Book Choice

In choosing a book for my end of term book report, I first scanned the titles on the list to see which ones stuck out by name alone. I thought about what I am looking to gain from this class, and how each book might help me understand and use online marketing better. As I am not a writer looking to promote my own work or heavily involved in the business world, I was able to eliminate some titles right away. I narrowed my choices down to three: The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Oline Media to Reach Buyers Directly; Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies; and DigiMarketing: The Essential Guide to New Media and Digital Marketing. I then set about researching these titles online.

My first step was to simply do a Google search on each book. The first site that came up for both New Rules of Marketing and Groundswell was Amazon, which is not surprising. Each book received an average of 4.5 stars out of five by Amazon readers. But while New Rules had 183 reviews (with 130 being five stars), Groundswell had ninety-eight (with sixty-one five-star reviews). This told me that either more people were reading the first title in general, or that more people felt compelled to review it. Certainly, that many high reviews made me interested to see what all the fuss is about. Digitmarketing had a five-star average rating on Amazon—but it was only reviewed by nine people, which made me want to read it less by comparison.

Each of the titles had a website either associated directly with the book, or with the author. David Meerman Scott (New Rules of Marketing) has an impressive site at davidmeermanscott.com that includes tons of information about his book and his work, as well as an extensive author bio. His site links to his blog, which is updated regularly and which links to his Twitter page. The site makes him seem accessible and relatable. His book also has been reviewed by Publishers Weekly, and spent six months on Business Week’s bestseller list. All of this information, as well as a list of the other books he has written, is available on his site.

The site associated with Groundswell (forrester.com/groundswell) impressed me less. Forrester is a technology and market researching company, and the authors of the book are researchers employed by the company. The company does have a blog, which is updated fairly regularly, but users must pay to access much of the content on the site. The way the site was presented made me feel as though the book was simply another way for Forrester to make more money, rather than educate me as a reader.

I was also turned off a little by the website associated with DigiMarketing (digimarketingnow.com). The way the site is set up almost made the book appear something like a computer manual, rather than an engaging book about digital marketing. There were author bios, but they included limited information and did not make the authors seem as approachable as David Meerman Scott’s site. There was no blog linked to the site.

Overall, the combination of many good reviews on Amazon and an engaging website most heavily influenced my decision to choose The New Rules of Marketing and PR