Using the Physical Attributes of Your Campus to Intentionally Communicate Your Story

by: Tim Cool

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“I ask all of our first time guests why they decided to come to our church and 90% of them said they were driving by and were intrigued by our site and our new building, and that is all thanks to the creativity of Visioneering Studios.”

David Garison, Lead Pastor,  Northside Christian Church, Spring, Texas

If you were driving down a road in your town and saw the above building, would you be intrigued?  Would you want to check it out? As you look at that picture, who do you think this building meant to attract?  Who was the primary target to get sucked in by the design and amenities?

If you said MEN…then you would be correct. But not just any man, a mid “thirty something” man.  And why would a church focus on that age group and gender?  It is actually pretty simple for the leadership at Northside Christian.

They believe that if they can attract men in their mid thirties, they will likely bring their wife and 3 +/- children as well. In most cases, it is easier to engage the entire family if the husband/father is leading the charge and is compelled to attend. For most men, there is too much talk about love (especially loving another man….YUK), surrender, “feeling” and a whole host of other words and songs that are just not appealing.

So what did this church decided to do?  They were intentional about communicating a story and message to the target they wanted to attract.  They made the conscious decision to put “bait on the hook” as they fulfilled their calling to be fishers of men.  The attractional elements of the physical campus was intended to be appealing to those they were trying to reach just like the worm, minnow or lure are on a fishing hook.  If you going fishing for bass, you would not leave the bait at home.  Yes, it is possible to catch a fish on a bare hook…but it less likely and it is much harder and far less rewarding.  So why do we think it is wrong to put “bait” on the hook when we are fishing for souls? Given some recent responses to my other posts on “story”, I am sure some of  you are saying “But the Holy Spirit is the only thing we need…he will draw them in…why should we try to manipulate.” While I am in complete agreement that the Holy Spirit will move in a persons heart to take action, God  also gave us eyes…ears…noses…and other sensory attributes that he uses to influence us.

For this church, they decided to use several types of bait…here are a few examples:

1. The overall design is that of a lodge or “man cave”.  It is very masculine and appealing to a man. It makes me want to go hang out, how about you?

2. The materials are “manly”.  From the stone to the exposed wood grains to the exposed metal to the car license plates used to clad a section of the facility (above pic), the materials scream MAN!  Women are generally drawn in by color…but men are attracted to materials.

3. They took the “bait on the hook” concept and developed a fishing hole in front of the building that is open to the public…that they actually stock with fish.  Again, the idea is that a mid-30 year old man with 3 kids would bring the kids to the fishing hole (i.e. a WELL…see this post for more on that concept) even if they have never gone to the “church”…or what we might refer to as the Temple experience.

4. Amenities…besides the fishing hole, this church has been deliberate in the location of their exterior public spaces.  Even if you are not interested in fishing, but looking for a place to site outside by a gentle waterfall to read or you have those 3 young kids and need to get them out from under mom’s feet and blow out some pent up energy, this campus shouts…COME HERE.  The playground is open to the public and the outside sitting areas and tables are inviting to anybody just looking for a place to hang and do life with others. In addition, they were judiciously placed on the front side of the campus so they are visible to people passing by…more bait!

Visioneering has just finished Phase II for this church and the new kids space continues this theme and attractional relationship with their community. You can see why “Your Kids Won’t Want to Leave”, on the blog by Jody Forehand….which is another form of “bait”.

Are you ready to go fishing for your community?   Is your church more interested in “cleaning” fish or catching them?  If it is the later, make sure you have the right bait.

Read more from Tim here.

Tags: Attention, Awareness, Brand, Story, Tim Cool, Visioneering Studios

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Your Brand is a Story – About You

by: Seth Godin

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Why prefer Coke over Pepsi or GE over Samsung or Ford over Chevy?

In markets that aren’t natural monopolies or where there are clear, agreed-upon metrics, how do we decide?

Yes, every brand has a story—that’s how it goes from being a logo and a name to a brand. The story includes expectations and history and promises and social cues and emotions. The story makes us say we “love Google” or “love Harley”… but what do we really love?

