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Using NewsWhip Analytics, we found the top 10 stories from five of our top 10 Facebook publishers in December 2016. NewsWhip Analytics can give data on hundreds of stories from different publishers over various time periods, allowing audience development and analytics teams to perform in-depth analysis on their most successful content.
We ranked the stories by total engagements they received on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest, and then calculated the average word count for the top ten stories. We didn’t include headlines, subheadings, pull quotes, or calls to action within the story (‘Read More’, ‘Scroll down for video’ etc) in the word count.
Here’s what the average length of the top ten most engaged stories from five top publishers were in December....
In addition to the Discover, Create and Engage modules, we have included a guide for journalists that will explain how to get started on Facebook or simply grow your presence. We’ve heard from journalists that they need more information when deciding between setting up a Page or a profile and about how to manage privacy settings. The “Getting Started” course seeks to answer all of those questions and covers key steps for building out a professional journalistic voice on the platform, including how to apply for the Facebook blue badge that indicates verification.
In the coming weeks, we will also commence a series of webinars on the site which will be tailored to journalists who are both new and old to Facebook. These webinars will be organized according to new products and features, a person’s level of experience using Facebook as a journalist, and their role (newsgatherer, content creator, or audience engagement specialist)....
I am super passionate about what I do in the world of telling business and marketing stories. If you read my stuff and know me, you know I am a storytelling nerd from both the business and improv stages—and proudly!
I love that storytelling is experiencing a “corporate Renaissance” across business, social media, social entrepreneurism, and executive communications. Storytelling is so much bigger than marketing. It’s the foundation of how companies communicate who they are in the world and what they stand for. A resurgence is a great thing, and storytelling itself—the original social medium for humans—is evolving in the business world. That is a great thing.
In doing my work, in chatting with fellow story practitioners and branding execs, and in doing research for a book to be published later this year, I’ve stumbled upon what I believe (and am already experiencing) the next wave of storytelling will look like. Much of it involves getting out of the way, empowering others, and thinking bigger.
Here are seven ways to jump on that next wave and reinvigorate your organization’s storytelling for more successful marketing this year....
We all know storytelling is one of the key aspects of successful blogging. If you can weave a story around your words, no matter what your niche or topic, it is more likely to entertain your readers and resonate with them.
Even if you think you aren’t much of a writer or storyteller, you can still find one of these story types discussed today that will be useful and relevant for your blog – following on from Episode 80 of the ProBlogger podcast where I discuss what to say when you’ve got nothing left to say, hopefully these should give you some ideas on how to craft your words so you can stand out as a unique and interesting blogger.
In this episode I discuss these story types and how to get the best out of them (with examples!)....
Visual storytelling is simply the way most brands will decide to go in 2016 & beyond, as they try to tell their story to their customers. Why? Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat, Vine… All these trendy social media sites are based on visuals.
“Facts bore, stories sell” is a common saying. But I will go even further (and probably annoy some master storytellers), by saying: “Stories in text bore, stories told visually engage — and sell”.
To drive home this point, and before I delve into the how-to, the numbers in this infographic should be more than enough...
I like to ask people when I meet them, “What’s your story?”
It’s more interesting to me than typical questions about education, major, city of origin, job title, or sports team. All of these things might play a part in their story, but story implies something much broader and more personal. It’s the narrative of your past, present, and expected future. It’s the drama of your own life as you see it playing out.
When I think of the most interesting and talented people I know, I think of their story. I don’t think of their status. “Oh, he’s a graduate student” is a status. So is, “Married, salesperson, lives in Ohio”, or, “Studying business at USC”. A status is a static snapshot of a handful of labels attached to a person based on some institutions or external standards. It conveys nothing really unique that gets to the core of the person, or the animating force behind their actions and ideas. There is no passion in it. No sense of direction and creativity....
Authentic stories help powerful brands make deep connections with customers. But that high-level principle creates real-world challenges for content marketers. What is a powerful story and how do you tell it? I’d like to share four tips on how to tell stories that make connections and get results.
