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Karen Dietz
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Marketers are supposed to be the experts on connecting emotionally with customers.
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Scooped by
Karen Dietz
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Content marketers can learn about audience building & engagement from renowned author Robert Munsch. Improve your strategy with tips from a storytelling master!
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Karen Dietz
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Content marketing is all the rage for 2013. I think it might have been the rage in 2012, too. It is a buzzword, for sure, but it is essentially focused on how to tell a story. More so, it is about how to engage with your customer or prospect.
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Karen Dietz
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Are you spellbinding?
Let’s be honest.
It’s a huuuuge challenge.
Probably the biggest challenge each blogger faces.
In this example, a single customer interview netted more than 38 pieces of content. And here are the essentials on how to get your customers to help you.
Love this very clear how-to article for gathering customer stories. The author provides very clear steps on how to get this done. Yeah!
Her best piece of advice is to not do the interviews yourself -- find someone else who is a good listener, maybe even someone outside your company. Excellent tip. Asking customers for their stories is sometimes hard to do. Maybe the story the business wants to hear is not the story your customer wants to tell -- and I don't mean that customers want to complain. I just mean that businesses need to be open to all kinds of stories a customer may want to share. Sometimes it is a lot easier for a neutral party to gather these stories for you.
My only other comment is that the author focuses on case studies. But case studies are not the only kind of customer narrative to write. Case studies are not the only effective kind of customer story to share. Better to just collect the stories and then determine what form to use.
It is fabulous that the author shares how a single story can parley into 38 pieces of content. That is a content creator's dream come true!
Read the article for the author's process, great tips, and a free downloadable book.
Thanks Giuseppe Mauriello @pinomauriello for suggesting this article to me!
This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it
Stories and the art of storytelling play a major role in content marketing today. Not all brands realize the importance of unearthing their core story and learning to tell stories in ways that endear new fans and motivate advocates. In case you need even more reason to learn to weave an effective narrative throughout your marketing efforts, here are seven reasons storytelling is important for branded content.
Thanks to fellow curator Giuseppe Mauriello for sending me this! It's perfect for a mid-week pick-me-up.
This post is quick and easy to digest -- because you can get all the messages by viewing the photos. What a great example of using visuals in a blog post to create easy to scan, more compelling and enjoyable content.
Have a delightful read and day!
This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it
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Karen Dietz
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Brands are content publishers, and the Holy Grail of brand-produced content is magnetic content.
Read this article for 5 strategies that will help you create magnetic stories to share about your business, products, or services.
The 5 strategies include: - Make it relevant
- Connect across time
- Extend across media
- Inspire people
- Draw from the everyday
Each strategies has a video that illustrates the point the author is making.
I think 'Make it relevant' needs some work though. I get the point the author is making with the video that's included, but more could be said here -- like, "make sure your stories help customers find answers to the problem they are trying to solve." Can't get more relevant than that. Or "have your stories reflect the values, needs and desires of your customers." You get the idea.
I bet you'll gain several ideas from this article and videos that you'll be applying to your business storytelling.
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Karen Dietz
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Storytellers need to remember these personal writing tips and include them in every single story, whether we’re telling it orally, or writing it to share on our blogs or elsewhere.
The best business stories are our personal stories or the personal stories of customers, staff, and vendors. But how do you write these stories really well in order to make them memorable and share-able?
This author has great tips for doing just that. Here's the advice I love the most: “You’ll need to write something to discover what your story is. Then you’ll have to rewrite it to work out why your story’s important, and rewrite it again to make the story clear to your readers. But put limits on rewrites. Don’t be a perfectionist and do quash your inner critic.” So true!
Read her other tips to write stories for great blog posts and website content!
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Karen Dietz
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Marketers can get tactically proficient and even scientific about SEO signals, social technologies or information distribution platforms, but in the end it’s an understanding of those customers and what influences them that helps most with the process of persuasion.
In figuring out which business stories to tell, a critical part of the equation is figuring out who your audience is. This article contains excellent questions and how-to steps to determine which stories to tell to whom.
Creating marketing personas is big in marketing these days. I've done it and it is very helpful. Consider them another tool in your marketing toolkit. As the author says, "Those stories that are tailored specifically for the personas for each major segment of the target audience can provide the information and inspiration needed to make fundamental changes in their awareness, perception, acceptance and transition to the desired outcome."