We love ourselves.

We love the memory we have of how that brand made us feel once. We love that it reminds us of our mom, or growing up, or our first kiss. We support a charity or a soccer team or a perfume because it gives us a chance to love something about ourselves.

We can’t easily explain this, even to ourselves. We can’t easily acknowledge the narcissism and the nostalgia that drives so many of the apparently rational decisions we make every day. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not at work.

More than ever, we express ourselves with what we buy and how we use what we buy. Extensions of our personality, totems of our selves, reminders of who we are or would like to be.

Great marketers don’t make stuff. They make meaning.

Read more from Seth here.

Tags: Brand, Seth Godin

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Keeping Your Ministry Brand Top of Mind: A Lesson from Disney

by: Jon Thomas

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Though it was founded in 2006 (which makes it older than Twitter), BuzzFeed stormed onto the social media scene in 2012, more than doubling its 2011 traffic (per Alexa).

The format is perfect for the way audiences consume and share media today. The content is easy to consume, relevant, entertaining and frequent, as the site posts dozens of times a day. Brands like HBO and Velveeta have even joined in, co-creating content with BuzzFeed. It’s a publishing model that requires lots of staffers and community contributors to keep the content fire hose pumping.

So it was quite a surprise to see that Disney has launched its own BuzzFeed-like site. Entitled “Oh My Disney” (OMD), the site features articles with Disney imagery, GIFs and other short-form Disney-related editorial built specifically to be easily consumed, enjoyed and quickly shared. Posts like “15 More Reminders That You’re Great Today” and “You Know You’re a 90′s Kid When” are organized into five categories: Awww; Oh, Snap!; Retro; Silly; and Whoa.

The page is updated quite consistently, anywhere from two to eight times a day (even if the content isn’t necessarily timely). So how is Disney doing it?

A HISTORY OF SOCIAL MEDIA SUCCESS

If any brand were going to dive headfirst into publishing, Disney might be the one best suited to it. Far and away its largest and most successful platform is Facebook, where the Disney page boasts more than 42 million fans. The pages for Pixar Studios and Walt Disney Studios aren’t shabby either, having 12.5 million fans and 6.4 million fans, respectively, and the OMD Facebook page has 11,000 fans after only a few weeks of existence. Oh My Disney is also on Twitter and Tumblr.

So the foundation is there for Disney to create its own publishing channel, where a post can expand beyond the confines of a 140-character tweet or a single-image Facebook post. But what makes this possible for Disney, and difficult (though not impossible) for most other brands, lies much deeper than social media.

A HISTORY OF STORYTELLING

Having movies and characters at its core and countless physical and digital extensions, Disney has endeared itself to many through its heartfelt storytelling. Disney has a wealth of original and beloved content and characters with messages that are relevant no matter what decade you were born in. Parents watch Disney films with their children, just as they watched them with their parents when they were their children’s age. All this content gives Disney vast amounts of ammunition for OMD. They’re not creating new content as much as curating existing content.

This inherent storytelling is what makes social media and content marketing such a fruitful endeavor for entertainment-based brands. Imagery and quotations resonate with audiences forever. I still crack a smile every time the Forrest Gump Facebook page posts an update, referring to a movie that was made nearly 20 years ago (has it really been that long?).

FINDING YOUR AUDIENCE AND DELIVERING CONTENT

Another reason OMD can work for Disney is that the brand has done a great job of finding its audience. There is certainly no shortage of social media channels, but Disney carefully chooses where it will publish content and plans appropriately. Disney isn’t just creating articles on OMD and cross-posting to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr. Disney creates content specifically for each channel. Granted, the content is often very similar (photo and GIF heavy), but that creates familiarity and a unified social media voice. The key is that Disney finds its audience on the appropriate channels and uses those channels to create instead of solely promoting.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOUR BRAND?

As a content agency, we’re obviously big fans of creating an owned channel, like OMD. But we warn brands about biting off more than they can chew. Disney has made such a commitment to content that it’s dedicated a team (albeit small) to OMD, and that’s really the only way to pull off a channel like this.

