It’s tempting to look at pop culture for insight into the zeitgeist, and it’s hard to look at pop culture without seeing a lot of Zombies. This may well not be a coincidence.
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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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Business 2 Community Your Fans Want to Know Exactly How You Did It Business 2 Community Allowing a portal into your process, your day-to-day, the story-boarding of what and how you do your work; even more, share extras about the senior and junior...
Karen Dietz's insight:
Be bold! Share your biz stories that are all about how you work. People love these kinds of stories. We call them backstories. What I like about this article is that it's kind of cheeky and fun to read. And the author, Chris Abraham, goes into depth about the advantages of back stories. Plus he gives ideas for the kinds of stories to share. Yeah! I like this statement, "Allowing a portal into your process, your day-to-day, the story-boarding of what and how you do your work; even more, share extras about the senior and junior staff beyond what their bio pages offer — those uptight, controlled, and boring bio pages." And: "But before you balk, don’t worry: while you might feel like your process may well be mundane, obvious, and boring, it’s new, exciting, and revelatory to everyone else." My hobby is hand-dyeing silk. When I was selling my hand-dyed silks at art shows, I put together a photo show that I loaded onto an electronic picture frame. I showed the entire process of hand-dyeing -- from selecting colors, to mixing dyes, to manipulating fabric, pouring the dyes, batching overnight, washing out excess dye, and then finishing the beautiful resulting garment for sale. It's a big hit and people loved to hang around the booth and watch the show. Then I was able to talk with them and sell them my pieces! (I'm still dyeing silk, but now creating pieces for clients as part of my biz story work). Go have fun creating these stories. I know what a blast they are to create. 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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The Tide Story: Storytelling to Reinforce Market Leadership - Brand Stories - New Age Brand Building
"The use of storytelling in brand communication by P&G is spot on. They tell us their story of firsts to reinforce their market leadership..." What a great example of a Founding Story by Proctor & Gamble. It's a 2:45 minute video that covers all the 'firsts' of this company. For any organization that has a history over a chunk of time, you too can craft a similar story. It will definitely help the customer get to know you better, and build trust. 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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These days, we hear a lot about the fact that content marketers need to be storytellers. Here are tips on how to create powerful content marketing stories. I've curated this great video before from Chipotle, but it deserves another look. Not only did the company win awards and 7 million views for the video, they also took it a step further and told the story behind making the video. Good for them! Back stories are very powerful. Here's the link to the back story video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFlbGwAW7rw&feature=relmfu And I really like how the author Manya Chylinski talks about the functions stories serve, and how biz or branding stories can have many of these same functions, but with a twist. Your stories are more than entertainment -- they are your authentic voice. You share them to build loyalty, trust, engage with customers, and grow your business. The author's tips are solid -- but nothing really new. So go watch the video again for a refresher example on effective brand storytelling and the other video as a back-story example! Thank you fellow curator Giuseppe Mauriello @pinomauriello for finding and sharing this with us! 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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Jim Signorelli outlines the 6 Cs of StoryBranding: a breakthrough approach to identify and develop a compelling brand story. Once again author Jim Signorelli nails it as he helps us understand how to effectively use stories and story elements in branding. Here he chats about the 6 C's of story branding and creating a StoryBrief:
What I like about the article is how clearly Jim connects the dots for us all. He brings a template to us for the StoryBranding process that also assists us in our communications planning. Read the article for the explaination of the steps and then get busy creating your own StoryBrief! Delete the scoop?
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Video attorney bios for legal marketing and content marketing should focus on visual storytelling, not just cost and frequency...
Corporate storytelling, personal branding, back-stories -- it's all here in these 3 videos about lawyers in a particular San Francisco, CA law firm.
And they really work! Or at least 2 of them do. The last one, not so much. I guess I was looking for more of a personal story like in the first two videos, instead of "This is a nice place to work and we have fun."
What made them work? Sharing a personal story right off the bat. And the first 2 videos were all about the "How I Got Started" topic -- one of the essential core stories to master for any business/entrepreneur.
Each video also had a problem/challenge to overcome and a key message at the end. Do these videos have so much punch they are going to change the world? No -- but they certainly are doing the work they need to do: they are engaging, give us background, and entice us to call these lawyers.
There are good lessons here for us to replicate in our own videos.
Thank you fellow curator Gregg Morris @greggvm for sharing this article! Via Gregg Morris Delete the scoop?
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This is a famous story about Claude Hopkins, the father of marketing, who, in 1919, was hired by Schlitz beer to create an ad that would save the company.
Karen Dietz's insight:
This is a really quick article that is a great example of the power of a back story to turn a business around. If you need a story in your biz story toolkit to share with clients about how useful back stories can be, then this post is for you. If you are still wondering about backstories and why you need to pay attention to them in your business, then this post is for you too! The story is short, but it will stay with you :) This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling atwww.scoop.it/t/just-story-it 
Karen Dietz's comment,
January 11, 5:14 PM
Michael, did you click through to the article by clicking on the blue title above?
Ken Morrison's curator insight,
January 13, 8:57 AM
Ken's Key Takeaway: Hopkins said, "80% of your time should be spent on the offer and the story. It may well be that you have worked so hard and so well and with such focus on your product that you too will not be able to see the true value that you have to offer and the best way to create your crushing offer."
