storytelling

Evolving stories FROM Demographics TO Social Communities

THEME #3 FROM 7 PART POST SERIES EXPLORING THE EVOLUTION OF BRAND STORIES & THEMES

 

Understand_by_highersights

Great brand stories, not unlike human stories, can inspire vibrant conversation, sustained interest and engagement – especially within social communities.  But only to the degree to which there is meaningful and mutual interest.  Think about the ways we come to understand a person?  Our innate social instincts strive to find common points of connection, understand context, and interpret their behavior.  In other words, we synthesize what we learn and observe in order to better understand and connect.  Contrast this approach to what happens in business when a brand attempts to connect with people.  Ironically, the default response is to break down through analysis.   Strip down into simplistic demographic terms, and segment in order to shape what is known.  This process of re-interpretation is meant to simplify information – but in the long run it produces a distant and simplistic understanding of the customer.  The difference of generalizing insight/information vs. pursuing meaningful customer “intelligence,” is not only a difference in philosophy and methodology.  More importantly it is proving to be a significant business disadvantage.

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” – Einstein

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Building Customer Relationships with Branded Story-Telling

Brand-story-300x169There are some new buzzwords in marketing going around, everything from “Collaborative Marketing” to “Relationship Marketing,” and even “Branded Content.” But what do those phrases really mean and how can today’s businesses take advantage of them?

Well, we all know that consumers are becoming more and more contemptuous of push advertising, which has traditional marketers scrambling to find a magic bullet to replace it. But with what? When social came along and marketers mistakenly tried to force push advertising messages there, the failures were huge.

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Marketing 101 Lessons Social Marketers Shouldn’t Forget

In watching the social media revolution unfold around us over the past several years, there’s a recurring theme that keeps popping up. I see it all the time in discussions on “best practices” and in forums and blogs where marketers lament the fact that you can’t measure ROI in social and that marketing has completely changed. The “gurus” out there say it’s a brand new world—the past is past—we have to throw out the old and create the new, yada, yada, yada.

You know what I say to that? Phooey!

The number ONE reason some marketers fail when they try to use social media is that they DON’T take into account important traditional marketing lessons from the past—and I’m talking Plain Jane, Vanilla Manilla lessons that should be the bread and butter for any marketer. Social media doesn’t supplant traditional marketing practices and tenants. In fact, it enhances it when handled correctly.

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Guy Kawasaki on the Art of Enchantment

Guy Kawasaki is nothing less than enchanting. His vision and experience come to life through an inspired art of storytelling that is, well, inspiring. Guy possesses a truly unique and special talent to captivate your heart, mind, and attention.

I first followed Guy when he was chief evangelist at Apple. He introduced businesses to an entirely new art form marketing through engagement and empowerment. Over the years, I’ve also followed his work in Silicon Valley spanning from Garage.com to Alltop as well as pored over every book he’s written. I’m proud to call Guy Kawasaki a personal friend and I’m excited to share with you the latest episode of Revolution.

Guy stopped by the studio to discuss the release of his new book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions. It’s a lively discussion that takes us on a journey that focuses on the importance of engagement, enchantment, and delivering “magical experiences.”

Brian Solis

Originally posted on BrianSolis.com

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B2B Storytelling Case Study: Some Ideas Take Off In Unexpected Ways

I’m in the idea business. As a senior creative director and partner at a B2B marketing agency, I work at creative ideation and storytelling as it relates to branding and content marketing.

Every once in a while, when I have a really wild idea I think may have no chance of flying, I’m reminded of a story I was once told. It’s one of my favorites and I hope you enjoy it.

Barbershop-to-Biplanes: A tall tale turns out to be a true story

I don’t remember his name, but I will never forget him. One summer during a break from college, I was working as a physical therapy assistant at a rehab facility when I met this interesting old guy with a great story. He was a patient recovering from a stroke, and he told me the tale while I was helping him exercise one day.

