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Storytelling and visuals are two of the most powerful tools content marketers have. Both of these attributes can help get ideas across more effectively and increase engagement. Combining these two elements—well, that’s a recipe for success. How can marketers go about creating a successful visual story? Luckily, there are plenty of tools available to help you take a marketing yarn and weave it into a beautiful visual. Here are 11 of the top software programs, websites, and more for creating your visual content marketing stories....
Given the rising popularity of rare and aged whiskies in Singapore, The Whisky Corporation has brought their Glenfarclas Pagoda Reserve Series (the Trilogy and Ruby Reserve) of bespoke single malt whiskies from Speyside to Singapore.
Glenfarclas Pagoda Reserve Series
Since 1865, the Grants of Glenfarclas have carefully adhered to time-honored traditions of whiskey making. They explored their finest reserves and found valuable casks predating 1972 – the year their famous Pagoda kiln was decommissioned....
One of the most common challenges I hear from business leaders and marketers is this: “We have a hard time telling our story”. They have a desire to tell people who they are and why they’re important and yet they stumble when trying to explain this in a way that’s interesting or engaging. In essence, they have no idea how to tell their story — they are not interesting, so people are not interested. So, what’s the secret? How do you tell your story so people actually care? Here are 5 ways to start telling stories that people actually care about:...
When you combine the timeless necessity of storytelling with the sheer power of visual content, you arrive at one of the most potent forces shaping the future of communication today: Visual storytelling.
Here are some of the trends I believe will shape the future of this field by blurring the lines between once-neatly-defined concepts.
I just did what no startup founder is ever supposed to do.
I gave up.
It wasn’t even one of those glorious “fail fast and fail forward” learning experiences. After seven months of hard work and two weeks before we were to start fundraising, we had a good team, glowing praise from beta users, and over $250k in handshake commitments. But I pulled the plug.
My team and most of my investors are pissed, but I’m sure I did the right thing. At least I think I’m sure.
The business had what I considered to be an unfixable flaw. My investors and my team wanted us to take the funding and figure out how to fix the problem before the money ran out. I’ve started four companies in the past with a mixture of exits and bankruptcies, so I understand that this is what startups are supposed to do, but I just couldn’t do it this time.
This article is in part my explanation to the various stakeholders, in part self-therapy, and in part a call to other founders and investors to let me know what they would have done in my situation.
But when it comes to content marketing, there’s a component that doesn’t always seem logical: storytelling.
I’m not talking about writing a fiction novel. I am talking about having the ability to write about even the most boring topics in a fun-to-read way.
It’s something that many marketers, even good ones, struggle to do.
Do you also have trouble with this part of creating content?
I see you nodding....
Business Wire and Edelman Financial Communications & Capital Markets today announce the results of a new study supporting the use of visual storytelling in earnings reporting.
In total, 300 retail investors, more than 20 Wall Street professionals and select financial media professionals were surveyed about how earnings data is consumed, comparing traditional quantitative earnings releases with releases featuring visual, creative assets.
The conclusion was a clear consensus that using visual storytelling as a supplementary tool aids in the ultimate goals of investor relations professionals....
Most Popular Biz Storytelling Posts in 2015 + 2016 Trends
Each year readers tell me they want to know the most popular articles curated on the http://www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it site. So here are the top 10! They had hundreds of views and an amazing number of shares.
Data storytelling leads the way, but a variety of other topics made list. I've included their reviews so you can figure out which ones to explore....
In this article, we’re going to take a look at how you can implement a content marketing plan for a ‘dull’ industry.
We’ll analyze a few of the key beliefs you should have when it comes to content marketing for ‘dull’ industries, but also the specific tactics that you can put into action in order to generate results.
By the end of this post, you should be able to create incredible content for any industry you want to tackle now or in the future....
What happens when you hire creative writers to make up stories about cheap trinkets, and they post these stories along with the items online for sale? This was exactly what Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn did back in 2009 as part of their storytelling experiment, Significant Objects.
