Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs

I bought this book after reading some of the reviews and using the author's website grading service. What stands out clearly for me is that the book outlines actual, tangible steps to succeed in the concept of inbound marketing and social media. They aren't asking you to purchase hundreds of dollars worth of services, software, or seminars, all they are ask you to do is listen to what their saying and do it yourself. Sure they have other services at their website, and there is some minor promotion, but the content of the book is so solid you actually don't mind. You almost say to yourself "yeah, they earned that one." I read it cover to cover the day I got it, and within the last few weeks I have finished reading it twice more. I would recommend reading this book if you are into inbound marketing and social media every few months as a reminder that it will take time, but if you are diligent and truly have something "remarkable" you will succeed. This book is so simple, some might perceive it as vague. In fact, it's not, it's a book that allows you to get the ball rolling with the ideas and concepts and then anyone who is motivated will dig deeper through the internet to get even better. The single greatest thing I was missing was a daily RSS feed of blogs across my relevant industry and inbound marketing. With that now setup I spend 30 minutes each morning learning so much my brain is on overload. The book reads very easy. All in all, this is probably one of the best books I have read on a given topic where they aren't advertising every page or chapter. It's good stuff, read it.

This book is just an extremely long explanation of what Inbound Marketing is (hint: it's just another word for content marketing). It was also written in 2010 I believe so it references tools that no longer exist. But the most disappointing part of the book was the social media section. It's teed up as a section that will help you understand how to leverage social media in your content marketing strategy but its so basic its useless. Example: "here's how to use Facebook. go to facebook.com and create an account. make sure you use a real email address and a real name, if not, they'll suspend your account. Use the "add friends" button to add friends to your page." and that's pretty much all it has to say about Facebook. It reads like this for LinkedIn and Twitter also. So pretty much useless information. If you're not a social media guru and you're just trying to make sense of it all, I recommend "Built-In Social" by Jeff Korhan. Much better read and far more informative.

As Hubspot customers, Hubspot partners and fellow travelers on the inbound marketing journey for 10 months now, we heartily recommend "Inbound Marketing", by Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan, as this book represents a very readable and do-able playbook for implementing inbound marketing methodology.Packed with concise guidance, case studies, and practical to-do's that you can implement today, this book is really a text-book on the subject and is one of the most important books for Internet era marketers published to date.HubSpot founders Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan have created, proven and are rapidly ramping a business [...], that embodies this "Inbound Marketing" methodology. Their nearly 2000 customers, including our consulting business and several of our clients; Vico Software and Magic Software, are using the Hubspot Inbound Marketing platform and you can't argue with the results...if you actively use the inbound marketing methods espoused in this book, you will be successful in creating inbound leads and you will transform your business.It doesn't matter if you are a Bed & Breakfast proprietor; a mid sized high technology firm selling B2B; an old-line business like grocer, Whole Foods; or a golf pro selling lessons like Charlie King at Reynolds plantation. The principles in "Inbound Marketing" are universal and if you follow this link you can view Inbound Marketing success stories.[...].The proven theory behind this methodology which is documented and well illustrated in the numerous case studies in this book is that if you create great content and publish it on the Internet; and connect with buyers who may be interested in what you do through the social media, then you will get found. If you do it on a consistent basis and analyze and tune your content, you will build traffic and inbound links and the inbound links will move your content to the top of the Google (and other search engine) rankings.This book dispels the myth that you need highly paid SEO rocket-scientists to move you onto the front page of Google and also begs the question as to why you would use pay-per-click for anything other than short-term results.Inbound Marketing is a new way of doing things; it is still in the early adopter phase and this book will accelerate adoption. Every day we speak with clients who could benefit from reading this book. * When we talk to VP's of Sales and learn that their sales teams are still making cold calls, we will recommend this book. * When we visit Websites that are packed with "product-speak" and "gobbledygook", we will recommend this book to the VP of Marketing, (along with David Meerman Scott's,  The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly (New Rules of Marketing & PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs,) ). * From now on, we will use this book as a calling card to the CEO's we want to meet, because they will ultimately have to endorse a new way of doing things.A word of advice; "Inbound Marketing" offers a methodology which is a transformational approach to marketing and it's not a one off event. It takes diligence, focus and an ongoing commitment to a new way of marketing, but it works and there is no going back.Buy the book and welcome to the journey.Highly recommended

