Tag Archives: storytelling

What the Pulitzers Tell Us about Successful Storytelling Strategies

Posted on April 16, 2013 by | Leave a comment

The Pulitzer Prizes for journalism were announced this week, and the winning stories represent a variety of different angles, techniques and tools that provide good ideas – and more than a little inspiration – for public relations and marketing communicators.

Breaking news:

The big winner in breaking news was the Denver Post, for their use of “journalistic tools, from Twitter and Facebook to video and written reports, both to capture a breaking story and provide context,” in their reporting of the movie theater shootings in Aurora CO.

The lesson:

A review of the Post’s response to the tragic event reveals a comprehensive approach that did a variety of things well – it delivered information quickly, created a hashtag around which people could coalesce, told the across platforms, and did a great job managing the extremely fast-moving story.

So what’s the lesson here for brands?  I’m going to step away from the obvious (but relevant) crisis communications parallel, because the real lesson here, in my mind, is how effective communications can be when an organization makes full and specific use of the myriad channels available to us today.   The Post blended channel-specific content and interaction with a heavy dose of the human touch.

Investigative & explanatory reporting:

The New York Times garnered awards in the investigative and explanatory reporting for long-form pieces on Wal-Mart’s use of bribes in Mexico and the business practices of Apple and other IT companies in Asia, respectively.

pp nyt infograf

This infographic is a small component of one of the rich elements the Times used to illustrate this story. Click on the picture to access the full presentation of assets.

The lesson:

It’s no secret that we’re living in an age of radical transparency. News travels fast and sways opinion immediately.  However, there is still plenty of interest in the deep dive.   Even though we may spend a lot of time whipping together blog posts, case studies and social status updates, there is still interest in the nitty-gritty – and from a brand standpoint, those are the details that can influence a potential customer.   Brands shouldn’t shy away from developing longer-form, meatier content.

Feature writing:

The New York Times racked up another win in this category, for a reporter John Branch’s “… evocative narrative about skiers killed in an avalanche and the science that explains such disasters, a project enhanced by its deft integration of multimedia elements.”

A snippet from the NYT story "Snow Fall." Click the image to access the entire experience.

A snippet from the NYT story “Snow Fall.” Click the image to access the entire experience.

The lesson:

The winning story the Times published looks nothing at all like a traditional newspaper story.  “Visually compelling” doesn’t even begin to describe it.   The presentation is immersive, and encourages the reader to delve deeper into the story by embedding an array of interesting multimedia components that do more than illustrate the story.   The take away for brands is the sheer effectiveness and stickiness a variety of good multimedia elements can create.   Utilizing a variety of multimedia elements has another benefit too – in addition to presenting the set of content holistically, chances are good the content elements can stand alone and create their own gravitational pull and traction in and of themselves.

Here’s the complete list of Pulitzer Prize winners.  Clicking on each winner’s name will enable you to access the winning story and related materials, where you’ll undoubtedly find even more ideas and inspiration.

Want to explore new ways to tell your brand’s story?  We’d be happy to chat with you about creating a video or a designing multimedia distribution strategy that will increase discovery of your brand’s messages.  We’d love to hear your ideas, and help turn them into reality. Contact us for more information.

 Author Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the e-book “Unlocking Social Media for PR.”  Follow her on Twitter at @sarahskerik .

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Content PR & Marketing

Tagged , , , , ,

SXSW: Forget Stories. Your Brand Needs a Narrative.

Posted on March 12, 2013 by | 12 Comments

If you’ve spent any time at all recently reading PR and marketing blogs, you know that storytelling is a top trend, and for good reason.  Building storytelling into the communications mix delivers the personable and engaging messaging that sticks with audiences and is effective fodder for social content consumption.

However, at SXSW yesterday, I learned where stories fall short in a brilliant presentation titled “Moving from Story to Narrative,” by John Hagel, author of “The Power of Pull” and co-chairman of Deloitte’s Center for the Edge.

