Want to Be a Great Storyteller? First, Break These Habits. Questions Everyone Asks About Op-Eds - Tue., Nov. 19, 2019. For years now, colleagues and clients alike have asked me numerous questions—umpteen, actually—about op-ed pieces. Now, as a public service and purely on a pro bono basis, I’ve boiled it all down to the top 12 questions. Here you go: Why should we invest our valuable time, ever-challenged energy and hard-earned expertise in an op-ed?
Maybe you should, but then again, maybe you should skip it. The first question to be asked is: do we have the makings of a publishable op-ed here? Sometimes the answer is yes, other times no. If the answer is no, your idea may be better off turned into a press release or blog post for a company website, or a deleted email. What basic elements does an op-ed need to be good? Who actually writes the op-ed? You can, if you want. What’s needed for you to do a draft yourself? A general sense of direction at the very least, as in a well-defined issue, not to mention a clear-cut point of view and some essential background. Some takes days, others weeks or even months. What expert authors can tell you about storytelling and business. When most business leaders hear the word “storytelling,” they get that "deer in the headlights" look.
To prepare for a presentation or meeting, they gather all the facts and stop there. And truthfully, it’s easy to spew out a bunch of facts, point to a pretty chart on a screen or do a “deep dive” into your KPIs. But if you want your listeners to really gain understanding, it takes more. It takes a story. From sales and marketing templates to B2B think pieces to social media hashtags, the term “business storytelling” is everywhere. Yes, the “irresistible power of storytelling” is pervasive -- and yet, what does it mean, and how do you do it? I wanted to find answers to these and other questions, so I went to work reading, listening, observing, and practicing myself.
In particular, I found value in Esther Choy’s "Let the Story Do the Work," Nancy Duarte’s "DataStory: Explain Data and Inspire Action Through Story" and Chris Anderson’s "TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking. " The Five Parts of Brand Storytelling to Include Every Time Spin Sucks. A couple of years ago, I happened upon a fun game that has become an internal activity of sorts.
It’s a buzzword game, and anyone can play it—you don’t have to work at Spin Sucks to play along. (Though we should totally create a way to play it in the Spin Sucks community and add adult beverages into the mix.) Just choose a set of numbers. Let’s say… 2, 9, and 4. Then look at the corresponding chart: systemized policy programming. Voila! Systemized policy programming. You can actually picture someone saying that, can’t you? It doesn’t mean anything and yet… Buzzwords Do Not Work in Brand Storytelling I’ll never forget this experience. He was on the phone with his assistant and it was clear they were preparing for a workshop the next day. He was very proud of his MBA and all of the buzzwords he learned in school.
As they discussed what was needed for the workshop, he said: You’ll have to order lunch. Visibility? That’s right. Major. This is a great example of why buzzwords do not work. He said: Passion. "Hyperscans" Show How Brains Sync as People Interact. 4 ways to electrify speeches through storytelling. Webinar Recap - Why Story Trumps Brand: How to Find Your Capital "S" Story. The Hero's Journey | Main. The Five Parts of Brand Storytelling to Include Every Time Spin Sucks. Primary Source: The Power of Storytelling in Business. February 1, 2018 [tom merton] Let’s reimagine a famous Biblical tale for a moment. Moses is wandering the desert when God speaks to him. He tells Moses he has heard the cries of his people in Egypt and wants to know how Moses will lead them out of captivity. God is so overwhelmed by all the data that he sends Moses back to the desert, telling him he does not have what it takes to lead the Israelites to a land of milk and honey.
Despite its context, this reimagined interaction between Moses and God occurs quite often in the workplace, where we’re treated to endless slides from people who mistake presentations for engaging storytelling. When I suggest that business people incorporate storytelling into their talks and communications, many push back, claiming it’s not their strength. Think back to your favorite teachers: What was it about them that held your attention? In business, stories can motivate customers and stakeholders. A man named John provides a great example. The Five-Step Process for Creative Storytelling at Work Spin Sucks. The Five Parts of Brand Storytelling to Include Every Time Spin Sucks. Check out this fool-proof formula for education marketing. By Emily Embury on October 19th, 2017 | 0 Comments The content options for marketing in education are seemingly endless and often overwhelming.
