9 aspects to Boost your Storytelling

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1) Transformational. Stories are one of the most powerful tools around today. They have the potential to move us from one state to another. Stories can transform individual and group identities through their meaning. How does your story develop identities?

 

2) Mythic. The most powerful stories circulate above the fad cycle. They ascend to become myths, because they address and relieve tensions in society and collective anxiety. Where trends parasite and follow, myths lead and develop. What anxiety and tensions in society does your story relieve?

 

3) Social. The stories we share and engage in affect our relationships. Stories can reinforce, challenge and enable new relationships. How does your story add value to our relationships? Does it enable us to connect to new people?

 

4) Experiential. Experiences provide a great foundation for producing stories. It also works the other way around. When we engage in your experiences we invoke the story. Which experiences do you offer that generate stories?

 

5) Heroic. Many organizations make the story about them and their products. It should be the other way around. Are we the main characters in your story?

 

6) Co-creative. We appreciate to both follow and lead. One moment we will tag along, and in the next we will rebel. This process resembles a dance involving (at least) two parties. What room does you story leave for co-creation? 

 

7) Authentic. Our ability to immerse in a story is linked to it's credibility. Why is your story believable and worth believing?

 

8) Existential. We appreciate stories that give us a reason to exist. Stories which imbue a higher calling, beyond commercial gain, have the potential of doing just that. The reason why, will always challenge something and diverge us into either lovers or enemies. What purpose does your story add to our lives?

 

9) Rememberable. A story must be worth remembering, for it to be retold. It should be something that makes a lasting impression. What makes your story special? Perhaps all of the above?

Does your brand reinforce, challenge or enable relations?

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Everything we do is connected to our social sphere, especially the stories and experiences we participate in. They have the potential to reinforce or redefine who we are, what we care for and where we are going. Even the most mundane products, associated with a low risk affect our relations in that they affirm them. Low engagement brands typically reinforce our existing relations. It doesn't really change much, but it keeps the momentum going, all the while chiming "We are together in perfect harmony".

Some stories and experiences are more potent, and have the potential to challenge and develop our existing relations. They bring in something new, in areas which we have taken for granted. Their challengning nature lead to a higher social risk, but in return result in a higher engagement. Stories which embody something new will always align both lovers and haters.

A few brands share stories and experiences which enable entirely new social links. Their stories will typically question mainstream thought in some way. These brands offer routes into tribes, groups of people sharing a common passion, with unique social identities, ideals and practices. Brands which enable a link to new social realms are highly valued by their enthusiasts.

There are many different types of social relations which our stories and experiences link us to. Some reinforce and challenge existing relations. A select few offer us a ticket to entirely new social groups. Brands can be reinforcers, challengers and enablers all at once depending on the relation in question. It is important to understand how stories and experiences align or develop these relations.

Companies and organisations are typically more interested in their relation to the customer, rather than the social spheres they live in. They also tend to be more interested in their products than the social links they affect. They are typically more interested in positioning themselves than helping their clients position their selves. 

Our appreciation for and engagement with brands are affected by the social value we attribute them. Social value is a great way to outshine the competition and it is exceedingly difficult to copy. 

Breaking out of the Box

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Boxes. We all use them. It's how we make sense of the world. It is how we interact with the world. They help us cope with the immense amount of alternatives available to us. Our box is our way of saying: this is how it is. This is what we do. This is who we are. Our boxes define our rules. The rules we live by.

Our boxes are like home. They offer us small pockets of comfort in a constantly changing environment. An environment that places demands and expactations on us. That is constantly seeking to provoke our reaction through messages and ads. Constantly seeking to entice our desires and dreams. Our boxes help us filter what's important in a constant flow of information.

Our boxes help us simplify. Like explorers we discover new things and try to adapt them to what we already know. They give us tools to label and categorize persons, places and things.  Our boxes operate like languages, offering a common protocol. Our signs and symbols help us reduce complexities, or rather tame them.

Our boxes can be harmful. They tend to define an inside and an outside. What is outside can be frightening. The unknown. This fear can feed racism, prejudicism, and all kinds of -isms. In the long run they can alienate us from the world outside; new ideas, cultures, and people.

Our boxes exist in our organizations. They can be our business plan, brand or marketing plan. It is in essense a box that we create. A simplification of reality into opportunities, messages, target groups, actions and what not. All coded in phrases and lingo that makes sense to us. Our boxes help us collaborate and move in one direction.

The problem is not the box. The box is a necessity for our survival. It lies in our nature to reduce complexity, to find rules to live by and dreams to die for. Problems arise when we don't question our boxes, or refrain from learning different perspectives on life and how to live it. It is important that we move outside of our comfort zones to discover new ways and opportunities. 

Living witout our boxes is not a question. Questioning them is a challenge. However it is a necessity for creating a sustainable way for the future. Including ourselves, our families, tribes, organisations, communities and the environment.