The problem with stories, Hagel argued, stems from the fact that they’re not participatory.   Stories are told to the reader, from the vantage point of the teller.  This leads to the next problem.  Stories eventually end, and the reader moves on to other things.  Now, savvy marketers reading this will say to themselves that those other things can be influenced by providing compelling calls to action, streams of related nurturing content or the ability to participate an adjacent community.   Without a doubt, this is all true, but even the best CTAs don’t work all of the time.

Enter the narrative.

Narratives differ from stories in two important ways, according to Hagel.  First, narratives don’t have an end.  They are open ended, and the resolution is yet to be determined.  Secondly, narratives invite participation.   The inherent message isn’t “Listen” — it’s “Join.”

“Narratives motivate actions,” Hagel noted in his presentation.  “In some cases, they motivate life and death choices.  Stories don’t do this.  Every powerful movement that has impacted our world has been shaped and energized by a potent narrative.”

The “Think Different” slogan from Apple beautifully encapsulated the company’s narrative: how technology and intuitive design can enable people to achieve  more. As Hagel said, Apple founders Jobs and Wozniak thought differently from day one.

  • Apple:  Their charge to “Think Different” isn’t about Apple.  It’s about us, and how we can use technology to achieve more.  Apple is the catalyst.
  • Christianity:  People are born in sin, but have the opportunity to be saved.  How things turn out isn’t known, but it will be determined by people’s choices and actions.
  • The American dream — Anyone from anywhere can achieve anything:  This opportunity expressed in this narrative has drawn people from all over the world to America for hundreds of years.

“In a business context, if you can harness the power of narrative, you can derive competitive advantage,” said Hagel.  Narratives work because they don’t simply motivate employees, they can galvanize a broad swath of people, and inspire them to action.

From campaign to context

I took pages and pages of notes during Hagel’s presentation, even winning kudos for speed and thoroughness from the reporter sitting next to me in the audience.  For the last 24 hours, I’ve been noodling on what he said, thinking about how a brand might start to embrace narratives.  As Hagel mentioned in his presentation, narratives take root organically, growing from the actions of people, and they evolve over time.  They aren’t the product of a brainstorm session, so this post won’t contain Tips for Making Narratives Work for Your Brand or anything like that.

However, there are strong parallels between Hagel’s description of the narrative, and the move we’re seeing in marketing away from episodic campaigns, and toward living brand streams.  The clear message is that today’s audiences crave context, and communicators can derive more power for their brands by providing that important framework.

I’m going to go away and think about the narratives emerging within my company, and my industry, certainly. However, I’m also going to be thinking long and hard about the connective tissue content generates, and how that can be used to create context around opportunities.  If a narrative emerges, great.  But in the meantime, there are important lessons for communicators about what makes people tick in John Hagel’s work.

sarah avatarAuthor Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the e-book “Unlocking Social Media for PR.”  Follow her on Twitter at @sarahskerik

Is your interest in honing your brand’s content strategy piqued by today’s post?  Join PR Newswire and special guests Brian Solis,  Jim Lin and Lou Hoffman for a live event  in San Francisco titled  Tipping the Engagement Scale in Your Favor: How to Employ Multimedia Content for Compelling Storytelling

Related reading:

Create narratives, not stories – Moxie Interactive

Moving from Story to Narrative – @ItsDane

→ 12 Comments

Posted in Content PR & Marketing

Tagged , , , , , ,

Using Multimedia to Power Content Marketing & Tell Stories

Posted on December 12, 2012 by | 3 Comments

Last year, you may have watched State Farm’s PSA about the dangers of deep-frying a turkey. Even though William Shatner added some silliness to the PSA, the campaign proved to be effective, with a decrease in the number of turkey-frying incidents.

It became a successful example of a content marketing campaign many companies will strive to replicate — and now can, with the information provided from last week’s webinar, “Brands as Storytellers: Powering Content Marketing Campaigns through Multimedia,” co-hosted by Online Marketing Institute and PR Newswire.

