Content Marketing Today

You Have a Personality. To Succeed You Need to Turn It Loose on the Web.

A brand-new book explains why this is essential and how to make it happen.

Boring is bad in person.  Boring is worse in the traditional media.  And, boring may be worst of all in in the new social media universe.  That’s a critical content marketing message in the new book, Personality Not Included, written by Ogilvy public relations executive, Rohit Bhargava.

Rohit has the double responsibility of explaining why boring is bad and personality is essential while simultaneously proving that he has a personality.  In fact, you have a pretty good idea that his personality is just a bit out there by his choice of book cover, which spotlights garishly colored plastic chickens.

Goofiness aside, at the very top of the website, he explains exactly and succinctly why the book is important, “Personality Not Included is a new marketing book for entrepreneurs, marketers and all businesses about the importance of personality and a guide on how to use it.”

His elevator pitch for the book makes it even clearer: “In the social media era, being faceless no longer works.  Personality Matters and PNI is the guide to using yours.”

Guy Kawasaki, noted Apple alumnus and entrepreneur says of Personality Not Included:

“Building brand personality has been a big part of my career. To a large degree, it was unwritten because no one had quite found a way to speak or write tangibly about its importance. Now you’re holding the solution in your hands. Take the lessons here and apply them to your business. Find a way to humanize your brand, use your personality, and take your brand from good to great. The first step is to believe that personality matters. The second is to read this book.”

Rohit’s book is critically important to companies and individuals alike.  Because we are all connected via the Internet and increasingly pervasive social media, we must find a way to stand out from the faceless masses–but in a good way. That means integrating personality with authenticity and transparency.  On the web today, nothing else works.

His book’s website reflects his charming and amusing personality as it shares openly exactly how he came to write the book, position it, get it published, and subsequently how he developed a creative promotional strategy that is, well… full of personality.

As he explains it, “My idea behind this site, to a degree, is the same one I share throughout the book … the personality matters and you need to build a story that people can believe in and retell to others.  My hope is that the more you know about what went into writing the book you are holding in your hands, the more likely you are to tell other people about it.”

After you’ve spent some time with his website, you understand a lot about his personality and are very likely to be motivated to run out and buy the book. But, I guess that’s exactly the point. And, it’s an excellent example of brilliantly executed content marketing.