BRAND STORYTELLING AND BRANDED CONTENT · BRANDED CONTENT Dig deep for your brand story A quick Internet search of companies reveals that many companies view their Brand Story as

BY ANGELINE SAMUEL

@ DIGITAL MISTRESS

BRAND STORYTELLING ANDBRANDED CONTENT

What is a brand story?

Your Brand Story expresses the heart and soul of your brand and emotionally connects you with your customers. Think about the Brand Story for Nike, one of the most successful manufacturers of sports gear. Nike is successful because it doesn’t just sell sports gear. It sells a persuasive and emotionally rich and value-laden story: a story of hard work, sweat, and perseverance—the perseverance associated with doing our very, very best. It is a story that is incredibly persuasive because it entices consumers to participate—Just Do It®—in a personal quest for excellence and fulfillment.

D i g i t a lM i s t r e s s @ a n g e l i n e

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BRAND STORYTELLING

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Dig deep for your brand story

A quick Internet search of companies reveals that many companies view their Brand Story as a version of their company histories. Interesting as these histories may be—and often they are very compelling—they fail in their primary purpose, which is to emotionally connect people to the brand. We’re not talking about corporate storytelling here. Your Brand Story is not the history of your organization’s founders, although your founders’ story and your Brand Story may indeed share similar elements. We’re talking about a story that connects you with each customer deeply and personally. At its very best and most powerful, your story transcends time, culture, and location because it speaks to those ageless and unchanging truths about the human experience—birth, death, growing up, growing old, kinship, struggling against all odds, etc. That’s the story that needs to be told through everything you do.


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BRAND STORYTELLING

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From brand story to brand promise and personality

First, you identify the Brand Story and then you translate it into the brand promise and personality. The brand promise and personality flow directly from the Brand Story research. All three (story, promise, personality) help the organization to establish and communicate the uniqueness of the brand

The Harley-Davidson brand personality is then consistent with the Story and the promise. Harley-Davidson is: • Fierce individuality • Rebellion against things that are unjust • Different • Innovative • Fearless in the face of danger • Brave • Seeking a better life • Free spirited • Wild • Seeking escape • Adventurous

By building their Brand Story, their brand promise and their personality into everything they do, Harley-Davidson has maintained brand loyalty for over 100 years. Customer relationships, market-defining products, and extraordinary customer experiences are the keys to their success


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BRAND STORYTELLING

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…design and execute your brand story

examples of how companies are building and living their Brand Story through: • People and Culture: the employee hiring, training, retention, involvement, and communications practices you use. • Service Experiences: the design and delivery of all the primary and auxiliary services you offer. • Product and Packaging: the tangible offering to your market that fulfills customer needs and wants. • Facilities and Real Estate: the operational setting and physical structures where your offering is sold and/or serviced. • Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability: the initiatives you use to take responsibility for the short and long term impact your activities have on customers, employees, communities, and the environment. • Business Partnerships and Alliances: your relationships with other companies with assets and capabilities that you need but do not wish to develop internally. • Marketing Communications: the traditional, digital, and social narrative platforms you use to spread your message.


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BRAND STORYTELLING

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Tips on the art of storytelling in business

1. Uncover your stories

This question is a common one: “What does our company have to say on social media, in a case study, in a newsletter etc. and why will anyone care?” And one that we are regularly asked by clients.Firstly, everyone has stories. It’s the day-to-day things that you take for granted, which provide great content. From your customers’ stories, events you’re attending, an exciting project you’re working on, to a new product or service you’ve introduced, stories can be found everywhere.And why will people care? By drawing on real life examples and telling stories through characters your audience will resonate with, the stories will be ones people want to hear


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BRAND STORYTELLING

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2. Get your company values across

What is your brand and company about? Do you pride yourself on excellent customer service? Are you innovative, quirky, fun or you just really believe that your products or services are great? Define what makes your company great, work out how you are least like the competition and tell that story.


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BRAND STORYTELLING

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3. Make them colorful

The basic principles of storytelling apply: have a beginning, middle and end. In the beginning set up your story; who, what, why, where, when; in the middle present a conflict or dilemma, followed by a solution that ends in a happy-ever-after.Above all, a good story is one that provokes an emotional reaction. Make the listener share the pains your customers were experiencing, illustrate how your product or service will make their life less stressful, lovelier, more luxurious, and get this across through your story. Remember it’s all about them not you. You need to understand your target market and audience and engage with them as you would in real life; appeal to people’s lifestyles, problems, interests and needs


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BRAND STORYTELLING

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4. Use the appropriate format

Whilst content is king, how you make this content consumable is the crux of the marketing challenge. Your stories need to be not only relevant and engaging, they must be easily digestible – whatever format they take

A story that’s right for Facebook isn’t necessarily the content of a customer case study. Remember stories don’t have to be words; pictures, videos, infographics can be fantastic ways of sharing a brand story and engaging the consumer. And how are you going to deliver them? Straight to someone’s inbox, via social media, or in a whitepaper perhaps.

