The Content Advantage (Clout 2.0): The Science of Succeeding at Digital Business Thro

For business owners especially, the internet is a river of relevance. In this environment, choosing to relate and respond appropriately is the key to surviving and thriving. And relational capacity depends on the ability to listen — to make connections between what’s needed and what’s on offer. Successful sales people talk in terms of strong relationships, and deeper relationships depend on an ever-fuller exchange of information (aka, content).From words to images and from icons to videos, most content on a business website or mobile app does a pretty good job of telling the world what the business has to offer. That’s a good thing: all relationships start with an introduction. But relationship-builders do something else: they make space for customers to be heard AND they evolve their language to reflect that of the customer. Good content tells your customer who you are; great content shows customers that you understand who they are. Good content describes your solution; great content shows customers that you understand their problem.If you own a business and have a website, you have content. If your content isn’t already great, you have an opportunity to make it that way. Websites used to be primarily about the packaging — the “look and feel” was worked out first. Content was added just before launch, and often not maintained over time. Content was managed like a brochure: design, print and keep on the shelf. The internet doesn’t work that way; in this swift-moving river, relevance is how you keep your head above water.In The Content Advantage [Clout 2.0], Colleen Jones provides strategic direction and tactical steps for how to create and maintain content that improves customer relationships and makes your business more relevant. In the last 10 years, the tools and technologies for improving content have become ubiquitous. There are thousands of people in the job market whose job titles include the words “content” and “strategist,” and their goals are rooted in business goals: to establish and grow customer relationships. As a business owner, your most powerful tool is choice. View your content as a strategic investment and watch it go from good to great.

The Content Advantage is a must read for current (and aspiring) content strategists, ux professionals, entrepreneurs, business owners, product managers, writers, and everyone else who touches digital content.Being smart about your content is a necessity for businesses today and hard to get right. In this book Colleen Jones maps how your team/company can approach your content in a holistic, strategic, and smart way. It looks at both high level concepts and actionable, tactical examples, and educates on how to develop a content strategy, content vision and content analysis, as well as how to make a business case for your content and get stakeholders on board. I’ve referenced this book several times at work since I’ve purchased it (specifically on how to prep your content for the future, map content to business objectives, and assess its effectiveness) and couldn’t recommend more for anyone in this field.

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