The general idea of the book is that instead of interrupting customers to advertise your product (and get ignored), you should be engaging them and the entire industry with dynamic (changing, interactive) content on the website, social media, blogs, etc. This will hook potential customers and give them a "soft sell" and increase brand awareness, loyalty, and builds a returning asset. Basically, a company should be half marketing, half publishing content.
2) How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?
I think EVERYONE who takes this class should read THIS book. I learned so much about how Google works (seriously, why did I not know this stuff?) and about how I should run my future business websites and content. Marketplaces are so different these days, yet we still see a lot of the old-school marketing- how were we to know they're a bad idea, when the new method is so subtle!
3) If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?
100%, a great exercise would be to find two websites that are like "brochures" and come up with specific ideas for the types of content they are lacking, find out if they have social media, describe if it was difficult to find all the accounts, AND come up with 5 blog post TITLES that the company should have on their industry blog.
4) What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?
Like I said, I learned a lot about google and blog post key word optimization, but in addition to that, I enjoyed their case studies about Obama's election and the Grateful Dead. Basically, Obama successfully used inbound marketing by engaging his supporters in many many many forms of social media, and posting things that drove conversation instead of sounding like a megaphone. The Grateful Dead was successful because they created a niche market AND redefined their market's pre-existing "rules" about concerts and album sales.
April:
ReplyDeleteAfter perusing your latest reading reflection, I plan to obtain the book and read for myself. Which I believe is your actual suggestion. You know until I started at the University of Florida I thought of Google as an information provider. However, I have since learned that they are a marketing company first. For my final reflection I read the book on the Wright Brothers, which you reviewed earlier in the semester. I did not realize how much work the brothers had done towards their invention.
Hello April, this book seems like a great read. Post key word optimization sound like something I learned about in an advertising course last semester. Great assignment idea, I find that many companies make it so hard to find their social media, so this would be an intresting assignment to do. This class definitely has me reading books I didn’t see myself reading, but are actually more interesting than I thought, so I may definitely take a look at this book.
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