Read this excellent article on how to develop your customer personas and develop more profitable relationships with them through the stories you tell.
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Karen Dietz
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Image via Wikipedia In a few short years, our ability to forcibly interrupt consumers with our advertising is going to be greatly diminished. There will be more channels, more content across more screens, and many fewer interruptive ads. Yes, we...
What great insights this article has! We already know storytelling is key to successful marketing but the author goes even further when saying, "But the concept of branded content is fundamentally flawed. By definition, branded content doesn’t even need to be good content. As long as we remain focused on creating something “branded,” we are missing the entire reason consumers are watching in the first place. It is a very subtle idea that requires brand managers and CMOs to shake off some of their core beliefs about how we talk to our customers."
And, "It’s not logical to think that consumers will ever volunteer to watch or share our marketing, so let’s stop making marketing and instead start telling stories. We need to unshackle ourselves from old formats and embrace an idea that has existed since humans first began communicating."
Read the article for other great words of wisdom -- along with understanding the bleak future of marketing and advertising if we don't shift business efforts into becoming story-centric.
The only piece that's missing in this post is any discussion about the fundamental dynamic of storytelling: story sharing. It seems the author is still focused on broadcasting stories instead of engaging in swapping stories with customers (i.e. listening to their stories in return).
But one step at a time :) ....
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Karen Dietz
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Is there are sure-fire approach to making every article you write go viral online?
What a useful article! Don't we all wish our blog posts would go viral? Well, stories are the way to help that along.
Not only does the author make great points about using stories to create sharable material, he also gives several examples from his own 'gone viral' posts.
Don't forget to read all the comments to this blog post also -- there are more great insights there!
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Karen Dietz
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Here are some tips for creating and distributing your content as an emotionally engaging story.
Way to go Raf! The author of this article, Raf Stevens, really spells it out for us here -- how to create emotionally engaging content with storytelling.
What I particularly like about this article are the questions the author asks us to help us create better, more engaging business stories.
And he shows us how he engages fans in other ways.
There is lots of good material here with practical tips and how-tos for us all. ...
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Karen Dietz
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Creating compelling content is a theme running through the PRSA 2011 International Conference this year. I like this quick article with its 5 bullet points. 4 out of the 5 are all about storytelling and is a quick checklist for developing content that is meaningful and memorable. There are links to videos to illustrate the author's points, making this article even more valuable. Enjoy!
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Karen Dietz
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Feast your brain on this excellent panel featuring Brian Clark, Doug Pray, and John Jacobsen.
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Karen Dietz
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Tweet I don’t care. I don’t care whether you are an author, marketer, mom, designer, biz owner or rebel leader – if you want to succeed in today’s environment, you have to be a grrreat storyteller first.
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Karen Dietz
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Tweet One of the best methods of content marketing is to publish valuable content on your business blog. But how do you write about the same topic over and over again while keeping your articles f...
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Karen Dietz
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Click here to edit the content...
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Karen Dietz
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So we have all heard time and time again, "to attract links you need to build great content". But very few actually talk about what good content looks like. That's because good content can come in many different forms.
Here's an article by Joe Hall that very clearly explains why content on a website gets ignored. And they are all story principles!
Keep this list handy and make sure when you are creating content -- any kind of content whether it be a blog post or a brochure -- that you include a well written title, has a unique voice, contrast, a focused key message, etc.
Read the article for more!
This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it
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Scooped by
Karen Dietz
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I had two occasions in the last couple of months to see the “About” pages of many Web sites and blogs. In the first, I had a few dozen story practitioners that I wanted to invite to participate in my Q&A series. In the second, I visited many sites and blogs to glean a short description of each so I could list them on my inside pages. Both activities had maddening elements.
Topics I curate sometimes come in waves. It seems the current wave is "About" pages on websites. I've added several articles to the collection recently about how to craft them well using your stories.
And here is another one. But it is slightly different (and why I curated it). Colleague and fellow curator Kathy Hansen wrote this piece today about the lack of "About" pages on blogs -- and how frustrating it is.
She goes on to give examples of a blog with a great "About" page, and those that don't.
Take her advice -- make sure you have a well crafted "About" page on your blog, on your website, and in your other promo material.
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Karen Dietz
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Whether you're a professional copywriter or a business owner, read these 15 copywriting and content marketing blogs if you want to make your writing more effective and earn more money.