Kevin Wilk, divisional vice president, PR Newswire’s MultiVu, began the webinar with the discussion of paid, earned and owned media, breaking down the individual media types, and then offered some tips to increase the effectiveness of the content a brand publishes.   Some of his key points included:

  • Paid media is when a brand pays to place ad or content on a channel.
  • Earned media is publicity gained when an influencer promotes a brand.
  • Owned media is when a brand owns a channel.
  • The lines between paid, earned and owned media are blurring.
  • Earned media is gaining importance.
  • More multimedia = more views. Text + photo, video and downloadable files can increase views by up to 9.7 times.
  • Distribute content to different channels to increase earned media, and this will increase in the number of views.

Maria Pergolino, senior director of marketing for Marketo, Inc., followed by introducing six types of visual content that can be used in a content marketing campaign: comics, memes, infographics, photos, videos, and visual note-taking.

  • Comics: They can be used to introduce or transition into other content, e.g.,    introducing a white paper.
  • Memes: They are not only funny, but they can share quotes or a customer case study by including a quote, photo, brand logo, etc. A meme helps tell the story in a condensed way, similar to the function of Twitter. Memes are also easily shared on Facebook, Pinterest, etc. They are a powerful form of marketing.
  • Infographics: They are a little bit harder to utilize. One idea is to use a white paper as the basis of the infographic. Visual content, and not just stats, are important in an infographic, so it needs to be creative and stand out.
  • Photos: They can tell a whole story and, like a meme, can be posted on a photo-sharing website. Photos help viewers get involved in the company’s story.
  • Videos: It is increasingly difficult to improve video quality, as well as use it to tell a story. It is an investment to create a video ($10,000 per minute – but it ranges), and much more expensive than taking a photo. If you decide on creating a video, you need to weave in your story.
  • Visual note-taking: Pergolino mentioned this is one of her favorite types of visual content. It is very engaging. This type of visual content can trigger memories of the topics discussed at an event, meeting, etc. After the event, you can take a picture of the storyboard and post it immediately to your company blog, without having to wait to write up a blog post. Visual note-taking tells a story in a visual and engaging way.

The keys to visual marketing success include: 1) create a compelling story, 2) choose the right type of content, 3) partner with others while telling your story, 4) focus on great design and branding, 5) promote your content strategically.

When promoting your content, use different social channels to tell your story. Use the right content for each channel.

Todd Wheatland, VP of marketing for Kelly Services, began his discussion with “what is driving this change”:

  • Mobile is driving change, because people want content that is quick and easy.
  • Being social is driving change, because people want to share content they think makes them look cool. They also want to consume and not leave the platform providing them with the content.
  • Content needs to work everywhere, e.g., laptop, iPad, cellphone, etc.
  • B2B marketers need to learn how to entertain, because people learn from people, not companies.
  • There is content inflation – the volume of content is increasing dramatically. However, you need to find a balance between expensive video content and a good story.
  • The sharing of video content on mobile devices has doubled.
  • There has been an increase in the amount of online video consumed, and the average length of B2B videos has decreased. People are watching videos to be entertained — keep videos short.
  • Trends in video marketing include the use of humor and case studies (people buy from people – relate to a human story).
  • There has been an increase in video content on landing pages.
  • Don’t skip on costs when making videos – it is a showcase for your company’s products and services.

Interesting Facts

  • The number of companies with YouTube channels increased by 39 percent in the last year.
  • There are six types of Facebook posts, but image posts get 20 times more engagement.
  • LinkedIn Today, which shows daily trending news and shared content, prioritizes heavily. When tweeting from LinkedIn, every RT counts as one LinkedIn “like.” This will help your news trend.