With so much noise on social media you must find ways to reach new audiences and capture their attention long enough to share your story.
Having a consistent story is vital but equally as important is sharing your story in multiple different formats, on different social networks ideally targeted towards new and unique audiences. Storytelling humanizes the message, is memorable and inspires action!
Here are 9 ways to share your story on social media....
This is a tale of memory, truth, technology, and, well, the future of humanity—but it starts in high school.
If you went to high school in America, there is a pretty good chance you learned to write essays using the dreaded five paragraph method. For those who don’t remember, the structure is this: Introductory paragraph (wherein you lay out your thesis), followed by three supporting graphs (each one making a different yet complimentary supporting argument), finished with a conclusion (essentially your introduction restated and a final conclusion drawn).
What I want to point out here is the amount of data being offered up. While it’s called a five paragraph essay, the argument itself hinges on three main data points. Three core ideas. Because of this, the five paragraph essay is also known as the “hamburger essay” or “one, three, one,” or, occasionally, a “three-tier essay.”...
When we think of stories, we typically think of books – “Once upon a time…” and “They all lived happily ever after.” The truth is, though, that stories are more than just words on a page. Here, then, are ten masterful methods of storytelling that will help you answer the two questions I get asked most often are: 1) How do you tell a story? and 2) Where do you start?...
"As a writer you should not judge. You should understand."Ernest Hemingway has contributed a great deal to the collected advice of great writers, from his famous admonition against the dangers of ego to his short and stellar Nobel Prize acceptance speech. But some of his finest wisdom springs to life in this excerpt from his 1967 nonfiction piece By-Line, found in the altogether excellent Hemingway on Writing (public library) — a compilation of the celebrated author’s most insightful meditations on the craft, culled from his published works and his private letters. ...
Somewhere between a PowerPoint presentation and a full-fledged video is the audio slideshow. Creating audio slideshows can be a good way to add meaning to slides that otherwise might not mean much without a presenter. Here are some ways that students can create audio slideshows....
Digital storytelling, the practice of combining narrative with digital content, is gaining more ground in the educational field.
...There are actually several tools to create a digital story online but for educational purposes I have meticulously selected some of the best ones available online and for free. But before you start exploring the list make sure to check out these three tools to develop creativity in your Students Writing.
Here is the list of some of the best free digital storytelling tools for teachers...
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Every great marketing campaign relies on being able to communicate your story, whether that be the story of your brand or the products or services that sit at the center of your company. However, brand storytelling is becoming the foundation of many content marketing campaigns and for a good reason. A powerful, creative and insightful way of providing that coveted personal connection between company and customer, if incorporated correctly, storytelling offers a progressive strategy that has the potential to strengthen your brand, drive sales, enhance customer loyalty and in turn improve retention. At first glance the science of storytelling may appear to be fairly straightforward but as is the case with all marketing tactics, ensuring this natural love every human is hardwired to have a good story concisely communicates your brand message isn’t as easy as many marketing professionals make out. The power of storytelling, however, is right there for the taking, and by following these golden rules, you can transform your marketing plan or your client’s for the better....
You stare out of the window for inspiration. You reread your post. Nothing comes to mind. Sigh. What more is there to say? You don’t want your post to fizzle out with a few drab sentences. A bland paragraph at the end could wreck your whole blog post. But how can you come up with something truly inspirational?...
What happens when people use storytelling for deception? Or downright evil?In this week’s podcast, Shane and I talk to Maria Konnikova, a frequent New Yorker contributor and author of The Confidence Game: The Psychology of the Con and Why We Fall for It Every Time, to learn about the art of the con and the impact it’s having on the media world, from catfishing on Facebook to advertising that crosses the line....
In this article, we’re going to take a look at how you can implement a content marketing plan for a ‘dull’ industry.
We’ll analyze a few of the key beliefs you should have when it comes to content marketing for ‘dull’ industries, but also the specific tactics that you can put into action in order to generate results.
By the end of this post, you should be able to create incredible content for any industry you want to tackle now or in the future....