Go from PR Pro to Superhero! Our Amazing, Incredible, Invincible PR Strategy Checklist is jam-packed with wisdom and resources to keep you saving the day!. How do you know that what you’re allocating time and resources to will bring the results you need? What you need is a formula or a plan to help tie your education marketing strategy into your larger corporate strategy. Let’s look at how the 30-30-40TM Rule does exactly that. 30% strategic development Dedicate 30 percent of your time to strategic development. With a clear path at the overall organization level, end goals in mind on a department level, and step-by-step milestones outlined along the way, it becomes crystal clear where content creation fits best. 30% content creation With a thoughtful plan in hand, get to work creating content. 40% promotion This article originally appeared on the C. 4 ways to maintain communication credibility | Articles | Main.
Get inspiration and support from these writing podcasts | Articles | Main. Jennifer Aaker: Harnessing the Power of Stories. Science of storytelling: why and how to use it in your marketing | Media Network. “They lived.” Telling a story in two words is a bold move, but Subaru does it in a compelling 30-second commercial. At first glance, hunks and scraps of metal that once resembled a vehicle make it seem as though whoever was in the car at the time of impact could not have survived.
But with Subaru, they did. Powerful stuff. Yet it’s not the product that holds the power here – it is the power of storytelling at its best. This short commercial is just one example of influential storytelling in marketing. Psychology Today highlights the influential role of emotion in consumer behaviour in four points and makes a compelling case for storytelling: • Functional MRI neuro-imagery shows that, when evaluating brands, consumers primarily use emotions (personal feelings and experiences) rather than information (brand attributes, features and facts).
Prior to this work, researchers in Spain found that being told a story drastically changes the way our brains work. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 4 ways to boost your storytelling magic | Articles | Main. 4 content marketing lessons from 'The Simpsons' | Articles | Main. TEDxGallatin - Amanda D'Annucci - Storytelling, Psychology and Neuroscience. How storytelling can boost the effectiveness of your email campaigns - Agility PR Solutions. Times have changed since then, but storytelling is here to stay, and it still plays a dominant role in our modern lives. We all enjoy stories very much simply because they activate our brains. Boring facts, list of features, product descriptions won’t make you too excited. If you have six minutes, I would advise you to check out this TED video below. It’ll help you understand the power of storytelling from a scientific perspective. Okay we all agreed that storytelling is a powerful marketing tool. Create a likeable hero We all have our favorite movies, and in most of them there’s a hero, a special person who we can relate to and who moves our hearts and minds easily.
I have to admit that it’s not easy to come up with a hero especially if you are into B2B. Tell your own story and make yourself the hero It can easily work, if you have a personal brand or you are the face of a small business. Simply by telling your personal story you can show your clients that you are one of them. How to Create Content that Deeply Engages Your Audience. Infographic: A guide to designing and giving perfect presentations | Articles | Main. Repackage Your Long-Form Article Into Something Memorable. Everyone has that one piece of content that they are really, truly proud of.
It is long, thorough, full of information and entertaining enough to keep people reading. It stands on its own and has remained for some time as the most popular item on your website. The amount of traffic from that single long-form article trumps every other piece of content you have ever written. In spite of its incredible popularity, you could be getting even more out of that post. Related: 10 Tips for Creating Effective Business Videos Examples of content repackaging. Break into email lessons You don't have to recreate the wheel here. So while that article you have written is a masterpiece, not everyone who comes across it is going to get through the whole thing.