From content flooding to...?

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The year was <2005 and companies were happily pursuing marketing ideals stemming from the industrial age, which viewed people as passive receivers of one-way broadcasts. Various campaigns aimed to hammer in differentiated associations in the minds of consumers. Then something happened. The social media revolution.

MySpace gained traction in 2005, Youtube in 2006, Facebook in 2007, Twitter in 2009 and it goes on. Over time this had an impact on marketing mixes, budgets, measuring, and the rest of it. Companies struggled with their outdated views, models and tactics to compete in a new landscape (and many still do). People did what they always have done, but it became increasingly evident. They banded together to talk about things, and re-mix that which mattered to them the most. 

Companies adopted social media strategies and tactics which led them to engage in two-way communication. Early on, companies would get love for simply doing it - namely getting on board social media. In 2007 Jet Blue, the flight company, was loved for helping clients in tough spots. In 2008 the Mars Rover told her story on twitter. In 2009 Skittles re-worked their site to simply display tweets containing the #skittles hash tag. 

Nowadays, many companies have established a presence in social media, and can no longer score the paltry "we have arrived" points. It has become evident that it's not enough to show up at the party, but rather have something to say. If serving big fish (campaign messages) was the way to go in 2005, it's now sushi in small bites. Content marketing has become the melody in 2012. Huge companies are now investing in content and to some extent becoming their own publishers. 

However content may not be enough to be successful (!?). Stories are highways in human cultures that usher change. The most powerful stories do not revolve around a company or it's products, but rather people and their desires. The most potent stories connect with people on a sub-conscious level to propel transformation. To put it simply:

Successful stories should'nt necessarily be about the company. Not even the product. It should be about people and what matters to them. Their means transcend company ambitions and desires. Understanding the potency of stories, and the role they play in people's lives and society, is the first step towards creating content which people value and want to share.

Pinteresting

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Pinterest is one of the world’s fastest growing social networks, even though some claim it may have growth issues. The site allows people to collect images they find interesting by adding them to their online pinboard. It is easy to ”re-pin” things, as well as share them to other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

According to E-WebStyles podcast on Internet Marketing there is something of a Pinterestification of the internet. They see a trend where sites are adopting the Pinterest layout, with increased site visitor duration as a result.

Back in 1997 I wrote a thesis at Stockholm University that examined the journey that traditional media took while adapting to the web. The two or three column layouts, typically found in newspapers at the time, were carried over to the web and have persisted ever since. While examples of alternate compositions can be found, Pinterest has helped to popularize an image centric grid layout.

The Pinterestification of the web is not only about a shift in design. It also embodies a deeper meaning about who we are, want to become and what we value in that process.

The Pinterest layout differs from traditional design in that it presents a palette of choices equal in size, rather than one major “in-your-face” item. What we see is not only a shift from regular users becoming authors, and co-producers of value, but visitors given a larger role in creating a more personalized experience. This development resembles that of computer games, changing from pre-defined linear stories to becoming more open-ended (e.g. Skyrim or GTA). Pinterest places an emphasis on images over text, which also leads to more open-endedness.

Our experience of the world has become increasingly global, relativized, fragmentized, de-centralized and pluralistic. As we increasingly lose trust in institutions to guide us, we compensate by carving paths of our own. I want to argue that the Pinterestification of the internet finds appeal because it embodies this endeavor. It symbols a shift from the one true path to many, with the individual in the driver’s seat.

What do you think?

Sharing your way to the top

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I am happy to present our guest blogger Jesper Åström. He is working with digital production and marketing with focus on traffic acquisition and conversion rate optimization. You can find his blog at jesperastrom.com

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Building on what Elia said about the recent updates in Google, you have to consider how to create more inbound links  to your content without actually spamming or keyword crunching yourself too much. Any good SEO has had this in their portfolio as a part of the link mix and they are thus not as effected by these changes. However, some people who have simply tried to build certain keywords in order to rank, are now in somewhat of a mess. Anyhow. I like writing about solutions, so here we go.

Let’s say you are sitting there with a page really undeserving of its ranking. Ok. So you are trying to get your visitors to share your content, but you simply do not know where to start. You have purchased all your links previously and simply haven’t had or seen the need to share. You still want to rank, but you have no idea in the world how anyone could take the piece of content that you simply have on your page, and want to talk about it.

Guess what! You are exactly right. No one will share content that you yourself don’t feel is worth sharing. If you consider your content to be static, and if you don’t change it so that people actually understand why sharing it will give them something back, they will never share it.

Oh, don’t get me wrong here. The same holds if you have the best content in the world. There is a great misunderstanding that great content gets shared automatically. This is extremely untrue. Some of the best content becomes hidden secrets as it is “too good to share”. So it is not a matter of how good your content is, but rather how well you can explain to the user why they should share it. I have elaborated on this in another blog post about in-line conversion rate that will be published in my own blog.