Consider the shareability of the content too. Consumers don’t go sharing the technical spec of your product or listing your business services to their friends. Instead they tell the stories of the benefits; the impact your product or service has on real lives. Make your stories easy to share across multiple channels and good stories will speak for themselves.

Whatever the format, it is important to use experts who have the different skillsets required for each platform, including the ability to make the content consumable and shareable, and the knowledge of the media to get your stories across.


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BRAND STORYTELLING

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5. Leave people wanting moreYour stories need to give people a reason to come back. If you provide a service you don’t want to give away all your tricks before a potential client is engaged, but equally you need to give enough to hook them.

Consider teasers, “watch this space,” “see the sneak preview,” “like this page to find out more”. And remember when people come back for more they need to find more stories. You may have one really good customer case study but unless there are others, it’s not believable. Meaningful, consistent content across multiple channels, will give people a reason to return again and again.In today’s fast-paced, multi-media and increasingly social marketing environment, stories have become an essential part of crafting valuable engagement with consumers. D i g i t a l

M i s t r e s s @ a n g e l i n e

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BRAND STORYTELLING

ANDBRANDED CONTENT

all brands have a story to tell, some don’t know how to find or share theirs. To help, here are six questions to draw out brand stories:

What’s your reason for being?What’s your history?Who are your main characters?What’s your corporate mission?How have you failed?Where are your gaps?


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Brand Storytelling

BRAND STORYTELLING

ANDBRANDED CONTENT

Content Marketing Strategy


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Content

Content is how you showcase the knowledge your business has mastered. It can include things like blogs, videos, whitepapers, ebooks, case studies, and much more. Your content allows your customers to get to know you. It can offer advice on an issue, provide commentary on recent news events, give a step-by-step guide to solving a particular problem, or just tell an anecdote that your customers will find interesting.



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Why Do You Need A Social Media Content Strategy?

1.a strategy helps save time by knowing what you'll do before you start2.it will also help you understand why your social media marketing is working (or not working).3.it supports you overall social media management efforts



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Who should the content we produce be most relevant to?What benefits does this audience receive from consuming our content?What desirable and distinctive content experience can we consistently deliver?


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To give your content marketing program the best chance of driving desired results, you should know the answer to these questions:


Which Social Media Channels Are You On?Are There Channels You Should Add Or Remove? Sometimes less is more. However, you should be careful before removing a social media channel. The same goes for investing in new ones.

Thinking about deleting a social account? Ask these questions first:Am I posting consistently on this channel? If not, it may be time to start.Is weak performance possibly tied to poor execution? Be honest with yourself. It’s easy to blame poor performance on a channel “just not working for your business.” Sometimes that’s an accurate assessment.However, you may just need to change your approach.Are my competitors successful on this channel? If so, they’re probably doing something you’re not. If no one else is succeeding, it could be your audience simply isn’tthere.Do I have time to spend on this platform? If you can’t make it a priority, it may be time to cut it loose.Once you’ve answered these questions, you should have a clear idea of what you need to do.

Tips For Selecting Social Media ChannelsUnderstanding each channel’s strengths can help you understand if they’re rightfor you.

W h a t Types O f Conten t W i l l You Create A n d Share O n Each Channel?

Here’s a simple overview of which types of content you can create across the socialmedia spectrum:

Facebook- Text- image- video- link- live- poll- Events- Job- Stories

Instagram- Image- video- poll- askaquestion- Stories- Live- Questions- Countdown- IGTV

Pinterest- Image- - video- Link



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Twitter- Text- Image- Videos- Links

LinkedIn- Text- Link- Images- Videos- Pdfandebooks

You need a good team to win. Build yours by determining the following:Who will write social media content?If I don’t have a designer, how will I create graphics?Do we have the capability to shoot video?

Who Will Be Creating Content For Your Company?



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3-Step Social Media AuditWhich social media networks are we on? List them:

List abandoned accounts to remove (if any):

List duplicate accounts to merge (if any):


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Social Media Account Inventory

Network URL Active? (Y/N) Fan/Follower #

Notes


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Set Social Media Goals

Once you’ve audited your social media presence, it’s time to set goals. We can break these down into two categories:

Business Objectives: These are the business goals you hope to advance through social media. For example, “increasing brand awareness” would be a business objective.

Social Objectives: These are goals you’ll set specifically for social media. For example, “increasing our Twitter follower count” would be a social objective.



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Understand Why You’re On Social Media

Knowing what you want to achieve onsocial media is the first step toward success. Identify business objectives social media can help you achieve. Then, list social objectives that support those goals.

Business Objectives Social Objectives


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Establish Specific Goals

Goal Deadline

Describe the challenges you face, why your goals are important, and how you intend to achieve them …

Social Media Competitive Analysis

Pro athletes spend a lot of time researching their competition. They review game tape. They analyze their strategy and tactics. Then, they prepare accordingly. Don’t let your competition outplay you. Do your homework.Content

Marketing Strategy


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Step 4: Competitive Analysis


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Competitive InventoryCompetitor Name URL Notes


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Top Ten Competitor Analysis (Fans/Followers)

Competitor Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Google+ Pinterest


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How Can You Out-Do Your Competition?