I bought this book when a client told me he had ordered it and I knew that it would be important to be able to sing off the same sheet. I'm not a techie, but having read several books and attended a number of seminars and webinars on these matters, I wasn't expecting to learn a lot new. How wrong I was! This is a brilliant book of combining new media to optimise your website and use Google, social media and other sites to support it.Halligan and Shah start by reminding us all just how much marketing has changed - broadcast techniques are much less effective, the internet is the first port of call for most people looking for something new, etc. This is becoming something of a commonplace now - see Barnaby Winter's  The Brand Bucket: Make Your Marketing Work - although personally I find that many print and broadcast media are still pretty effective - even if their call to action is primarily to attract traffic to your website. They go on to ask "Is your web site a marketing hub?", and advise readers not to worry too much about what the site looks like, but rather to ask whether you have remarkable content (a term borrowed from Seth Godin  Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? How to Drive Your Career and Create a Remarkable Future ), to encourage people to interact with it.They then outline elements of the strategies that you need to apply if Google is to rank you highly and if you are going to achieve a first page organic ranking on Google or on other search engines. That starts with regular, remarkable blogging, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), using RSS feeds, moving on to Social media including Facebook, LinkedIn (is LinkedIn really just a social media?), YouTube and Twitter. I also learned about those sites/icons that I have hitherto ignored - Digg, Reddit, Delicious and StumbleUpon and how they might fit into an overall strategy.Part 3 of the book moves into converting customers - and we are mainly back to your website, and how you get visitors to become leads, by responding to a call to action, introducing the acronym VEPA. The authors discuss what makes a good landing page and the benefits of forms and setting up an auto-responder. They then move to strategies for converting leads into customers. Throughout they stress the importance of using the web's excellent tools for tracking and metrics.In the final part of the book, "Make better marketing decisions", Halligan and Shah discuss metrics further, the recruitment of inbound marketers - make sure that they are DARC: Digital Citizens, are Analytical, have web Reach and are Content Creators - talk about PR in the digital age and how you use web tools to follow what your competitors are up to.In the final appendix, called "Tips from the trenches for start-ups" they summarise 26 actions that they recommend you do within the first couple of weeks - most of which would apply equally to an existing company as they do to a new company or project, effectively summarising the advice given in the book.Any book written about this sector dates very quickly because Google, Facebook, Twitter (and probably all the rest) change things frequently. Halligan and Shah avoid this to an extent by focussing on the strategic level. The tell you what you're trying to achieve by writing a blog, or setting up a Facebook page, but they don't focus on the minutiae of how you do it - which is the bit that changes most often. So they're assuming that most people who are reading the book will be able to figure that bit out for themselves - and I think that that's probably right. If you are a complete beginner, it's probably better to find a local expert to show you how rather than to buy a book, in any case. The authors do promote their own sites - like website (dot)grade which leads to HubSpot (dot)com but personally I see that as great extra resource given away with the book - you can get a great deal of value without paying an additional pound or dollar - and they have an abundant attitude to referencing others who are active in the space.I do have a couple of quibbles. I love the fact that it's printed on matt paper -all the better to scribble notes - but if you are going to go to the expense of hard-binding a book, I'd be prepared to pay a quid more for paper of higher quality, where you can't see the letters printed on the other side and which don't feel as if they'll disintegrate inside ten years. With regard to substantive content, I do wonder about the extent to which the DARC employee really exists. Whether online or off, certain psychological attributes are hard to combine. The analytical aspects of the DARC candidate may be opposed to the creative facets of the "content creator", and the personal interactivity required to create "web reach". As in the offline world, a team of people, each with complementary personalities, may be what you really need. And this may be pretty esoteric and perhaps this is one of those drawings that you can see two ways, but the "star trek" image on the front cover gave me the impression of something being blasted out, and therefore seemed redolent of old fashioned broadcast marketing rather than conveying the ides of "inbound".So, if you want to get more business from the world wide web, you should read this book. I've started to change what I'm doing having read this book. If there is a better book covering this subject matter in such an integrated way, please use "comment" to tell me about it. It might well be the second edition of this one! The Brand Bucket: Make Your Marketing WorkLinchpin: Are You Indispensable? How to Drive Your Career and Create a Remarkable Future