But let’s get back to this blog post. Where to start? Well, if you have never though of sharing previously, you need to start with the basics, namely to create personas that you will try to appeal to. The best way of understanding a persona is to do the following experiment.

1. Select five of your most regularly posting Facebook friends
2. Select five of the most common types of posts they share

Once you have collected your sourcing material. Sit down and analyze it for a while.

1. Are there common words used in the posts by the different people
2. Are major differences in the content that they share – why?
3. Is there a way in which you could group the different posts they have shared – do they belong to each other in a certain way?

Now that you are starting to get a sense of what type of content is being shared by your closest people, you start looking at why they are doing this. This is sort of reverse engineering of the golden circle. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA

You best figure out why they have shared something by comparing what they share with what content they are sharing. If someone is sharing pictures of their baby – they might be proud of their new child. If someone is sharing a link to a news paper article – they might be furious or amused. I think you get the point.

Some of the posts might be such that you can’t find a purpose for them in terms of value to you. However, these people share them because they want to. Posts such as “I’m on the toilet” are of limited value to you unless you are trying to figure out why the person is not responding to a phone call. However, there must be something behind this post. There has to be a why. You most likely know some more information about the person. Try to put the share into its context.

Now once you have completed this step. Do your comparison again.

1. Are there similarities in why people share what they share
2. Are there differences in why they share etc.

If you are able to group the people in terms of why they are sharing you are starting to see patterns that are useful for your next assignment. Remember this is just training. This should be a fun exercise that should put you in the right frame of mind. It should help you with where to start.

Cause now it is time to flip it to your market. What type of content is being shared from your competitors? Why are people sharing it? Are there any similarities of these reasons to share that you can find in your study of your friends?

I believe that once you have done this work. And yes, it is not something that gets done in five minutes. You will have started to think in terms of creating content that users will actually share. You have a better understanding of why people share and you now have to turn to your inbound marketing skills in order to introduce these reasons to the way you present your products.

I am really telling you to think outside the box here. If people only share images of kittens, then how can you integrate kittens into your product portfolio. I am serious. If you are serious. You should really break out of the box in which you have been hiding your sorrow excuse of a product page and realize that you have to walk the extra mile in order to get the extra revenue.

I can tell you now. You don’t have to worry. Once you have started to think in terms of creating shareable content, you will never look at content the same way again. It will eventually become automatic. It will be a natural part of your content production process. And you will thrive as a result of it.

 

Content worth sharing

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Google has recently been conjuring a storm amongst web masters and SEO specialists by majorly updating their search algorithm. Their latest update, labeled Penguin, has affected the page rank (PR) of many sites. Some sites have hit the jackpot and climbed the ladder, while others have plummeted in the search results. Google is doing it’s best to improve the end user experience, by promoting sites which have socially shared quality content. It’s part of an everlasting chess match against spammers, and site owners that try to exploit Google:s algorithms with black hat techniques. 

The latest penguin update focuses links. Up to now, it has been fruitful to gain inbound links to a site by employing techniques such as mass blog commenting or directory submissions. This has now changed as Google takes the context of a link into consideration. Instead of mindless link spamming Google aims to promote quality content, which in turn leads to social sharing. 

It is now more important than ever, for page rank, to understand your target group/s to produce original sharable content. Once your content is shared it will receive inbound links embedded in the type of rich diverse contexts which Google relishes. The first step in this endeavor is to gain an understanding about who and why they would want to share your content.

Checklist for making your content appealable:

1. Is it appealing?
2. Is it relevant?
3. Is it different?
4. Is it targeted? 

Keep in mind to not only focus on the functional benefits of your product or service, but also it’s emotional, social and identification values. (This is a topic for another blog post.)

I have invited SEO mastermind specialist Jesper Åström as a guest blogger. He will expand upon this checklist and share his best kept secrets. Stay tuned, it will be worth it!

Can your brand tango?

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(Or alternate title: Let go of your brand. You were never in control in the first place.)

Behaviour on the web has changed

By now many companies and organisations would agree that the advent of social media has fundamentally changed the way people feel, think, and learn about their brands. It has been a shocking experience for some to hear what people really have to say about their performance, or lack thereof. After all, bad reputation spreads a long way and unhappy “customers” can unleash a lot of havoc. This raises the question, who is truly in CONTROL of your brand?

A decade ago information search ruled the web, but it has now relinquished it's power to social behaviour. What has been brewing in society for a long time, is now becoming more evident. People are increasingly looking to bond with others that share a common passion or interest. Their diverse tribal identities is having a huge impact on defining who they are.

Why? Why? Why?