Set up an email course using email marketing tools like Mailchimp and GetResponse and regularly send to your subscribers. Make access to content exclusive Create an ebook Long-form articles, especially multiple ones, make great ebooks. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 3 fundamental elements of superb storytelling. The human mind is structured to remember stories, not facts, or things, or lists, or even ideas. Here's proof. We are much safer today, in 2016, from crime in general and terrorism in particular, than we were in the 1970s.
The crime rate was much higher then, and the number of terrorist incidents was much higher then, too. Yet you don't believe that. Why not? Because your brain remembers the recent, horrible stories of attacks in San Bernardino or Paris or Brussels or somewhere else. You don't remember stats, unless you're a math nerd, and those numbers geeks are few and far between. In any case, statistics can't compete with facts because your brain is wired to take incidents—especially recent, horrible ones—and create stories, attaching emotion to them. Stories are more memorable than facts, because stories align with the way our brains are wired. [FREE DOWNLOAD: How to break bad news to staff and take tough questions head on.] Yet you don't tell great stories when you give presentations.
3 crucial questions for telling vibrant data-centric stories. "I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one . " —Flannery O'Connor My college English professor once told me that I wasn't an interesting read. His task was to teach me the tactical aspects of writing, but he also felt—as my audience—that he had the duty to critique the content of my papers to help me reach my full potential. It was tough to hear, but it helped me think from the audience's perspective. It moved me from, "This sounds like something fun to write about," to, "What would appeal to him? " It paid off. My next paper was based on something he'd said in passing about an event in history many believe never happened. That paper garnered me an A. As he walked through the aisles passing out the graded papers, he told the class that one student managed to do something no other student had ever done before—make him cry.
When he handed back my stapled pages, he leaned in and said: "That was you. 1. United Healthcare is a great example. 2. 3. (Image via) How to create effective emotional storytelling videos. Effective advertising is all about communication; conveying your brand’s message in a manner that’s clear, memorable and will resonate with the target audience. In order to communicate successfully, video marketers can trigger emotional responses with storytelling. Stories can be incredibly powerful for brands, because as humans we’re hardwired to engage with them; it’s how we learn, it’s in our DNA. This is what makes content marketing so powerful, and the reason why so many brands are using it in their marketing mix. Video is the most powerful medium for delivering these messages, because you can replicate the human experience on film, instantly conveying whatever story you want to tell.
The more your audience can identify with your characters, the greater the emotional response, and the more effective your content will be. Video also gives you control over your story’s pacing to create a strong structure, another key element to successful storytelling. What are you trying to say? Using the ‘hero’s journey’ arc to tell employees’ stories. How many of your childhood bedtime stories started, “Once upon a time”? Probably more than you can recall. Whatever the unfolding plot was, you knew it would contain a beginning, a middle and an end, with ups and downs along the way. Any mild peril that the story’s hero or heroine faced was always resolved; their journey through the treacherous jungle or to the top of the villain’s castle to defeat the enemy was done without a hair out of place.
These tales from faraway lands were—unbeknown to your younger self—structured perfectly. The format always worked, and it never strayed off course. The narrative was on point; it told you what the hero was doing, why they were doing it, where they had come from and where they were going. Storytelling’s enduring power Fast-forward a few years (OK, maybe 20 or 30) and that kind of narrative is still what makes us buy into something in the workplace. Conference: Learn to engage your employees with storytelling that turns heads. Sharing personal stories. 5 websites that will sharpen your storytelling. One of the many hats PR engineers wear is storyteller. Between juggling data, gathering insights and managing relationships, how can PR pros find time for inspiration? How do we stay up to date with the latest industry ideas on persuasive storytelling. I've gathered a few sites and blogs that keep me sharp and inspired.
Sign up for their newsletters or follow them on social media. Here are five sites that'll sharpen your storytelling: 1.Copyblogger This blog tells how to streamline your content creation, measure success and write authentic, branded stories. 2. Created by writer Maria Popova, this ad-free online digest is a delightful mix of thought-provoking essays and her reflections, Read an illustrated article about the dynamics of workplace friendships or a debate about science and art (sprinkled with inspiring quotes).
