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The world complained of infographic fatigue two years ago.
Yet, infographics continue to be a mainstay of visual storytelling. Fresh infographics – when I say “fresh,” I mean a narrative that’s easy on the eyes, entertaining, and delivers a surprise – still generate attention. When we look across our client blogs, the posts with infographics inevitably score well in the popularity index called Google Analytics.
That’s the good news.
On the not-so-good side, the popularity of infographics has resulted in some visuals that can only be described as dreadful (to be kind). The infographic platform by itself doesn’t automatically serve the target audience. You still need to deliver information that has relevance to the reader and offers something that they will care about....
As long as people can see the difference between a brand and a human vision, brand storytelling will always play second fiddle to real human stories. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
There’s a large movement currently for brands to “tell their story”, to enable them to be more approachable to customers. Communications pro Gini Dietrich does a great job of showing the strengths of storytelling for brands on her leading Spin Sucks blog.
There are some great examples of brands that win when they insert a more story-like feel to their ad or marketing campaigns. Take Apple and Google, for instance, as highlighted by the two videos below....
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....
Find out how telling visual stories with images or video on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and YouTube will help you reach connect with your audience.
Are you sharing your stories with your fans?
Do you use pictures in your social marketing?
People want pictures in their social channels.
When done right, these pictures become visual stories.
In this article, I’ll show you how five brands are using pictures to share their stories and why that’s important....
Oren Jacob grew up in a family of storytellers. His parents were teachers who were constantly hosting family, friends, colleagues, passersby from around the world — each with their own story to tell.
After spending 20 years at Pixar working on films that revolutionized visual media, he is now the co-founder and CEO of ToyTalk, an interactive entertainment company that enables kids to converse with and learn from animated characters. In fact, the company just released its second season of The Winston Show today.
All of this work required continuous and creative pitching. At Pixar, it was about developing movie pitches for $100 million stamps of approval. And now, at ToyTalk, Jacob has helped raise over $16 million to make their groundbreaking vision a reality.
In all of these situations, storytelling has been a crucial part of making pitches memorable and resonant. Whether you’re talking about your product or your company, Jacob recommends several specific storytelling tactics to both appeal to your audience for the first time, and to forge successful long-term relationships....
Alan Berkson has a unique place in the world of thought leadership. He is the guy who has the science of the corporate narrative nailed. Just plain pinned...
Let's welcome Alan Berkson, from Freshdesk, who is not only a thought leader but someone who has carved a special place in the pantheon. Alan is an expert at defining a corporate narrative - an area of paramount importance in a business world defined by digital transformation. A corporate narrative? Are you surprised? The 21st century demands that companies present themselves in new ways. For example, old school product marketing, based on the exhibition of features and functions, no longer works or is even likeable in any way. It now demands something akin to "a day in the life." How are the products going to affect the outcomes I'm looking for as my day proceeds? In other words a narrative, a story.
But Alan is speaking on a bigger stage than just product marketing. He's looking at the strategic requirement that the companies who are trying to engage with customers have a the same time the customers have the opportunity to express themselves with strong collective power....
Earlier this week, Coca-Cola declared the corporate website dead.
Take one quick look at their new corporate website and I think you will see an example of the future of quality content marketing. They are clearly displaying how the art of storytelling not only can influence our preference for a brand or product, but surely their intent is to also reach a search engine position of respect and power....
Who doesn’t love a good story? I know I do. Especially one that inspires me to think differently or incites me to do something.
I also like to find stories elsewhere… especially ones that have personal meaning to the people who tell it. Every company has a story and the best way tell it is through the people who LIVE it.
In a recent post, O.C. Tanner says “every team has a narrative, and every company could do better at incorporating storytelling into recognizing their employees. Whether your company has an epic story, a storied history, or has a vision of the future, the way you recognize your employees’ efforts and contributions should be tied to the stories you tell....
Sharing a compelling story is a memorable and powerful content marketing strategy, especially for prospective customers. Here's how to find your narrative...
...Using email marketing and social media allows you to not only provide valuable information to prospective customers, but to showcase who you are and what your business is all about.
