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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Scooped by
Dr. Karen Dietz
onto Just Story It |

For the last few years, storytelling for marketing, branding, business growth, organizational change, and leadership has been all the rage. And most of the talk has been focused on the need to tell stories, the neuroscience of storytelling, and simple how-to steps.
As time goes on, these discussions start maturing and I'm beginning to experience a shift in articles about biz storytelling -- to discussions of quality. Yeah!
Which is the point of this article. It is no longer enough to simply tell stories -- now we have to do it really well. Craft, quality, and substance are on the scene over slap-dash methods. As the author Brian Clark of Copyblogger says, "Create really good stuff."
Now in many ways this has always been true. Ever told a poorly crafted story and it fell flat? Yep -- because audiences will only engage with a well crafted story.
But now quality is showing up more and more in the articles I'm scanning.
There are some other points in this article that are important: info about Google Author Rank and listening to your audience.
I disagree with Seth Godin's quote at the end though:
“Most of all, great stories agree with our world view. The best stories don’t teach people anything new. Instead, the best stories agree with what the audience already believes and makes the members of the audience feel smart and secure when reminded how right they were in the first place.”
Well, that is certainly a condescending statement.
Of course stories teach people new things! For milenia stories have transmitted the wisdom, knowledge and values of groups and organizations. They are instrumental in making strangers friends, enlightening us to the ways of the world, and imparting 'oh' and 'aha' moments.
Instead of saying 'great stories agree with our world view' I'd say 'great stories connect us with the familiar and take us to new places'. In other words, when we hear a story it connects with the memories, archetypes, and mythological themes we've got running around in our heads, and opens doors into new worlds.
So what does all this mean for 2013? Keep practicing and honing your biz stories -- quality counts now more than ever.
This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling atwww.scoop.it/t/just-story-it
Good selling has always involved story. It is what draws the prospective buyer in and helps them to see what problem(s) you are offering to solve.
Well, yeah, content is what you pay to get into the game, but its the stories that make it work for you.