Consultants will gladly educate companies about the benefits of social media, and also give hands on advice. However they will rarely give any deeper insights about why people do, the things they do, with a brand. Without understanding why people value your brand, then how can you unleash it's full potential? When reasons are given you will find that they are often unsatisfactory and simply re-cycling ancient brand ideas. To put it short. Tools and vocabulary has changed, but it's still the same antiques lying beneath a shiny hood.

It's kind of scary isn't it? We acknowledge that the world has changed, that people are increasingly social and participative, but we still use thinking that stems from the industrial age.

Outdated thinking

The dominating thinking on brands is still “mind share branding” often salted with common wisdom about how we value authentic relationships. Mind share branding, in it's most simplistic form, teaches us that companies can “own” real estate in peoples' brains. This treasured estate consists of the distinct and relevant associations that individuals make with a brand.

You can understand how the idea of brand managers acting as mind surgeons on passive drones made sense in the age of mass communication, but how these ideas get intermingled with the social web of today beats me. These ideas are actually quite demeaning and belittling of people.

From brand associations to brand meaning

While mind-share branding has continued to conquer marketing literature, and become common know-how, deeper understanding about human behaviour has been made through sociology and anthropology. Think about it. It actually makes sense to broaden our influences from psychology to sciences that talk about interaction between humans.

According to these other fields the alternative, or complement if you wish, to brand associations is the construction of meaning. If you proclaim to own the brand associations “cool” and “premium”, what does that mean? Why are those associations meaningful? What does it mean to live in Tuscany and wear a pair of “cool” jeans?

If you don't know what your brand means, then your brand definition is probably too shallow. Understanding meaning is the same as understanding what motivates people to engage with and value your brand. Meaning is important. It is the stuff we are made of. In our time people use brands as raw materials to construct themselves and connect to others.

Building a meaningful brand becomes less about being a mind surgeon, and more about becoming a cultural catalyst or adapter. Rather than owning timeless associations that transcend history and culture, meaning is constantly shifting. What's more is that meaning is not the result of one-sided orchestration, it is co-authored. The company is only one voice, amongst many, that is impacting the meaning of it's brand.

The notion that successful brand managers are in full control of their brand is flawed, because they have never been. Unless their brand was unheard of course. A successful brand is not the result of “owning” or “orchestrating” brand associations, but in inviting people to co-produce value by sharing meaningful stories and experiences.

It's not a shouting contest, it's a dance. Brands that invite people to co-create meaning will find that some of their biggest fans are multipliers of value. Others may find ways to build tribes centred around their brands (AKA brand communities). The advice is basically to relinquish a bit of control to regain it. Keep in mind that your brand is not an end, it is a means that people use to tailor their lives.

Keep dancing.

It takes (at least) two to tango.

Converse starts a cultural factory

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Converse is opening a recording studio in Brooklyn where bands can record their music for free. The studio, called Rubber tracks, will be managed by pros and equipped with the latest equipment. Apparently there will be no strings attached as musicians will have full rights of ownership. Converse promises to not influence the music and they are not intended to feature in ads.

So what is in it for Converse? The benefits can only be understood from a brand perspective. While other brands yip-and-yap about their imaginative sale arguments Converse can demonstrate their message through Rubber Tracks. This adds to the treasured authentic dimension of the brand. Their promise to not meddle with the music achieves the same goal.

Converse will be rallying youngsters to their cause as they willingly help to multiply the value of their brand. Rather than simply parasiting on culture, they can potentially contribute to it. In short Converse has set out to create a cultural factory through Rubber Tracks.

 

Digital Clothes - another reason people follow brands

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GetSatisfaction recently collaborated with Column Five to create an infographic to answer the question "Why do people follow brands?". According to Mashable the infographic is based on several different studies, and presents the conclusion that 40% of the respondents follow brands on Facebook and Twitter because they want discounts and special deals. The second most common reason indicates that people follow brands because they are current customers. Especially the latter opens up a black box of trailing questions, but there are also other areas that are severely lacking. The infographic left me with a sensation of UnSatisfaction.

The infographic does not include any explanations what-so-ever for the symbolic reasons people follow brands. Without diving too deep into the actual studies I would guess the studies are based on questionnaires. The problems with asking people straight out why they follow brands are that they are either are too unconscious about the symbolic reasons or would not want to admit them. Qualitative research is the remedy.

Besides following brands to win prizes and find discounts, people follow brands to add meaning to their lives, express who they are and connect to others. It would be really interesting if the infographic had included such information, because symbolic values are much harder to copy. The infographic is misleading, because it fails to point brand managers to the real playing field where their brand can stand out.

The brands people follow and share in social media can be seen as digital clothes. On the Internet a like, re-tweet or +1 might be the latest apparel. It might be the next piece in one's identity puzzle, or mark the crossing of a bridge to join a tribe.

This is the naked truth about Facebook and social media. Although few would admit it. In a questionnaire.