Well now -- here's a different article than what I typically curate. But once you craft your business stories, you've got to imbed them into your blog, website, other marketing content, and write a bunch of content around them. That's where these 15 copywriting blogs can help you!
It's not enough to simply write or tell your business stories. We all need to get better and smarter and writing not just great stories, but creating compelling copy.
I've check out the blogs on this list and will definitely keep up with several of these. Ben Settle's looks great, as does Harrison Amy Copywriting, Men with Pens, Success Works, and Works That Begin With You. And The Rant looks like it will provide the occasional much needed kick-in-the-pants!
I hope these blog writers really help you write great material.
Thank you Copyblogger for putting this list together! ...
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Karen Dietz
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Learn how to attract and keep more blog readers by telling stories.
This is a great post that shows how to incorporate stories into your blog posts to make them memorable and shareable. And there are lots of examples to illustrate the author's points also.
As the author says, "Stories stick with us because they make us feel. They appeal to our senses. They inspire us. They create images and emotions that stay with us long after the story is over."
I like the 5 tips he has for us -- they are excellent and should really help you bring your blog posts to life with stories!
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Karen Dietz
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When it comes to marketing, storytelling is the most powerful tool at your disposal.
That is so true! This article has great points to make in the beginning. Later in the article the author talks about using mini-sagas (50 word stories) and gives some examples. That I'm not too sure about, but thought it important enough to add to this collection.
The author also makes the assertion that PowerPoint and Keynote are great tools to use to start sharing stories. Well, since death by PowerPoint is the norm, I am leary of that statement. PowerPoint forces the brain to organize material in ways counter to narrative. The doesn't mean you can't use it for storytelling, just realize it is harder to do. Enough said.
Read the article and I'd love to hear your thoughts about the 'mini-sagas' stuff. You can always comment below, or send me Twitter/Facebook/Google+ note!
Includes three storytelling tips to show readers what you mean without telling them and get them reading your stories right to the end. Plus three storytelling mistakes and how to avoid making them. Love the post and the examples shared here! The author makes a statement, shows how we would typcially share it, and then re-writes it so you can see the transformation into story. Enjoy reading this post and furthering your storytelling skills. Thank you fellow curator Gregg Morris @greggvm for sharing this!
Via Gregg Morris
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Karen Dietz
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In my previous post, I touched on content marketing and I emphasized throughout the post the importance of quality content. But what does that mean?
What a great post about using stories to build quality content -- and a fun poll to take at the end too!
I love how the author has organized her thoughts and given us really good tips on using storytelling to build great blogs, articles, websites, ebooks, etc. Her tips are a terrific map.
And then you get to take a quick poll at the end and see immediate results. I'm bookmarking the post so I can keep going back and to see how people are responding!
From curator Jan Gordon: This piece was written by Lauren Fisher for Simply Zesty - Lots of good insights and resources. I'm paraphrasing what caught my attention from the perspective of brand storytelling and how important narrative is in today's marketplace.
Fellow curator Jan Gordon found this article and wrote a great review below (she said it all, there's nothing more for me to add!) --
Excerpt: Social media now as an essential form of communication, another side we don't often consider is its role in the evolution of storytelling. Throughout nearly every society and stage in history, storytelling has had a crucial role to play. How this applies to social media **we are now all storytellers, telling a story about ourselves through social media that plays a crucial role in the way in which others perceive us, but also, interestingly, how our own lives are preserved. Here's my takeaway: **It's important for brands to tell stories that speak to their consumer's needs and core values. Stories that are constantly evolving and living in real time because of digital technology and social networking . **Stories become conversations that can lead to transactions and brand loyalty Those brands or individuals that are succeeding the most in social media are those that are able to tell the best stories through digital means, in the most interesting ways. Some people understand this better than others. Some for example understand the need to constantly create new ‘chapters’ in the story, to use social media constantly to share and create information so that our own personal timelines or stories consistently grow and provide entertainment. Not only building up a more complete history of ourselves, but a more adept form of entertainment at the time. In just a few years we will have mastered the art of social media and that means we will have become masters of storytelling. ********The consequences of this for society are wide-reaching and most importantly, fundamental for connecting societies and individuals in a completely new way. Curated by Jan Gordon covering "Storytelling, Social Media & Beyond" Read full article here: [http://bit.ly/vjd2fw]
Via Gregg Morris, janlgordon
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