Last year I did a post for the Writers Digest website, explaining why (my opinion) “just write” is among the most dangerous soundbytes of writing advice ever uttered. It’s like telling someone about to on trial without a lawyer (an apropos analogy to trying to write a story without knowing how to write a novel) to skip law school and “just talk.” One reader commented in response that, because after years of practice some writers can indeed “just write” and be successful… I thank her for helping make my point.
There is a huge, hard-won backlog of knowledge and principle that makes anything that can otherwise be “made up as you go along” functional, if not downright fatal.
“Just do it” can get you killed, and it can kill your story, as well.
In that context, I’ve yet to encounter a writer who can disprove the existence or need for a largely given structure – the order and context for how a story should flow – for the rendering of long form storytelling....
In recent months a debate has been brewing around whether shortform or longform content is winning the race for people’s attention. No doubt there are merits to both sides, but there seems to be some confusion abound the subject.
For clarity, longform means articles, white papers and e-books of 2,000 words or more, while shortform refers to content of 500 to 1,000 words.
Is there really a difference in their overall performances? Science suggests there is.
What the Studies Are Suggesting
Many of today’s Internet marketers swear by shortform content, citing a number of independent studies that indicate audience attention spans are falling and as much as 32 percent of users will begin abandoning websites in as little as five seconds if they are slow to load.
This doesn’t speak to the effectiveness of the format in reaching its audience in terms of visibility and findability through search. This is one of the most important advantages that longform content has over its counterpart....
An audio recording doesn't have to go through the full-fledged production process of creating an a podcast in order for it to be a valuable activity for students. Creating short, unedited audio recordings is a good way for students to record and share their reflections on things that they have learned and observed in your classroom. The following five tools can all be used for creating and sharing short audio recordings.
...When it comes to organic search, Google and other search engines place a premium on backlinks. They interpret backlinks as “votes” for the content.Of course, to generate backlinks, you must create content that prompts other digital properties to share your content with their audiences.
For the type of content that grades out as shareable, it’s typically not product information or a personnel announcement or an industry award — information we characterize as company-centric. Instead, it’s the type of business storytelling that’s useful or informative and ultimately helps people in their jobs.In short, thought leadership plays at the industry level, not the company level, ideally offering takes that can’t be found elsewhere.
Such dot-connecting points to blogging as one of the best platforms for thought leadership....
Pixar's 22 Rules to Phenomenal Storytelling, originally tweeted by Emma Coats.
The Aesop Story Engine is one of the most beautiful tools for WordPress that I’ve seen in a long time. Named for Aesop, the master story teller whose fables are woven into our cultural consciousness, this engine provides a powerful suite of multimedia storytelling tools. The Aesop Story Engine plugin was created to be a foundation for building feature-rich, interactive, long-form storytelling themes for WordPress.
The engine powers the Aesop Hosted Storytelling site where users can create stories for free. The Aesop development team has released it as an open source WordPress plugin, making it possible for you to add the same storytelling capabilities to your own website....
...But what happens once everyone has caught on and businesses are blogging simply to stay healthy, kinda like eating green beans?
We’re here to be inspired, right? I mean, I’m not talking the last twenty minutes of Rudy inspired, but rather inspired to read more, and maybe buy something. We have a challenge. A question. A need or even a want. And we're looking for that moment of inspiration to help make our purchase decision easier.
Somewhere along the way of this mass information age, many forgot this. They forgot that storytelling is the main ingredient for inspiration.It’s why we cry at the end of Forrest Gump. It’s why we cheer at the end of Rocky (all six of them). It’s also why some of us buy Dunkin’ Donuts over Starbucks (or vice versa)....
Adding an audio message to your classroom blog or website can be a good way to help deliver important messages to your students and their parents. Posting an audio message, even if it covers the same content as a written message, can increase the chances that a visitor to your blog will take notice of something important.
Adding an audio message to your blog or website is not difficult to do. Here are five free services that you can use to add an audio message to your blog or website....
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Helpful analysis from NewsWhip to help you decide how long your story should be. Simple answer? Depends.