Significant Objects was a literary and anthropological experiment that “demonstrated that the effect of narrative on any given object’s subjective value can be measured objectively.” For this experiment, Walker and Glenn asked 100 creative writers to invent stories about $129 worth of items and then sold them on eBay to see if the stories enhanced the value of the objects. In case you were wondering how the experiment went: the net profit was $3,6 million -- a 2,700-percent increase in final markup....
Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, writing is back in vogue.Yet, fresh challenges stand between today’s business writing and grabbing the reader by the scruff of the neck.As we scrutinize our own writing and the associated internal training, we view seven issues that guide us....
Brand storytelling has become a buzzword within the content marketing community. It’s no surprise that storytelling is a more effective way to engage consumers than hard-sell marketing copy. Stories are wired into our DNA; ad copy, not so much.
We asked 37 marketing experts to share their thoughts on how technology has impacted brand storytelling over the past few years. This interactive guide summarizes their answers....
How often does an interaction under the business communications umbrella lend itself to a full-blown story, the type with a beginning, an end and something going amiss in the middle that must be overcome? Maybe 10 percent of the time, and that’s probably high.
That’s why we use the term storytelling techniques in describing how the concepts of storytelling can be applied to business communications. It turns out that within the classic story arc, those who entertain like novelists and movie directors depend on certain techniques to bring their material to life....
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Stories enable us to build personality and create a connection with consumers. But can we actually tell a story on social media? Is it possible to narrate a story with social media posts that are supposed to be short and sweet? It turns out there are many ways to use social media for storytelling! In this post, I’m sharing 20 actionable ways to use social media for storytelling.
Breaking the Top 10 storytelling posts for 2016 into two parts, I published the first part last week.
Here’s the second part, again reflecting the varied facets that make up today’s communications in the business world.
In spite of the massive changes in our industry, media relations and PR storytelling still matter, an apt way to kick off the rest of the list....
Corporate communications teams around the world are working hard at the moment to build and present a “corporate narrative” to the world. There are two factors that are the main cause of all this interest and investment. First, companies have become a lot more complex in recent years as they globalize and update their organizational structures; this makes it harder to communicate a single, clear company story. Second, the amount of information available to people, and the ease with which people can tap into niche sources of information based on their interests – personal or professional – make it increasingly difficult to cut through the noise and engage people with a company story. Two Trends But without a cohesive company story, communicators — and their CEOs — fear that messages about the company’s identity and direction will be inconsistent, making the company appear disorganized, or even disingenuous. Early findings from a CEB survey on the topic show two interesting findings about the way firms build a corporate narrative....
It’s in vogue for marketers to think of themselves as storytellers. But much of the marketing that gets passed off as “storytelling” really isn’t that much of a story. There is genuine power in stories and there are inspiring examples of brands that tell stories. But I think that often gets diluted by all of the content produced in the name of storytelling that is really just a thinly veiled marketing pitch. Not all marketing is storytelling. Not all content tells a story. Most case studies are just case studies. Most video testimonials are just video testimonials. Most long-form blog posts are just long-form blog posts. I enjoyed this 2-minute critique from Stefan Sagmeister about storytelling (from an interview ironically made while speaking at a marketing conference on storytelling).As he summarized, “Storytelling has taken on the mantle of bullshit.”...
I am super passionate about what I do in the world of telling business and marketing stories. If you read my stuff and know me, you know I am a storytelling nerd from both the business and improv stages—and proudly!
I love that storytelling is experiencing a “corporate Renaissance” across business, social media, social entrepreneurism, and executive communications. Storytelling is so much bigger than marketing. It’s the foundation of how companies communicate who they are in the world and what they stand for. A resurgence is a great thing, and storytelling itself—the original social medium for humans—is evolving in the business world. That is a great thing.
In doing my work, in chatting with fellow story practitioners and branding execs, and in doing research for a book to be published later this year, I’ve stumbled upon what I believe (and am already experiencing) the next wave of storytelling will look like. Much of it involves getting out of the way, empowering others, and thinking bigger.
Here are seven ways to jump on that next wave and reinvigorate your organization’s storytelling for more successful marketing this year....