[CONFERENCE: Join us McDonald's headquarters to learn how to use storytelling to drive employee and customer engagement.] 3. 4.Influence & Co.' 5. Change the Story, Change the World Part 2 with Andy Goodman. Three Approaches to Effective Brand Storytelling by @lkpetrolino Spin Sucks. By: Laura Petrolino | February 24, 2015 | By Laura Petrolino OK class! Today we are going to discuss an interesting psychological phenomenon called Pareidolia. Why do we as professional communicators care about Pareidolia? Stories Create Our World Pareidolia is the perception of meaning or significance in an object (normally an image or sound) where none actually exists. Common examples include seeing faces of people or animals in clouds, Jesus sightings in cornflakes (in fact Jesus is seen in a lot of food items,) rocks that look like your dead grandmother, hidden messages on records, and similar occurrences.
Pareidolia is all about storytelling. And this tendency is what fuels effective brand storytelling and content marketing. Our world is made up of stories—the stories we tell ourselves and those we hear from others. As communicators trying to create effective messages, we must understand how these stories affect our target consumer. Brand Storytelling is Framing Frames are affected by: 7 habits of highly effective content marketers. These days, few marketers will dispute the need for a thoughtful and robust content marketing strategy. Most brands are upping their investments and output for content creation and dissemination. But that doesn't mean all those dollars are being put to effective use. The effectiveness of your content marketing, as with any strategy, will depend heavily on your brand and the space in which it plays. For example, according to 2016 reports from the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, B2C marketers rank e-newsletters, in-person events, illustrations and photos, and social media content as their most effective tactics.
Meanwhile, B2B marketers list in-person events, webinars, case studies, and white papers as their most effective tactics. But effective content marketers aren't just defined by their channel and tactic usage. They respect basic journalistic principles They're not afraid to get emotional They get outside their comfort zones (and own demographics) They look beyond sales. How to Put More Emotion in Storytelling | DigitalNext - AdAge. How to Put More Emotion in Storytelling | DigitalNext - AdAge. Four Elements of Successful Brand Storytelling Spin Sucks. Forbes Welcome. Storytelling: What Did The Comedian Say to The Marketer? Spin Sucks. 5 ways to translate your storytelling to PR. 5 ways to translate your storytelling to PR. The Storyteller's Secret - Carmine Gallo by Carmine Gallo on Prezi.
Forbes Welcome. The Power of Storytelling in PR. 6 Resources That Will Make You a Better Storyteller. MarketingBuddy | 7 writing and language sites you should know about. Six writing lessons from William Zinsser. Tips for those involved in writing website language. 5 Ways Storytelling Can Kill Your Message. The Science of Storytelling. An A-to-Z Guide to 2012's Worst Words - Entertainment. Literally The Worst Word On The Planet. Secret of Good Writing - 11/05. The A to Z of Excellent Copywriting. Best Quote Sites #websites #socialmedia #quotes #quotations. 10 Ways Specificity Will Help You Build a Profitable Audience. The power of story and theme. 3 Reasons to Master the Art of Storytelling. The Secret to Powerful Communication in Two Words. How brain science can make you a better writer. Storytelling vs. Corporate Speak (A Graphic) | Brandtelling. Three Basic Elements of Content that Spreads. Once Upon A Time At The Office: 10 Storytelling Tips To Help You Be More Persuasive.
Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability. Infographics in PR. An infographic about infographics. Using Stories to Overcome Fear - Peter Guber - The Conversation. Tell Stories - Stepcase Lifehack. Great Leaders are Great Storytellers : Managing. MLK Shape of Spectacular Speech: A Visual Analysis of MLK's "I Have a Dream" Six Things You Need To Know About Body Language | Media and Presentation Training.