In search of content marketing inspiration, I found the SlideShare production: How to Tell Your Company's Story: 8 Questions to Get You Startedby Ann Handley from Marketing Profs. Did the ...
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Rescooped by Karen Dietz from Digital Storytelling onto Just Story It |
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Via José Carlos
Karen Dietz's insight:
I think the questions posed here to help you figure out your business stories are just terrific. There are 8 of them and will really get you thinking about your business, what makes you unique, and the stories you could possibly tell.
Even if your business or organization (for profit or nonprofit), these questions are important to ask. So how would you answer these questions?
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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All the best info on storytelling to lead and grow your biz. Contact us today! (619) 235-0052
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Stories vs. Personas Sarah Doodley (@sarahdoody.) explores the difference between user stories and personas. She correctly identifies the problem with personas is they can be poorly crafted and so become caricatures of themselves. Via Gregg Morris, Martin (Marty) Smith
Karen Dietz's insight:
I agree with the comments above and whole-heartedly endorse the use of personas in business. But unlike the article I think that personas do have a place in business -- if done right. Now that's the trick. Let's take a page from the world of writing: no well developed characters, no story. "What," you say???!! Yep, plot is important. But the secret to great storytelling is good character development. Know your characters and the plot unfolds. Know your customers stories and your business plot unfolds. For example -- Hollywood crafts most of its films these days around a boilerplate plot filled with special effects. Love the special effects. But the plot and characters? Same old same old and mostly boring.
The more you know about your customers, and can craft personas based on good character development skills, the better off you will be. The author of the article suggests forgetting personas and just focusing on your customer stories. Do both actually -- they are important. Customer stories give great insights into needs. Personas represent the emotional core of your customers. Two sides of the same coin. Make sure you read the article so you'll know a bit more about how to gather your customer stories. From there you can craft your personas so they are meaningful and help you generate the results you are looking for. Crafting personas and developing characters requires excellent listening skills -- not just to understand, but to listen for needs. That means developing empathic listening skills. Search this curation using the 'listening' tag in the filters tab above to get solid articles on how to do this. Thanks for finding and sharing this Marty and Gregg! This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it 
Martin (Marty) Smith's curator insight,
March 30, 7:31 AM
When In Doubt, Gather Customer Stories 
malek's curator insight,
April 4, 7:16 PM
so true"t's rare to come upon an article focusing on character development" Delete the scoop?
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Tips on creating buyer personas to improve your marketing strategy and content marketing development.
Karen Dietz's insight:
Here is a niftly how-to article on creating Personas by Dayna Rothman in order to target your marketing efforts and be more successful. What is the connection to storytelling? Well.....Personas are not stories. But they are the characters for your stories. Personas are the research you do to create compelling characters -- for your stories. They are who your stories are about, and who they are targeted to. Personas clearly help you identify your audience. Effective storytelling relies on knowing who your audience is in order for the stories to connect with them. At some point in your business, creating Personas is both helpful and an important activity to do. I like the suggestions in this article for how to do the research to create your Personas, the number to build (no more than 3 please), and the #1 mistake people make when generating their Personas. This article is not very long, but it does have lots of good tips. What I like to do when creating Personas, or updating mine, is to create a collage for each. It is much more fun and creates a visual record of each that my website and graphic design folks can use. Enjoy! This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling atwww.scoop.it/t/just-story-it Delete the scoop?
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If you want a seamless guest experience your hotel needs to have a story Heres an example how to turn story ... This is a quick yet very insightful article linking the interior design of a hotel, storytelling, and women's liberation. "Whaaaaattttt??!!" you say. Yep. It's a perfect example of how a hotel got creative and leveraged storytelling in order to market themselves more effectively, and increase sales. The post about a New York City hotel that originally opened as the Hotel Martha Washington. It was the first hotel in the country specially designed for women only. Based on the the building's history, the new owners of the hotel created a persona that typified women who stayed at the hotel. From there they created interior designs that connected together its history, the contributions of 12 women to our world, their identified persona, and their marketing efforts. Brilliant! I love how this company translated storytelling into the physical world through its interior designs. More companies need to be doing this for enhancing both employee and customer experiences/engagement. For all the details, go read this article. Like a chocolate truffle, it's small but rich with a lasting impression! This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it Delete the scoop?
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While it may not have been popular marketing theory at the time, the most successful brands figured out decades ago that it takes character to turn a product into a brand. When a brand has character, it takes on an identity of its own. Its every word, gesture, action, became natural expressions which make the brand instantly recognizable. What is the character or persona of your brand? The company Added Value has a tool called CharacterLab that helps you figure this out. There is a free demo to try at this site. The demo will give you a series of photos and characteristics to rank. At the end it will give you the character/persona of your business -- if you are a sole proprietor. Give yourself some time to work through the demo -- it will get you thinking and the sorting isn't easy. But I was very pleased with my results! Turns out my business is characterized as the Creator/Sage. Just make sure you take notes at the end. I tried to bookmark my results, but when I tried to view that page again, it led me back to the original demo page. Bummer! But understandable. Once you have your results then the real work begins -- crafting your brand to be in alignment with your character/persona. That includes aligning the language you use, your colors and graphics, web design, and marketing materials to your character/persona. Knowing your character/persona really takes a lot of the mystery out of creating your brand and telling your stories. So go have fun! This review was written by Karen Dietz for her Just Story It Scoops at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it Delete the scoop?