Wilk then concluded the webinar by giving an example of a successful campaign created by Multivu for Apple Vacations. He explained it is a perfect convergence of paid, earned, and owned media using one platform. In addition, it can be easily found on search engines and the content can be shared on different channels. You can view the campaign here: www.multivu.com/players/English/51242-ap…

The webinar ended with a Q&A. Here is some of the info shared during the Q&A:

  • B2B means businesses selling to businesses. B2C is businesses selling to consumers.
  • If your company decides to produce a video, keep the video under two minutes. There is a higher abandonment rate (the point viewers stop watching) after two minutes. You can test the abandonment rate for your videos by creating videos with different time lengths.
  • The best way to make sure your content is mobile-friendly is by testing it. Load your content and see. Also, there are sites like YouTube that make your content mobile-friendly.
  • The goal for a company using social media is to establish a presence on the social networking site and keep people coming back.
  • Video content should not be telling people how awesome your company is, but needs to be engaging and entertaining to your audience. The cheapest way is to have a “talking head,” but you need to be unique and entertain. You can have a “talking head,” but should add another dimension that is more entertaining.
  • Don’t create accounts if you are not creating videos, posting images, etc. It doesn’t look good to create an account and then not post to it.
  • When using images for your content marketing campaign, you can use iStock (purchase images) or grab from your company’s material. Stay away from images that don’t belong to you, and include images your company is comfortable with you using.

You can follow these presenters on Twitter:

Kevin Wilk: @MultiVu

Maria Pergolino: @InboundMarketer

Todd Wheatland: @toddwheatland

Access the archived webinar here: Brands as Storytellers

Author Polina Opelbaum is an editor with ProfNet.

→ 3 Comments

Posted in Content PR & Marketing

Tagged , , ,

Storytelling and today’s media environments

Posted on November 7, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Our organizations are full of stories which can attract and engage our audiences.  Shifting the strategy to incorporate storytelling can be a challenge, however, as is the case with content creation generally.

In this video, our CEO, Ninan Chacko, discusses the emergence of content marketing as a powerful discipline allowing brands to become true storytellers. He takes a look at the range of assets currently being used by PR and marketing professionals and the digital tools used to help illustrate and spread their messages far and wide across platforms, networks and search engines.

“The audience  is living across this broader landscape.  They aren’t solely present in paid media,” noted Ninan, in follow on comments about the changes in the media landscape, and the opportunities these changes afford communicators.

We think you’ll find his comments to be thought-provoking.   And if it’s been a while since you’ve thought about how different types of content and distribution strategies can build audience for your organization’s stories, take a quick look at this overview of press release distribution and other types of content syndication.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Content PR & Marketing

Tagged , ,

Storytelling: The Lynchpin for New & Traditional Media

Posted on October 16, 2012 by | Leave a comment

A potent video from Facebook Stories – it’ s a masterclass in storytelling.

Is being a communicator for some of the coolest brands a road paved with yellow bricks?  They must have big teams, large budgets, and journalists knocking down their doors, right?  PRSA 2012 International Conference attendees got a look behind the curtain at a session featuring:

  • Jonny Thaw (@jonnyjt), Manager of Technology and Engineering Communications at Facebook,
  • Karen Wickre (@kvox), Editorial Director at Twitter, and
  • Demetra Kavadeles (@metersd), Global Consumer Public Relations Manager at Skype.

Peter Himler (@peterhimler)of Flatiron Communications LLC, moderated the discussion.

I let my geek flag fly, got right up front and waited for pearls of wisdom to be hurled at me in succinct 120 character sound bites – that way I could easily be retweeted and and broadcast their genius across the social sphere. The good news? All three panelists had great wisdom, advice and practices. The bad news? Not in 120 character sound bites.

I found myself so enthralled with the content of their discussion that my tweeting suffered. There were some fun voyeur facts (Facebook has 40 people on their communications team, Twitter has eight, and Skype seven) and that Facebook’s team reports up to the COO, not through marketing.

In addition to all the new school tools, all three still give paramount status to pitching the media. What was truly revealing was not the “peek behind Oz’s curtain” but the very real conversation about storytelling, FTC regulations for bloggers, authenticity and transparency.

