It has surrounded me…from the very beginning, I have always had a camera in my hand. The picture above is the first picture I ever captured…how ironic it is my first selfie.
Everyone wants to be a thought leader…every organization wants own their content verticals…but what are you really owning.
Why are “we” trying to own the content verticals that the populous hopes to conquer. Thought leaders, whether individuals or brands, want to be heard, want to connect, want people to join the conversation. But why try to own that popular conversation?
Love this quote from Gary V:
“I am only interested in one thing…the thing that binds us all together…always and forever our job is to tell our story…”
“The way you make real money…the way you make real impact…the way things get changed is by great storytelling…it has always been that way and it will always be that way…because i do not know if you guys heard and we are f&cking human beings and that is what we like.”
Anyone have any thoughts? Hmm…so I have been thinking about this for a bit! What is the DNA of a “good” storyteller?
Hmm…well my first thought: they create great content. Yeah…so what is great content and how can we equate great content with a great storyteller?
In the world of digital communications…how do we create content that is sticky and feels connected.
I read a great little blog post by Holly Potter and it has me thinking just a bit…here is an excerpt:
Have you thought through this before? When I asked a group of healthcare communication professionals to define content and “good” content…we recorded some interesting feedback.
So here are my thoughts:
Good Content – From 30K Feet
1) Creates the connected theater – How can we create an interactive experience so audience forgets they are watching and listening…yet feeling (movie theater analogy)?
2) Creates a connected voice – We can identify we each other…we speak the same language.
People want to find media that they can identify…content that makes sense in their lives. As I think through this lens…I have been reshaping my opinions when it comes to the value of video production.
I love big cameras, pretty pictures, the HD experience…etc. But, is all this necessary in our world of social content? Is multi-purposing content from that video shoot with the Red Camera necessary?
Have you watched American Idol this season? It is a new face with the addition of Harry Connick, Jr…a new tone and lots more stories. Did you also notice the production value of the video content being used. Lots more user-based content captured using mobile devices. The opening of American Idol has leveraged contestant video content from their mobile devices as a major part of the opening sequences.
Content curation is a big buzz word/phrase right now. Lots of neat technologies, innovations, and social channels to find, share, capture, explore, leverage…then re-share.
But are we getting a bit trapped? Just found this cool post on Social Media Examiner how to use Feedly, IFTTT, and Excel to find, share, and potentially categorize/curate content. Great little workflow for those of us trying to create streamlined workflows to aggregate great content, read, re-purpose, and re-share accordingly.
But…are we looking too much through the technological lens of “social.” Specifically…are we depending on a few things here:
I am leaving these beautiful card design my close friend and colleague Dave Lee.
As we ooh’d and ahh’d over this touching little puppy ad by Budweiser in the 4th quarter of the SuperBowl…we have forgotten.
Budweiser…as always, knows how to create a tremendous ad narrative throughout big events like the SuperBowl. Sprinkling little story-lines in short little commercials that have nothing to do with beer. These little micro-narratives have everything to do with being “American.”
This is a question that I think resonates all content marketers. From my days in broadcast television news, we spent hours and hours discussion whether a story would generate enough interest to drive viewership. Now in the digital/social communication world, it is even more of a legitimate discussion.
In-order for organizations to take ownership of their brand message, they have to become their own content marketers. They have to create home bases for audiences to navigate and social strategies to generate conversation portals ultimately for content discovery.