There are four parts to this book, which are entitled:`Inbound Marketing'`Get Found by Prospects'`Converting Customers'`Make Better Decisions'Part One defines what Inbound Marketing is and explains why all marketing should make the transition. It sets the scene by looking back at how people's buying habits have changed. There are 3 opening chapters: Shopping has Changed ... Has Your Marketing?; Is Your Web Site a Marketing Hub? and Are You Worthy?Part Two has 4 packed chapters: Create Remarkable Content, Get Found in the Blogosphere, Getting Found in Google, and Get Found in Social Media. Although the book was published in 2010 and the internet is constantly evolving, the principles in these chapters still hold true and give valuable suggestions to be found by prospects.In Part Three, there are 3 chapters: Convert Visitors into Leads; Convert Prospects into Leads, and Convert Leads to Customers which is where all the getting found tactics from Part Two are turned into results. There are ample screenshots and diagrams to demonstrate each stage.Part Four contains 6 final strategy chapters: Make Better Marketing Decisions; Picking and Measuring Your People; Picking and Measuring a PR Agency; Watching Your Competition; On Commitment, Patience and Learning: and Why Now? Perhaps more relevant to larger companies, there are still lessons for the small business owner.Each of the 15 main chapters contains a case study and ends with a useful suggested To-Do List and space to add your own actions too.Although there are several self-promoting references to the authors' company, they do not detract from the valuable how-to information which all marketers can apply right away.The chapters follow a logical path, enabling the reader to put each of the lessons into action (using the To-Do list) before moving on to the next. This format makes the book a useful guide or workbook too. I wish it had been around 5 years earlier as it would have considerably shortened the time it's taken me to put all the pieces together by myself.

This excellent book is aimed at the 99% of the business world who are faintly befuddled by the strange world of youtube and delicious that they find themselves living in. It's aimed at plumbers, hairdressers, lawyers and oil company executives; at people in large corporations and small businesses alike who are dimly aware that their working lives are about to change - indeed, have already started to change in disconcerting ways - and who don't know what to do.The premise of the book is that the old marketing is dead or dying. Gone are the days where simply throwing money at print or radio advertising guaranteed succees. Instead, you need to engage your customers. Give them reasons to come to visit your web site, and once they are there give them reasons to come back again and again. Turn your web site into a hub, stuffed with remarkable blog posts, videos and interviews. As the authors put it (they have a pleasing way with words) "ten years ago, your marketing effectiveness was a function of the width of your wallet. Today, your marketing effectiveness is a function of the width of your brain.""Inbound marketing" is clearly - and explicitly - inspired by authors such as Seth Godin and David Meerman Scott. But where this book differs is in its emphasis on hands-on advice. Not only is it inspirational, but it's also brimming with practical wisdom. Sure, it talks about the power of Twitter. But then it gives you advice on how to choose a twitter handle. Sure, it talks about the rise of the superstar blogger and the death of the press release. But then it talks about how to decide whether you need a PR agency and, if you do, then how you should hire one. Sure, it stresses that your employees will need to learn new skills if they are to survive in this new world. But then it talks about what those skills are, what steps your employees need to take to get them and how you can track how they're doing. Each chapter contains a checklist of things you should do, right now, to start improving your inbound marketing.This is no dry textbook. It's full of anecdotes, some from the usual suspects (Whole Foods, Zappos and Barack Obama) but from others too: accounting software, a shutter manufacturer and a PR firm among others. It's well written, and there are cartoons too.Inbound marketing - get found using Google, social media and blogs is an excellent, mainstream introduction to new marketing. If you want to dip your toes into the cold water of social media then buy a copy. If you know all about social media then you almost certainly know people who need this book. Buy them a copy from Amazon. They'll love you for it.

I bought this book as the thought of getting involved in "social media" was terrifying given the hype in the written media. As a sole trader, I wanted a book that would tell me exactly what I needed to do to be found by potential customers without making too many mistakes along the way. It did just that and I now have a plan of action which I am putting in place bit by bit following the guidelines in the book. I found it really easy to use and simple enough for me to understand fully. A great buy!

I found this book very easy to read. It gives enough information to get across all the main points, but not so much as to overwhelm or get boring. I am a web designer with experience in SEO but felt I was not up to speed on social media. One of the less positive reviews on this site suggested that the authors were publicising their own site too much but I only recall them mentioning it a handful of times - not excessive in my view.