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"Untangling the Social Web" is a multi-part whitepaper from Integer that attempts to quantify the relationship between social media and busi... Personas are a great tool for helping you craft your biz stories and connecting more effectively with your customers. Personas are basically little stories you create about your main customer types (with lots of pics!). This article shares 4 social networking Personas and how they interact on line. With this information you can start crafting your stories to connect with the Personas that fit best with your business. Oh, and by the way -- which Persona are you? I'm the Professional I think :) As the author says, "Take a few minutes to review the full whitepaper (it’s free!) Think about your customers and which of the four types suits them best. Then, take a look at your social media posts over the last few weeks. Are you speaking to your audience? If not, it’s time for a new plan." But before you do that, also check out Carol Pearson's book "The Hero & The Outlaw" (http://www.amazon.com/The-Hero-Outlaw-Extraordinary-Archetypes/dp/0071364153/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331399222&sr=1-5) which is all about how to identify and use specific archetypes of your customers and how to shape your marketing content and stories towards them. Thank you to fellow curator Namita Patel for finding and sharing this article! Check out her content at http://www.scoop.it/t/social-media-mashup 
Karen Dietz's comment,
March 12, 2012 11:15 AM
Thanks for re-scooping this Debra! Have an awesome week :)
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Free B2B buyer persona development tool Just as every B2B company stakes a claim to a market position, each of them has a story to share. The challenge is
Karen Dietz's insight:
I think this article is a bit disjointed and confusing, but I scooped it anyway because of 2 pieces:
Buyer personas are not mentioned in the article, but go grab the free tool. The list of mistakes is right on. I also like the insights in the section on Story Drivers where author Lee Oden talks about consistency and keeping stories fresh. There may be other tips and insights you glean as you read the article plus the comments. For me, maybe I just need more coffee today to get my neurons firing! Let me know your take-aways. This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling atwww.scoop.it/t/just-story-it Delete the scoop?
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![What does your brand stand for? [infographic] | Just Story It | Scoop.it](http://img.scoop.it/wMM2aHCw39oZ2oUhS6iaijl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVaiQDB_Rd1H6kmuBWtceBJ)
A brand is like the lead character of its own story. And like any story character, brands have values and beliefs that become associated with them through their actions. The challenge for marketers is to characterize their brands first before... Here's a terrific infographic from colleague Jim Signorelli that will help you create a persona for your business. Once you have a persona, it becomes much easier to target your storytelling and marketing/branding efforts. And connect more forcefully with customers. There are 2 ways of finding your persona:
What is a persona? It is a descriptive profile of a typical customer that includes a character type/archetype, demographic info, and as much flesh and bones information you can collect to create a bit of a story about this customer -- their likes, dislikes, challenges, etc. Thanks Jim for putting together this very helpful infographic. And if you want to dig into this topic more -- and get even smarter about using archetypes for marketing/branding -- read The Hero and The Outlaw; Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes by M. Mark & C. Pearson. It's one of my bibles :) This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it Delete the scoop?
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We use web browsers every day and don’t really think about them until something goes wrong. Google Chrome crashed on me the other day and I got the iconic “Aw, Snap!” page with the unhappy folder icon. Instead of being cross at the error, it made me smile, and I was more forgiving of the browser for crashing. This is an example of how personality can engage customers’ emotions and help them build a stronger relationship with your brand. What a great article! It is all about the risks and rewards of developing your brand with personality. Why should you bother? Because once again, it is all about emotionally connecting with your customers/prospects. It is giving them an experience. It is using the 'character' story element for creating effective biz stories to the max. The authors give terrific examples and lay out for us step-by-step the reasons and actions to take for developing a brand personality. Oh, and BTW -- it is not about creating a veneer or fake personality just to make sales. It truly is all about the authentic YOU. Enjoy reading this post. I think you will find it enormously helpful as you continue to craft the personality of your business. Review written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it Delete the scoop?
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Kimberly Bordonaro outlines 12 common leadership brand archetypes to help you discover the unique qualities that attract your audience to your personal brand... The more knowledge we have about what makes leaders (and ourselves) tick, the better. And this article shines a light on common leadership Personas or archetypes in business. How would I use these? Well, as a story coach I often engage in a conversation with my client about who they are and how they want to be perceived. That gives us some groundwork for making sure their stories match how they want to be authentically perceived. Please don't think leadership Personas or archetypes are about creating fake or false profiles. We grow into the Personas and archetypes so we can embody them more fully -- while continuing to show up authentically. It's an essential part of story coaching work. So what is the stories do you want to share that match your Persona? Anyway, I digress. Enjoy reading these Personas and figuring out which ones you are about! This will help you with your 'About Page' also. Then read the other article I curated today on social media Personas. They are a good match to read together. Thank you to fellow curator Richard Andrews for finding this article. Visit his topic at http://www.scoop.it/t/success-leadership Delete the scoop?
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Many companies don't know where to start when it comes to storytelling. Especially, B2B companies. There is a good way to start and that is asking the right questions. And what a better way than to be ask questions geared toward the underutilized marketing tool of storytelling.