Content marketing and social storytelling are the new pink.
If you can’t tell, you can’t sell.
Global businesses like Coke, Amazon, Hyatt, Red Bull, Starbucks and Ben & Jerry’s have successful used content marketing and social storytelling to captivate audiences, grow communities and deepen brand affiliations.
Internet giant Yahoo! is quite a different company these days.
Anchored on its four pillars of growth – mobile, social, native advertising, and videos – the California based company focuses more of its energies these days on creating and curating digital content offered through its multiple online and social platforms. By doing so, it seeks to attract more audiences and advertisers.
How do we combine the discipline of media planning with cutting edge developments in the digital age?
Well, Antony Young of the Water Cooler Group seem to have the answer. In the second edition of his book Brand Media Strategy, Antony delves deep into the discipline of integrated communications planning, showing us how we can develop a strategic and holistic plan to drive brand marketing across all media touch points – traditional, experiential, digital and word of mouth.
Do you know that telcos are the most “socially devoted” brands in Singapore? Or that an infant milk powder brand has the greatest engagement rate for its Facebook posts?
These interesting insights and more were revealed by social listening and analytics software as a service provider Social Bakers in their October report charting out Singapore’s social media scene. Delivered in the form of a detailed infographic, Social Bakers’ report highlighted the top industries and brands engaged in Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
We are living in the age of “porn”. And most of it has very little to do with sex.
Unlike the more salacious kind, such “porn” are usually completely safe for families and kids. Unfortunately, like their more notorious namesake, such behaviours could be addictive. Carried to extremes, they can be unhealthy for one’s mental and physical well-being.
In fact, some of us are so obsessive compulsive about capturing and sharing every waking moment that we end up suffering cold turkey if our Digital Documenting & Distribution Devices (4Ds) go haywire or are wrangled away from us!
What are the kinds of “porn” that we are talking about?
Put to good use, it can be a salve for humanity’s woes. Social media allows us to share helpful content, seed ideas, connect with long-lost friends, and form communities around specific interests, relationships and affinities. It also lowers the communication barriers for small businesses, solo-preneurs and freelance talents, allowing them to reach their markets at a fraction of the cost.
Unfortunately, social media isn’t always “sugar, spice and everything nice”. Anybody who creates and publishes public content on a blog, YouTube channel, Facebook page or Twitter account know that it comes with the inherent risks of being flamed or criticised.
Sharing is caring. Waste not want not. Reduce, reuse, recycle.
These age-old mantras rang through my head when I start penning this blog post on the recently launched Sharing Economy Association (Singapore). Beginning in Singapore, the association hopes to become the “regional hub for companies and organisations involved in the sharing or collaborative economy which is an emerging economic model of sharing of physical and non-physical resources that is empowered by technology and social networks”.
How can your company or brand create a good story – one that will attract and enchant your audience?
What can you do to improve how you write, produce or shoot your content such that you can hit both the intellectual and emotional nerve centres of your audiences?
Do you have a story to tell? I’m sure you do. In fact, all of us are storytellers at every stage of life.
An ancient art form beloved by all, storytelling has brought stories to life since the dawn of time. Through their vivid and dramatic sharing, storytellers help to unlock our humanity and allow us to connect deeply with the rich personal narratives that rule our lives.
A good storyteller – be it at work or at play – can enchant and excite a crowd. The most memorable icons of human history are great oral storytellers. By employing the right mix of words, tone of voice, and dramatic gestures, these leaders have triggered political revolutions, started religions, led massive organisations, or created global movements that shape our lives in countless ways.