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In the age of social media democratization, news distribution is no exception. Nowadays journalists are competing head-to-head with brands and publishers for the most sharable content. The changing landscape of interconnected social news distribution and consumption also means that PR communicators need to strengthen their storytelling abilities and social angles to support their chances of media coverage in this competitive environment.
A recent survey by Edelman, NewsWhip and Muck Rack with an infographic sheds light on how PR folks can exploit these changes to get the most coverage possible. Here are 4 takeaways for PR profs....
...Sher has uncovered a paradox: Journalists, who are in the business of telling stories, have actually ruined age-old narrative traditions through their approaches.
For Sher, the inverted pyramid writing style is one of the worst offenders, because it often reveals the juiciest part of a story in the first paragraph. So, why read on? Sher’s revelation was unsettling for his audience, a room full of journalists at this year’s Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) conference in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Thankfully, Sher has a remedy. He offered some tips that he promised will help reporters tell a more engaging tale, whether they are shooting 60-minute TV documentaries or writing short Web hits. The following tips can also be used to tell your brand’s ongoing story in a press release. After all, your goal in PR is to appeal to the storyteller inside every journalist....
Three quick takes on the intersection of storytelling, digital and communications.
To SEO or Not SEO in the Headline
Actually, it doesn’t have to be one or the other.
We can learn from media properties like Business Insider that have mastered the art of headline eye candy.
Take the BI story that bashed Atomic PR with one of my all-time favorite headlines: “Dear PR Lady: Here’s Why I Didn’t Open Any Of Your 3 Email Pitches”
Few search on “PR Lady.”
But look at how the publication tunes the URL...
When a helicopter crashed in a densely populated part of London around 8am today, next to one of the busiest trainlines in Europe and a large bus station, the news was always going to be broken, within seconds, by members of the public on Twitter, armed with camera phones.
Twitter user Craig Jenner was one of the first to put a picture on Twitter which was shared far and wide.
What happened next is indicative of the way the media are increasingly playing catch-up on such stories, moving from reporting to aggregating (or curating, if you must) - images, eye-witness accounts and videos. Journalists were asking to use the picture with a credit and were trying to get Jenner on the phone...
Great content lies at the intersection of your company’s core values and the passions of your audience. Here's how your content marketing can ignite a movement. If you haven’t seen Nirvan Mullick’s short (10-minute) film called “Caine’s Arcade,” watch it now. You’ll be glad you did — and the rest of this inaugural ContentVenn post is going to make a lot more sense. (If you have seen it, read on!) The power of great content marketing
Caine’s Arcade is unbelievably powerful content. It is emotional, heart-warming, and inspired. Caine’s Arcade is so powerful, in fact, that it has spawned a movement. When Nirvan posted the video on April 9, 2012, viewers immediately began donating money towards a scholarship fund for Caine Monroy. Ten days after the release of the film, Caine’s scholarship fund hit the $170,000 mark. That’s powerful content. And it all could have ended there. But it hasn’t. Creating a movement, creating content opportunities
Six months after Caine’s Arcade became a “viral success” it has become a real movement. It’s more than just a Vimeo success story. Today, that 10-minute film has spawned a full-fledged nonprofit with a real mission, real corporate underwriters, and tons more content. Go ahead, check out the Imagination Foundation, whose mission is to “find, foster, and fund creativity and entrepreneurship in kids.” [Here's a powerful and inspiring story and how great storytelling and content can go viral. Lots to learn and potential ideas for nonprofits as well as corporations. Just jump in and enjoy! ~ Jeff]
PR lesson from Auntie Anne's... A great deal of what I know about PR, I learned from Auntie Anne. The pretzel queen. A former Amish woman turned entrepreneur, who, in the 1990s retained my firm to promote her burgeoning franchise empire of hand-rolled soft pretzel stores. It wasn't an easy assignment, convincing someone who had been taught all of their life to avoid attention that she had to interview with Forbes magazine or do lunches with Inc. reporters. But if anything, Anne was a pragmatist who understood the value of her own story. And this was a great one. Born to an Amish family, she chose not to enter the faith, married early, and struggled financially. While running a food stall at a local farmer's market, her husband mixed up a flour order for her pretzel recipe. The screw up resulted in the best pretzel she had ever tasted. Lines formed around the corner, and soon prospective franchisees were beating down her door to buy in. She called it an act of God. Me? Well, I too know the value of a good story, regardless of whether the intervention is divine.... [A story about the value of storytelling toPR and marketing ~ Jeff]
...Journalists are in the business of stories. Always have been – and despite the 24/7 streams of info-snacks and feeds forced through ever-congested virtual pipes, they always will be. So it should come as no surprise that a recent global study of journalists found that journalists don’t want “pre-packaged” news such as press releases, and instead are “looking for variety in the kinds of stories brands talk about and the way they are told. And they expect brands to be properly engaged with the relevant social networks – not a box-ticking exercise driven by the PR department, but a genuine engagement at all levels of the business.” In other words, stop with the “content.” Even the word “content” is cold, distant. Content is artificial intelligence. Content fills the feed but leaves you hungry.... [Gary Goldhammer offers some great media relations advice - JD]
When it comes to successful content marketing, we all know by now that content that pushes people's buttons and makes them... “feel” (as cheesy as that may sound) is the kind of content that gets shared. The problem is, sometimes we as bloggers just don’t have a clue on what to write about! Writer’s block happens even to the best of us, and it’s nice to help break through this “stalling” of our creativity with a good list of content types that people crave. I’ve put together a list of 10 content types that people just love to read, in hopes that one might serve as inspiration for you to create some “Wow!” content in your own niche.... [Excellent tips for bloggers, PR, curators, content marketing pros and storytellers - JD]
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No, we're not talking about Apple or Amazon or Big Data or the Marketing Cloud or Programmatic Buying.