Sharing a compelling story through those platforms is a memorable and extremely powerful content marketing strategy, especially for prospective customers.
“Narratives are meaningful, remarkable storylines that enable people to easily understand who you are and share why you matter. A good narrative conveys your business purpose, perspective and personality, which needs to be very specific to you,” says Chris Berger of Berger Brands, which provides brand marketing, PR and business development strategy and services to organizations such as This American Life and Public Radio International. “The secret lies in finding your spark and then fanning it into a fire across everything you do.”...
Takeaway.
Done right, your blog introduces you to your audience so they will WANT to do business with you.
Your small business blog and website are tools. Done right, your blog introduces you to your audience so they will want to do business with you.
Set the foundation and make it easy for your audience to make the buying decision. You can do that by giving them the information they need in well-crafted pages that tell a story and set you apart....
Welcome back to the countdown of 50 Brands With Amazing Brand Stories. I’ve shared some of my favourite stories so far, but now it gets down to the nitty-gritty as we delve into the top 20.Today we continue the countdown by looking at 20-11, but should you wish to see the previous editions, do so here: 30 – 21 l 40 – 31 l 50 – 41
It begins with listening. Understanding what your audience is interested in and how they want to interact with your brand....
My philosophy is simple. The traditional channels for storytelling may have changed and are certain to change more, but what remains constant is the power of listening, of earning your way into a conversation, and respect for your audience. This is the foundation for a new communications contract between businesses and stakeholders that’s based on genuine engagement....
Kevin Spacey's comments about the Netflix release of "House of Cards" contains a road map for brand storytelling worthy of global enterprise brands.
...In the video, Spacey himself speaks to the potential benefits of this innovative distribution strategy, proclaiming, “Give them [the audience] what they want, when the want it, in the form they want it in…”
The success of House of Cards (as well as that of the latest Netflix series to be released en-masse, Orange is the New Black) proves that this distribution model can work. But how might it apply to content marketing, which operates in vastly different ways than the business of television? And, more specifically, how might a nontraditional release schedule like this impact corporate storytelling?
Here are some key insights, derived directly from the words of Kevin Spacey, that all content marketers need to take to heart...
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Content marketing is all about storytelling. Without a story, it's a lot harder to create content (and it's a lot harder to have a reason to create that content). In this post, I want to help you think more clearly about the story behind your business so you can do a better job building more impactful messages and a better content marketing campaign. Let's dive in...
Why You Need A Story First, you might be wondering what storytelling has to do with business and marketing in the first place. Every business needs a good story. The story is what connects your customers to your product or service, and it's what helps explain what the French would call your "raison d'être" (your "reason for existence"). Without a story, you're simply another business simply trying to peddle your products....
You can measure the storytelling lift in media relations activities.
As the Internet commoditizes news announcements, journalists increasingly look for fodder that allows them to write unique stories as opposed to those already in the public domain....
...Although companies understand the part about becoming a media company they missed something very important: media companies don’t create media about themselves. This is why companies have problems with the content they produce, people are immediately skeptical about any media that is about the company that produces it — no matter how high the quality.
Take a look at the Nielsen study released this week, commissioned by InPowered. It found that branded content ranked extremely low among consumers but content written by journalists — independent of any brand — ranked very highly....
As Mark pointed out recently in Content marketing and the challenge of radical filtering, we are turning to increasingly personalized search results and artificial intelligence solutions to get only what we want without ever exposing us to the masses of content that is available.
Like search did 15 to 20 years ago, radical filters will fundamentally change how we find or discover information. If you are a content marketer today, how will this change your world?
Here are six ways you may respond. Some are familiar, but almost no one today is taking the familiar approaches far enough for the future Mark outlined. Others are new areas of opportunity content marketers are not focused on today....
The future of television is more interesting when you peek behind the screen.
