Do you have a content strategy in place?  Does it include an editorial calendar?   It is suggested that 45% of people who find you is through your content. 

Content Rules is a book about creating opportunities to share stories about you, your products, your business and those of your customers with ideas, suggestions learnt by co-authors Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs a free and subscription base online marketing resource for Marketing Professionals and C.C. Chapman a media creator, entrepreneur and creator of an online parenting space for dads called DigitalDads.com

Why I chose this book?

You don’t need to be a marketing professional to read this book; I chose to read this book because:

• As part of the editorial team for the Social Media Club, I wanted to get additional ideas on how best to add value and substance with a minimal word count. 
• As a corporate educator, I wanted to include some of the ideas and suggestions from the book and include them as examples for a  social media series I’m developing within my work environment

What’s covered?

The book is divided into twenty-nine chapters, sectioned into four parts including a companion website.

1. Part One introduces the roles for creating great content
2. Part Two offers specific “how to steps” to creating an array of content you might want to develop by type e.g. blogs, wikis, and webinars.
3. Part Three offers ten case studies of content that converts into actionable results such as more customers, and more conversations
4. Part Four includes a checklist which you can measure your own content development efforts. 

What I liked.

The book is

1. Easy to read.  It’s conversational in style, laced with humor in a backdrop of not only personal experience but others who have shared their experiences.  The pages are laid out with plenty of white space, bullet points and sub titles.
2. Easy to use.  My suggestion is to read Part One; that is where you get the basics of writing good content. You can pick and choose from the other chapters because chapter is self contained.
3. Easy to do.  Okay perhaps not that easy but the way its written encourages you to try, experiment, explore and seek out the examples in the book to see how other people have implemented the suggestions and ideas in the book.   

Some take-away’s

1.      Think like a journalist.  You need to learn how to research, create headlines that attract attention and learn the grammar of good writing.

2.      It’s about storytelling.  Creating good content is listening to your customers and finding the opportunity of including your customers as part of the solution

3.      It takes practice and persistence, organizational skills by creating an editorial calendar and yes discipline

4.      Re-imagine how one topic can be approached by leveraging the numerous tools that are free and available.

5.      You are not alone.  The people mentioned in the book have made their share of mistakes and are willing to share what works for them.   

Suggestions if asked

1.      I would like to see more templates included.   In the chapter focusing on blogs, there is one template included called “The Content Rules Easy-Peasy Blog Post Template.”  Not everyone is a born writer and I personally have found it useful when I have a template as a guideline to follow.

2.      Although it’s nice to have people rave about your book, I would like to see more templates, case studies, and lines on the books companion web site.   

Summary

Content Rules by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman is focused on how you can use solid timeless ideas to leverage whatever tools are currently available, write content not for content sake but with purpose and meaning and increase the percentage of people who will find you.   You will find this book a source of inspiration for some to come. 

For more information about the description, authors, an overview of the table of contents, chapter excerpt, please go to  

Content Rules

http://ca.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470648287.html

Authors:

Ann Handley - http://twitter.com/marketingprofs

C.C. Chapman - http://twitter.com/cc_chapman

David Meerman Scott (foreward) - http://twitter.com/dmscott