Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

From beginning to end, a transmedia story should be a social phenomenon, one which draws people together and unifies them through shared experiences. At present, the industry is obsessed with creating toys and applications which are too exclusive. They do not address the primary goal of storytelling—bringing individuals together by revealing some truth about the world around us. 

Like the ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ stories of the 1980s, these gimmick driven products isolate rather than connect your viewers. Well designed alternate reality games are popular because they immerse players within the same social experience (the same way big talent shows like Idol or The Voice do but on a smaller scale). The players are unified toward a common goal against a common evil.

If transmedia is to be even more successful in the future, we need to concentrate on designed experiences that are socially inclusive which have the power to bring people together through common interests and goals. This will require that we take more care in designing the path along which our readers and viewers access our stories. Transmedial producers have a tendency of creating interactive experiences that are overly complex which ultimately deter audience engagement across every available piece of content. We need to define the ‘path’ between audience access points much like the map function on a video game so that audience members know where they are in relative to the story as a whole and where they’re going, regardless of which piece of content they’ve accessed.

Uncovering history as well as displaying statistics is really challenging and tricky, since traditionally both of them are associated with something boring and insipid that no one loves. However, it is hard to deny that we prefer visual over text, so why not turn this inclination into an advantage and reveal a series of facts and past events in a visually-appealing, engaging and alluring way thereby making a journey through history/story a really enjoyable and rewarding pastime. Besides, you do not have to reinvent the wheel, the solution is already here: visual storytelling is considered to be a new language for effectively and attractively communicating information.

The approach involves the utilization of modern techniques such as parallax scrolling or lazy loading animations that bring to life fascinating and impressive scenes built with the help of different themes and styles. There are no hard and fast rules: thus, websites that reveal history can be executed in a modern flat style or can be populated with glossy vector graphics, there is no obligation to bear a nostalgic feeling at all in order to become a masterpiece and draw attention.Want to see firsthand? Then explore our list that contains 10 informative and captivating visual storytelling online projects....

WASHINGTON, DC – Jan. 13, 2015 – Out of Eden Walk, a seven-year project by reporter and National Geographic Fellow Paul Salopek, will experiment with new digital storytelling techniques and share lessons to help advance the field of journalism....

Out of Eden launched in January of 2013 in Ethiopia, when Salopek, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, began an epic journey to retrace on foot and with minimal logistical support the path of early human migration, covering 21,000 miles. Since then, Salopek has connected with wide audiences and generated a huge social media following as well as dedicated supporters. More than 200 schools worldwide have signed up for Out of Eden Walk online curriculums....

...These are exciting times. New transmedia projects are cropping up left and right and the debate over ”what the definition of transmedia is?” seems to have taken a bit of a step back. All in all it feels like we’re slowly – or perhaps rapidly; these are things that can better be assessed in hindsight – moving towards a media and content world where there is no need to talk about transmedia, as every project is as transmedia as it needs to be to fulfil any potential that project might have....

Let’s get this out of the way, now — this, like many/most of my other lists, could easily be called “25 Things I Think About Transmedia.” It does not attempt to purport concrete truths but rather, the things I believe about the subject at hand. I am something of an acolyte and practitioner in the transmedia cult, and sometimes give talks on the subject (as I will be doing next week in Los Angeles).

So, here I am, putting my transmedia ducks in a row.

Please to enjoy....

[Chuck Wendig shares an entertaining point of view on Transmedia storytelling ~ Jeff]