Content Rules, Oh Yes It Does! - A Guest Post from Phil Gerbyshak

I was pretty annoyed when RadioShack started calling themselves "The Shack."* Do they really think that it will make them hip and relevant to people trying to make sense of the digital world. Why not just try to resolve the very real issues in the organization and try to communicate better with customers (something they are notoriously bad at)?

*Don't even get me started on the nonsense of National Geographic being convinced by someone, somewhere that it would be a good idea to call themselves Nat Geo. Next thing you know, text books will begin referring to George Washington as G-Wash.

Besides, when I think of "The Shack" I think of someone who is already hip and relevant to people trying to make sense of the digital world—his name is Phil Gerbyshak. Phil is a friend of the company and the author of 10 Ways to Make It Great! and #Twitterworks. As of today, he is also officially a part of the team at Turning Minds. Phil asked me some time ago if I'd send him a copy of Content Rules to review, and was kind enough to turn in a review for the blog over the weekend. Oddly enough, Phil and the book he reviews would probably be a great help to the folks over at "The Shack."

Content Rules, Oh Yes It Does! BY PHIL GERBYSHAK

Unless you've been living in a cave, you know content marketing is important for your business. Writing articles about your business that appeal to your customer helps your company's bottom line by making your business more findable online when people search for what they are looking for. But what should you write about it, and how can you keep up with the endless need for content and balance that against the need to actually RUN your business?

Enter the book Content Rules by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman. It's a brilliant book, and it offers you all you need to keep your business website up-to-date with current information that engages your customers, and (better yet) compels them to share it with others online and offline.

As someone who teaches businesses about content, I've been looking for an all-in-one book that I can give to my clients to read and learn from about content marketing. This is that book! Content Rules helps you produce the RIGHT kind of content that your customers and potential customers will love... and share with their friends, creating big business for you.

Content Rules walks you through all the basics, teaching you how to create interesting stories, videos, and blog posts. Of course, that's only the first part, and thankfully, this book doesn't stop there. It teaches you the next, and often overlooked step of sharing the content as widely as possible online to engage your existing customers, intrigue new folks, and ultimately, grow your business.

If I had one bone to pick, it's that it doesn't offer a perfect blue print for creating viral content. And then I remembered: that's because there's no such thing.

I really can't say enough good things about this book, and I recommend business owners and marketers of all shapes and sizes pick up this book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Phil Gerbyshak is Marketing Technology Strategist for Turning Minds. He works with small businesses to increase employee & customer engagement (and profits) by teaching them to tell their stories more clearly inside and outside their organization, using the right tools to the right audience. It's really not about the tools; it's all about the conversations you participate in and the connections you create and cultivate.