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Deborah Weinstein: My Most Excellent Entrepreneurial Adventure

Last November I was asked by my dear friend Guy Gal to be a Keynote Speaker at The Biz Media’s Global Entrepreneurial Week Meet up. It was a distinct pleasure and unique opportunity to talk about my journey from feisty CBC reporter to PR maven. Our entrepreneurial spirit is still alive at Strategic Objectives, and I was excited to share my story with my fellow digital marketers. The crowd was warm and eager, the refreshments delightful. Here’s the video from of my speechification. I hope you enjoy my story as much as I enjoyed telling it.

A big thank you to @GuyGal and The Biz Media for hosting me and our @SO_PR social crew.

Deb Weinstein

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How to make your marketing alive in the moment

Marketers can learn much from storytellers. Over the past several of years, I’ve been studying storytelling and encouraging marketers to adopt the mindset of storytellers. One essential element of storytelling, though, seems to be uniquely in the domain of storytelling. It’s something Connie Regan-Blake calls “being present in the moment.”

Whenever I encourage companies to use video, blogs, and yes, even Twitter, for storytelling, my good friend, Sean Buvala, who IS @storyteller on Twitter, says, “Always remember, those are only shadows of an experience, not the experience itself.” Sean agrees with Connie: storytelling is a right-here-right-now-together experience.

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Cut through the marketing clutter with storytelling


“Oh come on!” the upscale fashion retailer said. He thrust his pointed finger toward to the daily newspaper spread out next to his cash register. “Look here, here, and here,” he continued as he pointed to three different ads by three different “big box” clothing retailers or discounters. “How many ads do I have to buy to get noticed? There’s just so much clutter,” he said while he smashed the paper into a tight crumpled ball and crammed it into the trashcan.

The Problem

The retailer’s problem is the same problem facing businesses of every size. Nate Elliott, analyst for the vaunted research firm Forrester, recently turned his research prowess towards the problem. In his blog post announcing his current research project, he asked, “How can marketers overcome social clutter?” He asked readers, “Do you feel it’s getting harder or easier for marketers to get a message to users through social media?” Readers responded with an overwhelming, “harder!”

The Villain

First, let’s define this villain called Clutter. Who is this black-hatted character bringing companies large and small to their knees?

To air traffic controllers and others who read radars, clutter is “a term for unwanted echoes…[that] can cause serious performance issues…” That’s a definition marketers can visualize, too. You’ll hear communications professionals talk about the “signal to noise ratio.” Everything that’s not signal, is noise—unwanted echoes, clutter.

The Faux Solution

Many marketers attempt to overcome Clutter by buying more ad space or airtime, sending out more direct mail pieces, making more cold calls, posting more tweets or updates. Instead of killing Clutter, they feed the sneaky villain.

The Hero

Squaring off against Clutter is our white-hatted Storyteller. The Storyteller is effective not just because of what he does, but also because of who he is. Through three key relationships he’s empowered to act effectively, slicing through Clutter and delivering wanted signal.

  1. The storyteller’s relationship to the story: The Storyteller believes The Story is a gift that’s been given to him and a gift that increases in value as it is given away.
  2. The storyteller’s relationship to himself: The Storyteller is focused on The Story and minimizes self in order to present the story free of personal interference.
  3. The storyteller’s relationship to the audience: The Storyteller focuses on the audience and their experience of The Story. He is committed to communicating The Story to enable the audience to not only live The Story for themselves but also to co-create its meaning.

The mindset, or heart, of the Storyteller prepares him to take action to cut through Clutter.

Essential Elements
First, you need to know your own core story. Your core story is a narrative example of:

  • who you are and what you stand for
  • who the big, hairy monster is (the villain)
  • what results customers achieve because of you

Second, you need to know your prospects’ core story. Their core story includes:

  • what they want to accomplish (what results do they want in the end?)
  • what gets in their way
  • how they feel when they’re thwarted
  • how they feel when they’re victorious

That means listening and paying attention to your prospects and customers is more important than ever. If you don’t know their stories, you won’t be able to share a story with them that cuts through Clutter.