Storytelling and blogging have a symbiotic relationship. Both Facebook (
http://www.facebookstories.com/
) and Twitter (
http://blog.twitter.com/2011/11/introducing-twitter-stories.html
) have whole sites dedicated to their users’ stories to demonstrate their offline impact. All three companies have a lot of time and resources invested in creating a robust and engaging company blog. Dametra keeps things fresh by getting a variety of contributors creating posts, which then begged the question: how do you get them to write it?!  The consensus of the panel, and I suspect the audience, was that is the biggest challenge to the company blog. Jonny makes sure to offer kudos to those who write for the blog. He says it helps the contributor feel valued, and starts the momentum of others wanting to contribute.

“If they are too busy to even write a bad draft, have someone go over and ask them questions,” Karen offered.  “Provide them with a first draft to edit and adapt.”

As the discussion went on the issue of the FTC came up. They all agreed that when in doubt disclose. Karen referenced her time at Google and shared that she would edit Wikipedia from her corporate email address, disclose who she was, and let them know it was an edit for factual accuracy.

In closing the panel was asked about what companies best utilized their platforms. All three referenced media organizations as top performers. Jonny thought The New York Times does a great job on Facebook, Karen thought that The New York Times and NPR both use Twitter artfully, and Demetra thought that broadcast news organizations have ally learned to leverage the Skype platform well.

Some of the key take always for me were:

  • Harness your internal talent to help tell your story.
  • Be authentic and transparent – to not only stay out of trouble but to engage with your audience.
  • There is value in traditional media telling your story, social and curated content is complimentary.

In the end it still holds true, no matter the company popularity or notoriety as communicators we still have the same challenges, concerns, and conversations – they are just scaled differently.

Author Natalie Bering is an account manager for PR Newswire.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Digital Content

Tagged , , ,

SXSWi Day One: games, data, curation, storytelling … and rain.

Posted on March 9, 2012 by | Leave a comment

The view from under Vicky's umbrella

As South by Southwest kicks off, Austin is awash in people, flowing with ideas, drenched in jargon and deluged by Mother Nature.  It’s raining – a lot.  But Texas has suffered mightily from droughts recently, so we’re not complaining.

After meeting for breakfast, our team scattered.  “The Toms” (Tom Hynes, blogger relations, and Tom Miale, multimedia engagement ) headed toward one of the hotels for the journalism track.  Vicky and I dove headlong into the crowds at the convention center.  On tap – sessions about visual storytelling, gamification, video curation, big data and branding.

The key take aways:

Tom Hynes:

The key to telling a good story is first asking yourself Would I Share This? Ideally, the answer would be yes.

Rewrite your stuff. Even Spielberg has an editor.

Google says we have 3 seconds before someone hits the back button. Translation: sell yourself and do it quickly.

Victoria Harres

Brands: users define your brand and user experience designers hold the success of your brand.

Brands: users define your brand ..and user experience designers hold the success of your brand in their hands.

Brands as Patterns : #hashtags are patterns.

Tom Miale:

Big data is scary. By 2013, 667 exabytes of data will be generated…Only 5% of that will be structured.

The interview to end all interviews! Rovio announced the launch of Angry Birds Space today.

Sarah Skerik (me!)

I attended a session featuring Electronics Arts founder Bing Gordon, who also sits on the boards of Amazon and Zynga, and is an enthusiastic gamer. The conversation covered a lot of ground, and Bing offered some interesting perspective on game mechanics, and the nature of gamers themselves.

Gaming is the new MBA.

Every Fortune 500 company should have a gamer in the C-suite.

Gamers believe constant improvement is possible.

We’re moving from an era in which we learned by listening, into an era in which we learn by doing.  Gamers find the edges, and lose quickly.  They don’t read manuals. They see a door, and they open it.

Games are a system for creating meaning.

I also attended a session on video curation, which was the subject of an entire blog post titled Socially active videos and how curation drives visibility .

Related:  The view of SXSW Day One via Storify.

Day one is in the books.  We’ll see you back here tomorrow!

Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Digital Content

Tagged , , , , , ,

Social Media, B2B Demand Generation & Storytelling

Posted on June 16, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Yesterday’s Ask the Experts Digital Webinar titled, ” Using Social Tools for B2B Storytelling & Demand Generation, hosted by Marketing Cloud, ” was an interesting and enlightening session.  I loved the mix of perspectives offered by the panel:

  •  Jay Baer, social media strategist, author of the Convince & Convert blog, and co-author of The Now Revolution, @jaybaer
  • Elizabeth Sosnow, managing director of Bliss PR, @elizabethsosnow
  • Adam Metz, VP of business development, Metz Consulting, and author of The Social Customer (Sept. 2011), @themetz

As the title suggests, the discussion focused on using content in social channels for demand generation.  Before they dove into tactics, however, the panel discussed some social media basics.

First and foremost, Adam noted that in order to be successful, marketers need to discover where your customers are, at the correct time of need.   The content you create and deploy needs to fit the customer’s context.   He suggested that you look for the “watering holes” where customers and prospects congregate.  Quora, Twitter, and LinkedIn groups are all places, for example, where people go to ask questions and seek opinions, and for many companies are ideal places to find prospective customers.    Reaching current customers may be a different exercise, especially depending upon your goals – whether those are cross-selling, new product promotion or retention.  Destination communities that provide a level of qualification are good places to start.

Adam suggested that a social assessment is a good first step.  Assess the social landscape.  Find out what keywords and hashtags indicate conversations germane to your products and services.   Learn where the nodes of discussion exist, and map out communities, forums and discussion groups that cater to more sophisticated and experienced customers.

LinkedIn was the next topic of conversation, and Elizabeth noted that B2B organizations really need to invest in this network, calling it a “sleeper,” and noting that it has a big audience that is focused on doing business.   Her advice for establishing yourself on LinkedIn as straightforward and effective:

  1. Establish and complete your personal profile, to take advantage of all the search capabilities
  2. Participate in some Q&As – search LinkedIn for two terms that matter to you, try to answer one or two a week.  You can get leads & prospects from this exercise, and raise your overall profile.
  3. Groups are still a great opportunity to harvest prospects and find influencers.  Pick 3 groups that look meaningful, and engage – not just sharing your stuff but interacting and learning.

The group agreed that the B2B sales cycle is a long process, and marketers need to keep that process in mind when it comes to influencing.  People like to be engaged as they make buying decisions, and social media, deployed wisely, can provide another level of appropriate engagement along the decision journey.

At this point we arrived at the meat of the conversation, and it was really interesting as the conversation turned to storytelling tactics, and how they can work in a B2B demand gen social strategy.

Elizabeth offered a few examples, including what she called the “David & Goliath” story, and the “Hannibal Lecter” story, which (surprisingly, I thought) really do have solid application in the B2B space.

In the “David & Goliath” approach, the storyteller frames the story in terms of a smaller player facing off against a larger player … or problem.  In the “Hannibal Lecter” approach, the writer finds a “bad guy” – preferably a process or other non-human impediment.

All of the speakers agreed that atomizing and distributing the content you produce is a key practice, noting that in many cases, when we post content to our own web sites, we’re serving people who already have some sense of the organizations we’re promoting.  The trick, the panel agreed, is to reach a larger group of people.

Decentralizing your content is one way to put “more bait in the water,” as Adam characterized it, noting that you can turn one white paper into five blog posts, a webinar, a slide deck, etc.  Break up the content and spread it widely.

Jay noted that the decentralization strategy does require some discipline, in the form a hub (probably the company blog) to which the other channels point.  All of the content you deploy needs to ultimately point readers back to a point (blog, microsite, landing page, etc.) within the brand’s control that effectively represents the next step in the customer’s decision.   Here’s the full presentation deck:

marketingcloudwebinarjune152011final3

If you’d like to access the webinar re-play, click the image at the top of this page.

Author Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Digital Content

Tagged , , , , , ,