I’m often asked how I wrote Putting Stories to Work. People want to know about the writing process and how I did the research. I had similar questions before I started including, How many words do I need to write? How many chapters should it be? What’s the best word processor? So in this post I want to share with you what I learned.
First let me describe the type of book I wanted to write. First and foremost it was important the book was replete with stories. It’s a capital offence to talk about storytelling and not tell a story. I also wanted it to be a practical book, a bit like David Allen’s How to Get Things Done. It was important that it was research based. I didn’t want to just say, for example, that stories are memorable without pointing to research that backs up my statement. I also wanted to share this research as stories of the experiments. This meant I was on the hunt for experimental research rather than theories. I read a lot of business books and I was inspired by Adam Grant, Malcolm Gladwell, Dan Pink and the Heath brothers, to name a few.
Do you remember anything at all when you watch ads -- or is the experience a hazy blur? The fact is, consumers rarely remember a product -- they remember stories, which may inspire the use of the product. That element is what online advertising is lacking. Two weeks ago I talked about the value of complementary storytelling vs. disruption. For advertising to be as effective as it can be, ad stories need to align with the content so that it, along with targeting, ensures relevance of the message in a way that elicits a response.
I also want to remind advertisers to spend the extra time to tell a story that inspires consumers, rather than simply telling them about your product. I don’t mean that all ads have to move you to tears. I’m referring to inspiration in the manner of a quiet...
In his new book The Storyteller’s Secret Carmine Gallo, communication expert and the bestselling author of Talk Like TED, explains why some ideas catch on and others don’t. Learn more at StorytellersSecret.com...
As digital video and streaming services continue to recast the viewing landscape, a handful of digital executives and Sundance Film Festival attendees pushed to have the burgeoning videosphere represented during one of filmmaking's highest-profile events—and Rick Parkhill, CEO of VMA Media, made it happen.
After securing support from sponsors Twitter, Fullscreen, Maker, Zefr, Above Average, Hulu and Naritiv, he persuaded festival organizers that this was, in fact, a viable extension, and Digital Storytelling was born. The event kicks off Thursday, Jan. 21, on the eve of the film festival, with additional sponsors including CNN's Courageous content studio, Fox Network Group's True(x) and The Huffington Post signing on....
Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make, but about the stories you tell,” said entrepreneur and marketing guru Seth Godin. On his blog he explained what makes a story great, “A great story is true. Not necessarily because it’s factual, but because it’s consistent and authentic. Consumers are too good at sniffing out inconsistencies for a marketer to get away with a story that’s just slapped on.”
Storytelling has become a skill that business owners can no longer ignore because of its ability to transform how a brand is perceived by potential customers. A brand that is able to tell a great story is more trusted and favored than a brand that doesn’t.
Today, brands can’t afford to be boring and overbearing with the promotion of their products. It turns a lot of consumers off; especially Millennials because they have gained the ability to filter out content that doesn’t benefit or entertain them. Businesses needed to learn how to integrate storytelling into their marketing and communication efforts to make their brands seem more appealing....
But what does a content strategy look like? How does it relate to a marketing strategy? How do you know you have it? Here’s a quick summary of what it looks like:
You know you have it when you use “outside-in story marketing” with every piece of content.
Outside-in story marketing only starts with: - Capturing the Story Person: a real external business person(s) - Capturing the Story Purpose: a realistic business situation(s) - Capturing the Story Program: a targeted, realistic story scenario(s)...
Not only is visual content integral to how we process information, but it also drives increased engagement from our audience.
What does this mean for brand storytellers? We should be investing just as much time and creativity into our visual content as we do for our written content. And yet, visuals are often treated as an afterthought rather than one half of the storytelling duo.
Visual storytelling doesn’t come naturally to many of us design-impaired marketers (myself included). Luckily, there are some established dos and don’ts we can follow to ensure that our visuals are relevant and effective. Here are four best practices for visual storytelling....
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Try your hand at some of these top visual storytelling tools to enhance your content marketing stories.