Content Inc. [Book Review]

According to Nielsen, people spend more than 50 percent of their time online looking at content. We can be connected to internet anywhere anytime, so people will continuously consume content more, and it will be more influential.

This book tells us how to build a content-related business and monetize it. Joe Pulizzi breaks down the whole process into 6 steps, making it easy for us to understand. If you like and serious about blogging like me or work in the field of content or marketing, I definitely recommend this book.

When someone says a word, “content”, these days, I think that many people would come up with youtube videos. Although this book is more focusing on written contents such as blog postings, I am sure that it would be helpful for those who making video contents as well.

Joe Pulizzi, the author, is the founder and CEO of Content Marketing Institute(CMI). CMI has been holding Content Marketing World, the world’s largest content marketing event, and gives advise about content marketing to companies like HP, AT&T and Linkedin.

He introduces 6 steps to monetize contents, especially online contents, and I briefly summarize it to get you an idea.

1 step - Sweet Spot

Sweet spot means that you find the intersection where your knowledge or skills and your passion exists together. In other words, you need to find a field that you have a passion for, so that you can keep your focus. In my opinion, this is important whatever you do.

I saw an interview with Steve Jobs on youtube before, and he said that you have to have a passion for what you’re doing to be successful. The reason is that being successful in the eyes of society is very hard and takes a sustained period of time. so if you don’t love it and if you’re not having fun doing it, you’re going to give up. No one wouldn’t put up with this things if you don’t love it.

2 step - Content Tilt

We have to make a different story. If you google a certain search term, you might see a lot of similar content out there. To differentiate your content from others, you need to make an effort to figure out what content is informative and helpful for people.

3 step - Building the Base

The greatest media entities of all time selected one primary channel in which to build their platform. There are various kinds of platform on the internet, and you can choose one of them such as Youtube or Pinterest to provide your content. However, I think it is more important that you build your own platform and induce your subscribers to visit the platform. I recommend that you build a website using Wordpress and have a long-term strategy using this while you are getting audience through other SNS platforms.

4 step - Harvesting Audience

Without an audience, your strategy will not work. Use social media, focus on Search Engine Optimization(SEO) or work with other influencers to build subscribers and try to make them revisit your channel.

5 step - Diversification

Once you reaped the rewards with subscribers’ loyalty, you can now decide whether you extend your business or diversify your platform. For your information, Joe Pulizzi says that the most successful content Inc. entrepreneurs focus on a blog, a book and public speaking.

6 step - Monetization

After all the procedures that you’ve done as above, now is the time you reap the reward. When your audience promotes your content, and it will attract another audience, it is a good stage that you monetize your content. But this is not carved in stone and you can it earlier as well.

If you are a blogger or youtuber producing content, I think you will get a help to approach to content business in a more strategic way. If you are a entrepreneur or a marketer, this book might give you some advise on promoting your company without investing a lot of money.