories (case studies with info you can steal). The last piece of the book is a 12-point checklist to developing good content. It is a smooth and enjoyable read. My next step is to implement.

This book is great for developing content for social media! The tone of voice this book is written in is very fun. Theories are explained in a way that is casual but informative to the reader.

Although I already had a decent high-level understanding of the areas this book covers I found it interesting from cover to cover. Every chapter is useful and interesting, it never gets dry and I never found myself flicking ahead to see how much longer the chapters went on as I have done with other books. The authors have a conversational style which comes across well. They make their points clearly and sensibly, never patronising the reader with too little detail or overwhelming them with too much. Even a complete newcomer to the topics covered will understand the book and the suggestions they make. There are a number of useful case studies at the end of the book which show how different companies have had success with varying approaches. This isn't a book that tells you exactly what to do in a formulaic method. It explains the issues, gives an understanding of why certain approaches work and examples of how to implement them. Overall, it is an extremely useful addition to my bookcase and one I will undoubtedly refer to time and again.

Classic book about introducing oneself to selling in the internet it is underrated in my opinion and is a great place to begin learning and for future reference.