When you think about it, “content” is a really awful word. In the context that it’s used these days, the word sounds so useless–as if content were an amorphous blob to clog the Intertubes.
Coming along to make sense of this is Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business by Ann Handley and C. C. Chapman.
Handley and Chapman conduct a pretty good tour of all the little things that make up “content”: Blogs, whitepapers, e-books, webinars, videos, and so on. They also do a good job of giving us a how-to primer for businesses, including B2B marketers, on getting started developing and distributing content. And as expected in a book of the type, Handley and Chapman find plenty of good examples to cite from a wide variety of businesses like Kodak, HubSpot, our friend Bob Knropp’s Cool Beans Group. The U.S. Army also gets a mention for its Army Strong Stories.
If you’re looking for a fairly comprehensive primer of an evolving but valuable part of marketing today, Content Rules is a good place to start.
Special thanks to Wiley for providing me with a review copy.