...There was nothing particularly new in Ken Auletta's highly readable article about Netflix (NFLX) in the current issue of The New Yorker. (Here's a link to a snippet of the article; the rest is for paying subscribers.) The beauty of a Ken Auletta article, though, is that there doesn't need to be a ton of earth-shatteringly fresh information for it be worth your time to read. Auletta succinctly summarizes complicated topics, like how Netflix got to be what it is, and he name checks all the most important people on a given subject so that by the time he's done, you're in the know, too....
The problem is, most case studies out there are little more than a couple descriptive paragraphs about a few tactics. Which, first off, is great. Don’t get me wrong. Keep writing, keep sharing.But there are rarely results, there is rarely a problem stated that needs solving or a strategy being discussed.
Wanting to share these success stories is great. Wanting to read these success stories is great. But let’s look a bit closer at what is going on here and perhaps we can create a better system for all of us to benefit from...
You can have the most useful information in the world for your target market but if you don’t package it so your audience can understand, it’s useless. You literally have seconds to win your audience’s attention or they’re onto the next thing.
How do you make your content stand out and grab your audience’s attention? Tell a good story. It provides an emotional connection and context that draws your audience in and makes them remember it....
As everyone scrambles to take part in the new wave of content marketing and as more companies begin to build brand journalism practices, it has become crucial to learn which types of storytelling techniques are most effective and to hone in on creative ways to repackage and share content in fresh, easy-to-digest formats.
So the question you should be asking is, “What makes a good story?” Is it the content? How it’s presented? Or is it how it’s told and shared?We’ve been asking ourselves the exact same questions and that’s why we dedicated all the articles in our latest Kumpambana Magazine to “The Power of the Story”. This edition of the magazine provides an inside look at how stories are being shared all around the world, tips on using social platforms to showcase branded messages, insights on creative and effective ways to build corporate narratives, a definition of brand journalism, examples of content marketing and much more...
Takeaway. It’s not about marketing your small business. It’s about marketing your story.
You have a business you love and you want to tell the world about it so they love it too. Seems simple enough, right? Well, small business marketing isn’t as simple as it seems because it is more than just telling the world about your business, it’s about telling your story along with your business story. It’s about developing relationships not just making connections. It’s about creating valuable content not just spreading a message.
Marketing is something everyone thinks they can do and it can be overwhelming, especially if marketing isn’t your area of expertise. I get the need to tighten the purse strings. I get that you have no budget and you are a one-man or -woman show. It is doable and you can do it! You just need to be armed with the right kind of information and expectations....
Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it” – Hannah Arendt
I’ve been working with brands for 15+ years. Over that time, I have crafted my fair share of “traditional” stories for my clients and their brands. As the strategies came to reflect a greater social influence, I’ve recognized growing trends in how story themes have had to evolve from corporate traditions, towards a more human minded perspective. I’ve summarized the seven most prominent themes as follows...
So what happens if you don’t wrap up your facts in emotion to form a story? Well, if your salespeople don’t introduce the main buying themes with a quick 2-minute story, won’t your salespeople sound like they are reading straight from a product manual? Without a story to give your product context, aren’t your customers left to try to figure out why it makes sense for them to buy, or even worse, why they should care?
And if your salespeople are selling how your product can improve results by 20%, don’t they end up sounding like every other software vendor? Won’t the prospect discount 90% of those claims?But what would happen if they instead shared a story about a similar customer. And this story highlighted in detail the limitations of their current system? Wouldn’t the prospect suddenly see how their system could potentially be improved? Would prospects then be more willing to hear about your solution, because your salesperson first sold the problem? Don’t you agree that you’ve got to open the gap before you can close it?
So ask yourself if your salespeople shared just one story per meeting, and did everything else the same, would customers relate more to what they’re selling?
Businesses are getting better at telling stories through content - either video or text -- and that helps with branding. View these examples to get started.
Brands. Stories. Profits.
Story telling is powerful. Stories help with branding, i.e., making an impression that stands out and sticks in our minds.And businesses are getting better at telling stories through content – whether through video or in text form.
Stories that follow a brand’s theme can be told over and over.Let’s look at some of the best stories in the business and unravel how some brands do storytelling in style...
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Laughlin reflects on infographics -- the good and bad.