The Strategic Storyteller : Content Marketing in the Age of the Educated Consumer

The world needs more storytellers. Storytelling is an inherently innovative activity. When organizations find their best stories and tell them to the world, they’re not only building a reputation, they're flexing the same muscles that allow them to pivot quickly around crisis or opportunity, and solve problems more creatively. For individuals, crafting stories is the primary way we can make sense of the world and our place in it. The Strategic Storyteller is a comprehensive, practical guide to transformative storytelling. In its pages you will learn how to: Tap into your and your organization's unique sources of wonder, wisdom, and delight Boost individual and collective creativity Understand the storytelling strategies behind some of the world’s most powerful brands Unlock the secrets of the great strategic storytellers of the past Build a place where your stories can live online Distribute stories so they have staying power and reach in the digital age Convene audiences by going beyond demographic stereotypes and tapping into enduring human needs Understand how unshakable reputations are built out of stories that accumulate over time Sooner or later all of us will be asked to tell stories in the course of our professional lives. We will be asked to make a case for ourselves, our work, our companies, and our future. The Strategic Storyteller tells you how. Cover 1 Title Page 4 Copyright 5 Contents 8 Introduction: A Call for Storytellers 10 Chapter 1: Wisdom, Wonder, and Delight 16 Glamour and Grammar 16 The Power of Stories 19 This Is Your Brain on Good Content 20 Strategies of Delight 24 The Runway and the Beltway: Informal Networks of Influence 27 How Good Content Helps Us Be Our Best Selves 29 Content Creates Guiding Narratives 30 What's Old Is New Again 33 How to Find Good Stories 34 Take me to your Leader 34 Play up 35 Getting the Story Approved 36 Chapter 2: The Age of the Educated Consumer 40 Why Politics Won't Teach You about Marketing 40 The Educated Consumer 42 Chapter 3: It's about Human Nature 48 Learning from the Best Human Storytellers 52 Chapter 4: It's Life Stages, Not Ages: The Generation Myth and the Power of Personalization 62 Data and Privacy 65 The Evolution of Personalization 67 Personalization for B2B 70 Dynamic Home Pages 71 Recommending Content Takes Experimentation and Hard Work 72 Push Relevant Content to Users, but Never too Often 73 Limit the Number of E-Mails you Send, and Keep them Personal 74 Approach Each Social Platform with a Distinct Strategy 76 Mobile and Omnichannel Personalization 78 Taking Personalization Off-Line 79 Chapter 5: Atomize, Serialize, Magnetize, and Keep Your Velocity 82 Solving for Distribution 82 Atomization 84 Serialization 86 Magnetization 88 Keeping your Velocity 90 Velocity Is Transformational 92 Chapter 6: Only Connect: Creativity and Consistency 96 Building a Content Culture 98 Inspiring Organization-wide Creativity 101 Individual Creativity 103 Practical Ideas for Sparking Creativity 106 Connectivity 109 How Brands Evolve 112 Chapter 7: Content Marketing Applied Part 1 116 Content Marketing Applied: The Content Hub 116 The Process of Creating a Hub 118 The Basics of Creating a Content hub, and what to Consider for Each Stage 119 Thought Leadership 121 Have a Strong Visual Vocabulary 124 Video 129 Images, Illustrations, Infographics, and Interactives 132 Emerging Platforms 135 The Best Content Hubs... 135 Internal Communications 137 Chapter 8: Content Marketing Applied Part 2 144 Knowledge Transfer: Putting It All Together 144 How the Industry Is Changing 147 Chapter 9: Asymmetrical Thinking 152 Afterword: The Future of Storytelling 160 Index 164 EULA -1 The world needs more storytellers. Storytelling is an inherently innovative activity. When organizations find their best stories and tell them to the world, they re not only building a reputation, they're flexing the same muscles that allow them to pivot quickly around crisis or opportunity, and solve problems more creatively. For individuals, crafting stories is the primary way we can make sense of the world and our place in it. The Strategic Storyteller is a comprehensive, practical guide to transformative storytelling. In its pages you will learn how to: Tap into your and your organization's unique sources of wonder, wisdom, and delightBoost individual and collective creativityUnderstand the storytelling strategies behind some of the world s most powerful brandsUnlock the secrets of the great strategic storytellers of the pastBuild a place where your stories can live onlineDistribute stories so they have staying power and reach in the digital ageConvene audiences by going beyond demographic stereotypes and tapping into enduring human needsUnderstand how unshakable reputations are built out of stories that accumulate over time Sooner or later all of us will be asked to tell stories in the course of our professional lives. We will be asked to make a case for ourselves, our work, our companies, and our future. The Strategic Storyteller tells you how Content marketing was born out of the desire to share knowledge and the newfound ability to share knowledge with audiences directly. Today, audiences are smarter than ever before. We live in a world of increasing transparency, one where information is only a click away and new tools have given a voice to many who might not otherwise be heard. At a time when marketing budgets for traditional campaigns are shrinking, the budgets for content marketing are only getting bigger year-over-year. Using research and reflection from over twenty years of experience studying the rules of perception (beginning in political polling, and pivoting to marketing), this book builds a framework for understanding both the why and the how of content marketing A comprehensive, practical guide to transformative storytelling, this insightful book provides the tools to build stories in a new way that coexists with the accelerated, complex tempo of our lives. -- Edited summary from book