Stories cut through clutter because, stories

  • connect with people emotionally
  • help us make sense of facts (facts, statements, declarations, and even offers overwhelm us; stories give us a framework to make sense of it all)
  • aid memory
  • aid word-of-mouth (we tend to remember in story; we tend to share in story)

Sharing your story

Adopting the mind of a storyteller, understanding your own core story, and understanding your customers’ core story are the first steps toward conquering Clutter and connecting with your marketplace. These foundational steps will take you far down the path of effective communication and engagement with the people in your marketplace.

Trey Pennington

What Don Draper Can Teach You About Social Media

Warning: Mad Men season four spoiler alert ~ In the season four premiere of Mad Men, Don Draper puts the new agency in jeopardy when he refuses to open up during an interview with Ad Age. His lack of candour gives the reporter nothing to work with. This leads to a bland article that fails to distinguish Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce from every other agency and causes a falling out with a key client.

Although Don is forward-thinking in his campaigns, he failed to recognize the importance of the interview and how the PR could affect the agency. He put his need to guard himself ahead of the needs of his colleagues, his clients and even the Ad Age readers.

Don’s reluctance to be transparent reminds me of today’s executives who are still hesitant to adopt social media.

Perhaps these executives are used to having tight control over their brands and are reluctant to make themselves open for public critique. However, the critiques will happen – regardless of whether you’re using social media or not. Consider how you will look if people talk about your company on the social web and you have no way to respond.

Here are three things Don Draper can teach you about social media:

  1. Transparency is key – Don learned a big lesson about transparency in the season four opener. To save his image, he had to overcome his desire to remain aloof and open up to the public. The importance of transparency also applies to social media today. People will relate to you better if they get to know you as a person – not just as a brand or logo. Social media allows you to build your reputation by engaging in public conversations with your audience.
  2. You can get a second chance – Although Don mangled his interview with Ad Age, he had the opportunity to redeem himself during an interview with The Wall Street Journal. When you’re active on social media, you can also create your own second chances. You can immediately respond to criticism and turn negative publicity into something positive.
  3. Tell a good story – Don’s first interview bombed because it wasn’t memorable. During his second interview, Don changed tactics and told a compelling story that would get everyone talking about his agency. He recognized that people remember and share good stories. Today, you can tell your stories through social media. The more compelling the story, the more word-of-mouth you will generate.

What do you think? Is Don’s experience in the season four premiere relevant to marketing professionals today? If Mad Men took place in 2010, would Don blog and tweet?

Rachel Foster

Giving away a magician’s secrets

Steve Cohen makes more than a million dollars a year doing magic tricks.

I will now tell you the secrets of this magic:

1. He sells to a very specific group of people, people who are both willing to hear what he has to say and able to pay what he wants to charge them.

2. He tells a story to this group, a story that matches their worldview. He doesn’t try to teach non-customers a lesson or persuade them that they are wrong or don’t know enough about his art. Instead, he makes it easy for his happy customers to bring his art to others.

3. He intentionally creates an experience that is remarkable and likely to spread. “What did you do last night?” is a great question when it’s asked of someone you entertained the night before, particularly if you can give the audience an answer they can give. That’s how the word spreads.

4. He’s extremely generous in who he works with, how promiscuous he is about sharing and in his attitude.

5. He’s very good at his craft. Don’t overlook this one.

I guess it comes down to this: if you’re having trouble persuading people to buy what you sell, perhaps you should sell something else. Failing that, perhaps you could talk about what you sell in a different way.

Important clarification: I’m not telling you to sell out or to pander or to dumb down your art. Great marketers lead people, stretching the boundaries and bringing new messages to people who want to hear them. The core of my argument is that someone’s worldview, how they feel about risk or other factors, is beyond your ability to change in the short run. Sell people something they’re interesting in buying. If you can’t leverage the worldview they already have, you are essentially invisible. Which is a whole other sort of magic, one that’s not so profitable.