We are all content marketers now – Charles Cooper (The Rockley Group)

Another content strategy session this afternoon, this time with Charles Cooper from The Rockley Group.

Stories

Any information that we want people to remember is best told in a story. We have used many techniques over time to present stories as a form of communication. We have changed the way we display content to match the medium and the time is upon us to tell these stories at anytime, anywhere and using any number of mediums.

People learn better when they are engaged. If we focus on the output,mew tend to forget about the engagement, and feedback is good.

Feedback

We need to move away from our broadcast default and learn to embrace conversation. Feedback is essential in many industries outwith our own.

Fewer than 40% of technical writers have any contact with their customers. Facilitation is available through CRM channels, amongst others.

Content marketing

There are many names for content marketing such as inbound and branded, but the discipline is the same.

Content marketing, when done well, contains a feedback mechanism that drives engagement and ownership among customers.

By understanding customer needs, content marketers have a goal to promote/invite deeper engagement. Within the content itself this could be in the form of related links, deeper links and rich media peripherals. Don’t make the customer search for depth and related content.

Customer satisfaction

Tools that don’t need a manual help to solve problems, anything more complex or convoluted only create problems and frustrations.

Titles are important and should be longer, inviting, memorable and contain your product name front and centre. This is different to technical communication where short, descriptive and task focused titles are needed.

Shareable content

Content marketers excel at producing content that is shareable and exchangeable. They create information with this in mind, providing tools and CTAs for this purpose and integration with dissemination channels. This provides the opportunity to extend the brand.

Rick media

Best practice for shooting rich media for use in content marketing:

• Less than 2 minutes
• No background audio
• Shot in landscape
• Use a tripod and use a microphone

Tell a story

Balance the provision of information with a good story. No need for an elaborate narrative, just enough arc to deliver the key information.

In summary

In summary, one way communication is dead. People carry devices with them all of the time, they expect to have conversations with businesses. Move from a closed cycle to one that embrace feedback and provide links so that your customers can spread the brand for you. Embrace rich media but embrace best practice, remember the story is important, whether told at length or short.

Storytelling, immortality and the content experience: the future exposed – Kevin Nichols (SapientNitro)

Due to events out with his control, Kevin was unable to attend this years conference in person. He was, however, able to run his session remotely through a screen share and VOIP.

Kevin is the Global Content Strategy Lead for SapientNitro, the worlds largest digital agency.

Storytelling

Storytelling has become huge in the content industry and is not just restricted to content marketing.

Content is information that is recorded and is covers a broad spectrum. Even if we design for single channel experience, we need to consider the experience out with this.

A content strategy helps us to determine the stories that need to be communicated and to whom, when and how.

Challenges

When thinking about the content you are creating, consider whether the stories deserve to be preserved for time. Is the content of enough value to sustain itself and be usable. Have we lost sight of a good story? Has money taken precedent over creation of valuable stories? Has emphasis on channel overtaken the story itself?

When mobile first is cited, this now means tablets before phones before desktops.

What makes good stories?

A good story shouldn’t have a shelf life, it should transcend time itself and be relevant. The Assyrians created stories that were important, had a strategy and tactics to capture and record their stories. Good stories, when done well, have a timelessness and can be reinvented.

Following breaks to the connection, the session was aborted and will be replaced with a webinar of the original talk at a later date.

Workshop: What content strategy can learn from Hollywood – George Webster (Critical Mass)

Curious little workshop session by George Webster (@criticalmassLDN) regarding the creation of a framework for storytelling.

So what is a story? Simply put, a story is an in-balance or disruption and consists of a:

• hero
• desire
• villain
• mentor

The story frameworks demonstrated can and should be used to ideate George’s hope is that through using the tools outlined in this session someone in the room will create a campaign that hits 1 million hits online.

We can create story lines that resonate with customers using one or more of the following:

• We can scare them, create anxiety
• Empower them
• Give them magic powers
• Lie to them with comic effect
• Tell them the truth to comic effect

As this is a workshop, George led us in a round of discussions around the narrative for stories concerning Listerine, Dove, Lynx and Old Spice.

We discussed who were our heroes, what did they want to achieve and what was standing in their way.

So how to create engaging, successful stories? We start with creating a strong POV for our central character. Give this character ownership of the POV and exaggerate to extreme.

Next, you could consider a clash of context – a forced union of incompatibles. These stories are broken down into:

• unbelievable characters in the real world
• real characters in the real world.
• comic opposites
• old hero versus change hero
• hero versus rival

These story creation and ideation tools are transferable and can be applied to any brief. We were shown how ideas evident in films can be applied to creation of brand campaigns as eveident in the following award winning adverts:

• Epic Bus – Denamrk
• TNT Drama – Belgium

Recommended reading for story creation:

• Story – Robert Mckee
• Winning the Story Wars – Jonah Sachs
• The Comic Toolbox – John Vorhaus

Keynote: Strategic Video Storytelling – Scott Abel

Great start to the conference from The Content Wrangler – Scott Abel (@scottabel).

So the importance of storytelling in a world of interconnected devices. Illustrated beautifully by the first video – a take on the Cinderella fable.

Crearing immersive experiences increases ROI and brand equity.

Always about people and problems. Storytelling conveying emotion, embellishment and improvisation.

To demonstrate the emotional journey, Scott played a video of Apple employees talking about their sexuality. The video, called “It gets better“, was created in support of the Trevor Project.

7 archetypal stories to tell demonstrated by the following videos:

• Overcoming the monster – Chipotle.Scarecrow
• Rebirth – Chipotle.returh to traditional farming
• Quest – IBM.making a smarter planet
• Journey and return – Expedia.find your story
• Rags to riches – Chrysler.My son Steven
• Tragedy – St Johns ambulance
• Comedy – Kotex.Tampons

Other archetypes:

• Music Video – London Metro.Safety Campaign (Must watch!!)
• Explain how to – Infographics
• Plot twist – End marriage discrimination

To tell a story and get an emotional response and buy-in, these stories should matter to you.