When you think of a white paper, what comes to mind?  Is it a boring, descriptive, overly-professional document that you’ll struggle to get through in the hopes of learning something?  Would you ever voluntarily read a white paper with a boring title from a company you don’t know?  You’re not alone.

Hence, the ebook.  I’m not talking about books you can download on a Kindle.  I’m talking about short (5-20 pages) documents that have the goal of educating and enticing without all of the stuffiness.  Just as the use of social media is the cool and “in” marketing tactic to create content people are attracted to instead of interrupted by, the ebook is the new, hip document that people create with the goal of educating others via a document that they actually want to read.  The reasoning behind it is that people can learn something for their job and enjoy what they’re reading at the same time.  There is no longer the major dichotomy between Personal=fun/enjoyable to Work=buttoned up/boring.

A great example of an ebook that stepped away from the standard educational information of the industry and increased market awareness for the business is “Healthy Smile, Healthy Sex!:  How Your Oral Health Affects Your Sex Life” by Dr. Helaine Smith. 

Let’s start with the title.  Even when you’ve been sitting in your dentist’s waiting room for an hour with nothing to read, did you ever want to pick up an educational brochure?  Me neither.  And that’s when you’re a captive audience.  Yet, this ebook has been downloaded thousands of times by people nowhere near a dentist office and educated them on things they need to be concerned about regarding dental hygiene and how it can impact other parts of their lives…some may say the most important part of their lives.

Then there’s the content.  I have never read any dental white papers but I’m fairly confident none of them are aimed at me, the patient, and discuss sex, pot smoking, pregnancy, and aging all in a quick, entertaining, and informative manner on topics that matter to me.   I don’t need to know the deep, technical stuff.  That’s for the dentist.  I just need to know enough to educate me and help me understand what I can do on my own and why going to a dentist regularly is important.

Finally, a good ebook will have calls to action. In the ebook, Dr. Smith let’s people know her background and how to contact her for speaking engagements as well as sign up for her newsletter and blog.

The white paper is not dead and there are some out there that do it right, however those creating content for their marketing endeavors should probably go with writing an ebook.  They’re more enjoyable for everyone involved and have the ability to attract many more prospects.

Have you written an ebook for your business?  Please feel free to share how it went.

Last month, Michael Stelzner released a white paper titled, “Social Media Marketing Industry Report”.  While we are late getting around to reading it, there is some good information that we thought was worth sharing.  The white paper is a quick read with some good information based on a survey of nearly 700 marketers and has all of the graphs and charts you could want in a white paper.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Top three questions marketers want answered: (1) What are the best tactics to use, (2) how to do I measure the effectiveness of social media and (3) where do I start?
• Marketers are mostly new to social media: A significant 88% of marketers surveyed are using social media to market their businesses, BUT 72% have only been doing so for a few months or less.
• How much time does this take? A significant 64% of marketers are using social media for 5 hours or more each week and 39% for 10 or more hours weekly.
• The top benefit of social media marketing: The number-one advantage is generating exposure for the business, indicated 81% of all marketers, followed by increasing traffic and building new business partnerships.
• The top social media tools: Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook were the top four social media tools used by marketers, in that order.
• Social media tools marketers most want to learn about: Social bookmarking sites were ranked of highest interest, followed closely by Twitter.
• Business owners were more likely to use social media marketing (90+%) than employees working for a business (81%).
• About half of the respondents found that social media generated qualified leads.
• More than half of the respondents who had been doing social media for only a few months and dedicating only 6-10 hours of week said that social media marketing generated qualified leads. 62% of marketers using social media for years noted that it helped them close business.

For those just starting to use social media or trying to justify it to your colleagues and bosses, this is worth a look.