“Be brave enough to suck at something new.”
The quote is attributed to business book author Jon Acuff, the great Greek god Pinterest, or that Etsy shop that printed it on a baby onesie.
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What if we stopped trying quite so hard with our video content marketing? What if we just told our true stories honestly and simply, and with empathy for the very real problems our customers have? A video from a tiny Arizona startup busts some common myths about using video as part of a content marketing program. There are three other things to love about it, too: 1. The video is script-less—but still it speaks volumes. 2. It sits squarely in the sweet spot of how I define great content, or content that is useful x inspired x empathetic. 3. It’s a great example of how a scrappy attitude and simple execution can be powerful. It’s made me wonder: What if we didn’t try so hard to be amazing and awesome? What if we just spoke from our hearts, with empathy for the real problems we solve? Details on all that
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What does a brand known as buttoned up and boring do to broaden its appeal? I get this question a lot. One great model for inspiration is LinkedIn, which has become the poster child for a staid brand evolving its brand by telling unexpected stories. In the early 2000s, UK musician Matt Henshaw was living the dream as the lead guitarist for Censored, a British rock band he had established with a few friends. Censored became an integral part of the music scene of the East Midlands (a region located roughly between London and Liverpool), releasing some independent singles, opening for some of their music heroes, and at one point being named one of the top five unsigned bands in the UK by the music news site NME.com. Then the band fell apart—“burned out,” Matt now says. And so in 2008 he abandoned his music career and took a humdrum
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The Fault in Our Stars opened this past weekend to become number-one at the box office. Which thrills me – because I’m a fan of the young adult novel the movie is based on and of its author (and video blogger) John Green. But more importantly: It thrills me because good writing deserves to find a wide audience. But that’s not why I’m writing about it. Instead, I’m writing about it because the movie’s soundtrack video trailer is a great content marketing example of what I talk about all the time: Make your customer the hero of your story. In this case, the “customer” is (of course) potential ticket buyers and fans, who were made “heroes” when the The Fault in Our Stars (TFIOS) franchise solicited their images to crowdsource the theme song’s music video, Ed Sheeran’s All of Our Stars. The result was like catnip to Lord Tubbington: The
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If you’ve seen me speak in the last few years, you know I’m a huge fan of Instagram, because of its understated simplicity that makes for a rich story platform. You might’ve even seen me present one of my favorite examples, of the Toronto Silent Film Festival’s 2013 effort to promote the silent film experience to a brand new audience of potential fans. Now, the Festival is back, releasing its 2014 effort that uses Instagram in an interactive, genius way to spread its message and grow its audience. As I’ve written in the past, there are five reasons I love Instagram for content: Instant content. Instagram, at its core, allows you to tell stories visually, but with a simplicity and immediacy and elegance that’s hard to beat. But artful content, too. Instagram allows you to create visual stories with an artfulness and elegance and a special kind of gravitas that’s
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The best content isn’t storytelling. The best content is telling a true story well. It’s a subtle difference. But the creators of the best content of 2013 contemplated not just what story was worth telling, but how to tell it. And one way to do that is to hire an artist. I’m tempted to insert something here about how stories have a remarkable capacity to stir our souls, to connect us, to shape a kind of shared experience. But since you are human, you know that already, right? Increasingly, the best marketing groks that, too, and so this year we’ve seen an incredible abundance of inspired brand storytelling. But we’ve also seen some terrible efforts. Because coming up with your bigger story is (relatively) easy, yet telling a true story in an interesting way “turns out to be about as easy and pleasurable as bathing a cat,” says the writer
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