What We Can Do Better List what you can do better than your competition

What We Can Do DifferentlyList what you can do differently than you competition


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Align your strategy with your target audienceGather as much information as you can about your most loyal customers. Some questions to include:

What is their age range?Where do they live? Both location and time zone are valuable to know here.

What language do they speak?What are their interests? What’s important to them?What challenges do they encounter that are related toyour product?The more specific a buyer persona you build, the more effectively you’ll be able to target them on social media.



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Step 3: Establish Your Target Audience


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Build Your Persona (Slide 1 of 2)

Persona Name:Job Title:

Age:Gender:Income Level:Location:

Interests & Hobbies:


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Build Your Persona (Slide 2 of 2)Challenges & Aspirations:

Favorite Blogs & News Sources:

Persona Summary[Insert one or two paragraph character summary here. How would your target customer or audience member describe themselves?]

Customer Quote[Insert a real quote from a real customer that represents something your persona might say]


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Step 5: Establish Brand Voice & Tone


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Brand Voice Description

Social Media Tag Line (3 words to describe your social brand voice):[INSERT ADJECTIVE 1][INSERT ADJECTIVE 2][INSERT ADJECTIVE 3]

Social Media Mission Statement:[INSERT YOUR BRAND] creates social content to [INSERT BENEFIT] for [INSERT AUDIENCE].

Describe your brand’s voice and personality here:


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Step 6: Social Media Content Strategy


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Content Curation Source List

Trusted Content SourcesList trusted sources you’ll share content from …

Source Name Source URL


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What Social Media Content Will We Create?Content Types We Will Create:List here ….

Content Types We Will Curate:List here ...


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What Purpose Will Our Content Serve?

Original Content

[ ] Entertain

[ ] Inform

[ ] Promote products/services

[ ] Promote content (blog posts, ebooks, landing pages, etc).

[ ] Promote partners

[ ] Promote contests

Curated Content

[ ] Entertain

[ ] Inform

[ ] Promote products/services

[ ] Promote content (blog posts, ebooks, landing pages, etc).

[ ] Promote partners

[ ] Promote contests


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Social Media Posting Frequency

Network Posts Per Day Posts Per WeekFacebookTwitterGoogle+PinterestLinkedInInstagram


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Social Media Calendar Strategy

List upcoming events, product launches, and important dates to add to your content calendar:

[ ] [ ] [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]

Our content calendar will include:

[Insert %] Original Content (Informative)

[Insert %] Original Content (Promotional)

[Insert %] Curated Content


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Step 7: Social Media Marketing Measurement


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Choose Which Metrics To MonitorFacebook[ ] Likes [ ] Shares [ ] Comments [ ] Clicks[ ] Engagement Rate [ ] Referral Traffic [ ] Video Views [ ] Conversions

Instagram[ ] Follower Count [ ] Likes [ ] Comments[ ] Referral Traffic

Twitter[ ] Likes [ ] Retweets[ ] Replies [ ] Referral Traffic[ ] Conversions

Pinterest [ ] Repins[ ] Referral Traffic [ ] Conversions

LinkedIn[ ] Likes [ ] Comments [ ] Replies [ ] Referrals [ ] Conversions

Google+[ ] Followers [ ] +1’s [ ] Referrals [ ] Conversions [ ] Comments [ ] Shares


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Measurement Checklists

Key Metrics (list):

[ ] Configured Google Analytics to track social media traffic and conversions

[ ] Configured other third-party social media analytics tools

[ ]


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90-Day Progress

Network Page Likes /Followers

% Growth ReferralTraffic

Conversions

FacebookTwitterLinkedInGoogle+PinterestInstagram


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Notes & Findings

What went well with our strategy?

What went wrong with our strategy?

How can we improve our strategy?


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Content Value

Trust

Empowerment

Hope

Community

ResultsR results - tu tor ia l , w inn ing ,L l i festy le - all a b o u t t h e fo l lowers - change capt ions -a b o u t t hem- ask them a ques t i on Vvalue - a d d value - LDT



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Social media content strategy

What differentiates you?- what’s your elevator pitch - Gather best testimonials - What makes you unique - Craft a compelling story

How will you execute?- What do you need to learn?- What tools are necessary - Who is responsible - How will you measure

Who is your customer - What age bracket - Gender - Location - College degree

Where is your audience Are they online Where do they shop Belong to associations Publications they read

What are your goals Extablish your brand Increase visibility Generate traffic to website Grow sales and revenue

When will you communicate ?What social neworksHow often will you post Will you blog or vlog Will you use visuals



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THANK YOU

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BRAND STORYTELLING AND BRANDED CONTENT · BRANDED CONTENT Dig deep for your brand story A quick Internet search of companies reveals that many companies view their Brand Story as