Karen Dietz's comment,
January 13, 2:57 PM
That is so true Ken! We end up not being able to see the forest for the trees. I always encourage those working on their biz stories to get help from a colleague or friend for that outside perspective. That's what I do and it helps a lot!
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"Have you ever looked at your marketing materials and thought, “that’s not really me?” Been there. In fact, my (thankfully last) resume comes to mind. And, oddly, my mind wandered a bit, thinking how most marketing materials similarly fail to tell us what’s really unique about a brand." Well, I am embarrassed to admit this, but the author of Story Works, Sharlene Sones, asked me to review her new e-book months ago -- and I am just now getting to it. My apologies Sharlene! But better late than never I guess. I love this book. For several reasons:
Content -- Sharlene does a masterful job at guiding us through the business applications of story. She touches on everything from marketing/branding, unique proposition, sales, to leadership, culture, career development, and back. Whew! That's a lot of territory to cover. But she does it well. Sharlene explains how story will make a difference in these areas -- and WHY it does. And she gives us tips for using story in several applications. As a bonus, there are lots of story quotes to add to your list, along with examples from companies to make her points. What I particularly like is her focus on story as conversation -- and that story sharing is where the real leverage is in org story work. I may quibble a bit on some of Sharlene's points -- are testimonials really stories? Depends on the definition you use. For me, not so much. But the bulk of Sharlene's material is so right on, I am not going to be so picky. Sharlene also tackles 'engagement' as a topic and brings to light the story dynamics involved in that. I think there is still a lot to learn about storytelling and engagement in business, but this gives us a good start. I wish there had been more focus on listening, too. Implied in Sharlene's book is how transformative stories can be in business. A lot of what she talks about is story at the transactional level -- even when story provides inspiration and meaning. For example -- when a business is really in the story groove, stories have the potential to change both the teller and listener. Story as transformation in business is the next frontier I think. I could say more, but I'm running out of space. This book is inspirational and a good kick in the pants for bringing story into your core business activities. If you want a great e-book primer on business storytelling, this is it. If you want to go deeper, dig into the books by Annette Simmons and Steve Denning. You do have to buy this book. But you can also download a chapter for free. I have absolutely no affiliation with Sharlene other than we are colleagues and both went to grad school at the Univ. of Pennsylvania. Happy reading! 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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As The LEGO Group celebrates its 80th Birthday, we take a look back at its history with this short animated film. Find out more here, http://www.facebook.com... Here's some Friday Fun -- the animated story of LEGO! I wish more companies -- of any size -- would do something similar. I love LEGO and could still happily spend hours building things. Now I know the fascinating story behind it. Which makes me love those plastic bricks all the more. This is a 15 minute video (minus the rolling credits at the end). It's a little long and it could have been told a bit better. I found the narration a bit slow and sing-songy. Sigh. So the execution could use some work. But overlook that and it is still a great story! 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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Every day I’m asked how companies can create content that will be engaging enough that people will take the time to consume and then share it with others. What a great post! Almost every client I work with I encourage them to focus on sharing their backstories -- stories about how they make a product, stories about how staff do their jobs, all kinds of things. It's what everyone wants to know. They are engaging and powerful. This article talks in depth about it and shares some fabulous videos of companies sharing their backstories. At the end there are some questions to get you started. Thoroughly enjoyable and spot on! Delete the scoop?
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In a sense, to be respected & admired you don't need history as long as you have a "story" http://t.co/YIVpVJYx #branding #marketing... Well now, here's a thought: "...maybe instead of thinking about your story differs from the competition, think about how your brand story reflects your effort and how that it turn will inspire the consumer to make an effort and in turn elevate their personal story." This is quite a unique post because the author spends time on the all powerful back-story and its effect on consumers. She gives great examples of how consumer's backstories of your products create more customers who just got to have what you sell. The article is geared more toward products but could easily be adapted to services (instead of long lines of customers waiting for your fresh baked bread, think of a long waiting list of customers for your servicesthat you are scheduling into next year). Grab these insights and start working with these different kinds of backstories! Delete the scoop?
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This article by Alan Snitow goes right along with the other article I curated today on Anthrocapitalism.
Here Snitow talks about the massive shifts in consumer attitudes/behaviors that are creating shifts in marketing and branding.
The author suggests that one of these huge shifts is away from 'aspiration' marketing, where consumers aspire to buy their way into a better life, to 'inspiration' marketing. Inspiration marketing is focused less on what companies can give, and more on what consumers themselves can achieve. In other words, making customers the hero of the story.
But there is more here to the discussion and I encourage you to read the article. It's not that long and makes great points.
Even better, Snitow shares short videos of companies who have moved from aspirational to inspirational marketing. Perhaps this is what your business needs to do.
And once again, I wonder about the influence of storytelling. Of course stories fit exceedingly well into inspirational marketing.
Yet how much has the awareness, education in, and experiences with stories shaping the conversation and this movement? Maybe it is more of a chicken-and-egg syndrome.
In any event, I find it fascinating that this article and the one on anthrocapitalism show up on the same day but from different sources. And on the same day I received an email newsletter talking about how businesses are now in a post-Demming-process era and now in the era of valueing people in business. And the business was re-defining all of its work to meet this new direction.
Well, certainly these discussions about the value of people over profits in business have been around for years. Only time will tell if trend watchers are actually seeing shifts that will stick, or if we are all just spitting into the wind again.
How will you show up in 2013? Your thoughts?
This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling atwww.scoop.it/t/just-story-it