Published On: Sat, Dec 15th, 2012

My Favourite Books in 2012

Great reads in 2012As we draw ever closer to the end of another memorable year I’ve been thinking about what books have stood out over the past 12 months. There’s been many. In fact, it feels like I’ve had my head in a book at any spare moment, but if you’re looking for a good book over the festive period or want to deepen your understanding on a particular area, I’d recommend the following:

1. ‘Organizations Don’t Tweet, People Do: A Manager’s Guide to the Social Web’, by Euan Semple
Undoubtedly the best book I’ve picked up this year. There’s a lot of talk about Social Business, but Euan’s book is full of useful tips, real-life examples and fantastic thinking on what is now an in vogue topic. Quite simply he’s been there and done it. The book also contains a healthy dose of reality and is written in easy to digest chunks that are perfect for the daily commute.

2. ‘The Business of Influence: Reframing Marketing and PR for the Digital Age’, by Philip Sheldrake
A great book not only makes you think, but compels you to act, which is the case with Philip’s book. As the name suggests it contains some pretty radical ideas and bold statements. Whilst, I don’t agree with everything Philip wrote, his book made me challenge some of my existing thinking and develop new ideas around Influencer Engagement Scorecards. To me, discussion is what generates better ideas and ‘The Business of Influence’ certainly does that.

3. ‘The Longer Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand’ by Chris Anderson
On a fantastic holiday to Seattle I finally got round to reading Chris’ seminal book. It really is a powerful and thought-provoking publication that expertly analyses how online giants Amazon and eBay conquered the internet. His theory that organisations can be massively successful by selling huge numbers of completely different items, rather than huge numbers of a relatively small selection is worthy of closer study.

4. ‘Advanced Google AdWords’, [Second Edition] by Brad Geddes
Brad Geddes is dare I say it, a genuine thought-leader, guru or maybe even just an old-fashioned expert. A lot of my role is managing AdWords activity and this book has been a real help the last few months. During this time I’ve learnt what a fantastic driver of leads AdWords is. Nothing compares in terms of genuine ROI. If you want to make yourself valuable, read this book, understand AdWords and start generating sales.

5. ‘Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics’ by Brian Clifton
In a similar vein to AdWords, this book has been particularly useful. Moving from a large agency to a small marketing department I’ve had to take a much deeper dive into Google Analytics on a more regular basis. Google Analytics is a wonderful tool. There’s so much you can do with the right tracking and goals set-up, yet it is woefully underutilised by the PR industry.

What have been your top reads this year?

About the Author

- Marketing Manager with a passion for inbound at HubSpot, Founder of Growth Hack Talks, Blogger at Ben-Cotton.com and Chief Quaffer at CraftySwine.org .

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  1. […] couple of weeks ago I shared my favourite books from 2012, so I thought it would be an equally good idea to single out the blogs which have captured both my […]

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