Chevy’s Rikk Wilde “looked down at his notes often, spoke haltingly and explained to the pitcher that he'd like the Colorado” —Marketing Daily’s Karl Greenberg has the skinny today on its new “inner truck guy” conventional campaign — “because it has ‘class-winning and leading, you know, technology and stuff,’” James R. Healey reports in USA Today.
“The nervous Wilde was assured this morning he still has a job,” Greg Gardner and Alisa Priddle reported in the Detroit Free Press last evening. “And in fact he appears to have garnered millions in free publicity for the Chevrolet brand, which has received at least $2.4 million in media exposure from the unconventional presentation, according to Front Row Analytics. Bloomberg reports that is six times more than the $392,000 it would have brought in with a more polished performance.
”It did not take long for #technologyandstuff to pop up on Twitter with GM president North America Mark Reuss (@GMdudeinNA posting, “It's what I've been saying for years.....#technologyandstuff,” Gardner and Priddle report....
There’s a lot of talk about storytelling today amongst communicators, and for good reason. In our frenetic, always-on, socially-connected, information fueled environments, information is continually washing over us. A few things stick, and those are generally stories. The key to a good story is found in the audience’s ability to relate strongly to something in the story, which naturally builds affinity. And affinity is important to brands.
A good narrative can also spur the audience to act. The best social media campaigns are all underpinned with strong stories....
Every company wants a signature win in heavyweight publications like Fast Company, BusinessWeek and Fortune. By signature win, I mean 1,000-plus words devoted to a behind-the-curtain look at the company. Yet, few PR teams cultivate the needed content assets to give themselves a fighting chance for this type of attention. It requires thinking like a journalist, framing the tension in the story and teasing out potential texture. To understand the type of fodder that drives such #storytelling, we selected a Fast Company feature, “Walmart’s Evolution from Big Box Giant to E-Commerce Innovator” and categorized the content type (3,324 words)....
...In my work for Colgate's laundry products, it was validated that P&G's Tide brand is the industry's gold standard when it comes to getting things clean. In fact, at the previous agency, I worked on Tide's campaign to find the"Dirtiest Kid in America," and the promotion that put a few real diamonds in P&G's Spic N Span boxes to celebrate the brand's diamond anniversary. Most had cubic zirconia, but when shoppers started ripping open boxes onto supermarket floors, the widely covered promotion ended.
Today, a piece in New York Magazine reveals just how valuable this "liquid gold" Tide has become....
Created with Haiku Deck... Here is a simple presentation version of the last post I wrote on the connected story. Its in a tool called Haku Deck. Simple text and pictures on the fly using creative commons pictures. [A very promising, easy to use tool for better presentations and storytelling ~ Jeff]
The Art Of Storytelling In Business Communications And Public Relations... I think Mark Twain would agree. He’d be particularly amused by a report on the solar industry released earlier this week that triggered two stories on opposite ends of the spectrum. In one corner, we give you the San Jose Mercury News and its bullish headline.... [Lou Hoffman finds contradictions in storytelling. JD]
Content has always been king, but the recent Penguin algorithm update further reinforces this notion. Keyword and link frequency are no longer the dominant factors in securing a high search rank. Instead, it largely depends on the website’s content and user experience. Content should be unique, entertaining, and cater to the needs and desires of the target audience – so that it urges visitors to share information with others and also return to the website on a regular basis. Much of what determines a website’s rank in the search results is what happens off of the site. Readers will likely share links to online material that they find worthy, essentially rewarding websites for creating compelling content. Shared links let the search engine know that users are finding value in the specific site. This established credibility and popularity will allow the site to secure a top spot in the search results for relevant queries. So, how can your organization’s online content catch people’s attention and gain additional exposure? This week’s Six@Six offers tips for adding creativity to your current content marketing campaign....
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The story is the driving force, whether it is in the field of reporting, or marketing, or even teaching. The pressure of finding a story good enough to tell, and being able to do so in an interesting manner can make all the difference to the news report, or the boardroom presentation before the takeover, or even the class room on jurisprudence!