But that doesn’t mean that brands should ignore the trail Disney has blazed. Like the first brands to create custom-published magazines, Disney has decided to move beyond native advertising and own its content channels. Even though it is an established brand that’s been around for decades, Disney remains at the forefront of brand storytelling.

It’s a bold move. Do you think this will pan out for Disney? Will more brands follow?

Read more from Jon here.

Tags: Attention, Aware, Brand, Jon Thomas, Social Media

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7 Things Every Pastor Should Do Every Week on Social Media

by: Rich Birch

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The most recent study shows that 67% of adults use social media regularly. [Study] If 2/3rds of your church showed up to a meeting every week would you want to use that meeting to communicate with them? If that percentage of folks in your community came to an event in your town next week would you want to find a way to use that platform to reach people?  Church leaders that ignore social media are missing a significant channel for reaching people in their community.

You might be hindering God’s work in your church because you aren’t posting enough status updates!

Social media is simply a way for you to connect with people and get to know them better. Do you want to build relationships with your people? These networks are amazing platforms for spreading ideas and concepts. Surely you want more people to connect with the message of Jesus? Social networking allows a leader to leverage more influence faster than so many communication platforms in the past. Do you believe God is asking you to influence this generation?

Here are seven simple and straight forward tasks that every pastor looking to connect through social media needs to do every week. They aren’t time consuming and they could be done on a wide variety of networks. These are a good starting point …

• Thank A Volunteer // It’s doesn’t need to be fancy but needs to be sincere. Call out a volunteer who serves with diligence on one of the teams at your church. [Something like this.]
• Show Your Humanity // Authenticity starts with letting people see you beyond just your role as a leader. Take some time to show that you are a normal person. Let your people get a peek inside your home life. [Here’s an example.]
• Bite Sized Sermon // One of the social media “primetimes” is early in the morning. Your people are checking in as they get ready in the morning. Share with them a quick quote from what you read that morning to help focus them for the day. [Morning time is prime time!]
• Post a “Behind the Scenes” Pic // You get to see some pretty cool stuff as a church leader that your people would love to see.. The worship team praying back stage before a service. The youth band rehearsing. Elders meetings. (Ok … maybe not that one.) Keep an eye out for something that your people might want to see!
• Encourage Other Pastors // Who are some other pastors that you follow? Let your people know and take some time to publicly thank them for their ministry to you. It show’s unity in the body and models a healthy respect for leadership. [Honor leadership.]
• Ask for Feedback // Are you working on your message for this weekend and are stuck at a point in your prep? Why not ask your social networks for some feedback? Interact with folks as they leave comments or input. [Some marketplace examples.]
• Dip into the Stream // Set aside some time every day this week to just wade into your social networks for a period of time. Read what people are writing about. Ask people questions. Interact. Retweet. Even 15 minutes a day will give you incredible insights.

Read more from Rich here.

Tags: Attention, Awareness, Brand, Rich Birch, Social Media

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Utilizing Storytelling in Promoting Your Ministry Brand

by: Jon Thomas

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The most effective mass media is the stories we tell and conversations we have with each other. If you don’t believe me, let me prove it to you.

We’ve all seen an endless number of ads for cars, car dealerships, and the like. If I think really hard, I may be able to remember a few of them. Let’s see… I remember the Volkswagen ad with Kid Vader (but mostly because it was so talked-about, not because I thought it was so effective). I remember the Toyota Celica ads in which the senior citizen sees a parked Celica and yells, “Slow down. This is a neighborhood!” If you gave me 10 more minutes, I could probably think of another three to five, but not much more. Considering how many car ads I’ve seen in my lifetime, that’s a pretty low recall rate, and I can assure you that none of them influenced my purchase decisions.

Recently I watched a six-minute video in which a young man, who happens to be too young to drive, tells a story that takes place in a Honda CR-V. His story nearly brought me to tears, then [spoiler alert] had me rejoicing at the end. I was smiling ear to ear, and immediately shared on every social network I could. If you haven’t heard Noah St. John’s story, you should now.

THE POWER OF STORY

I own a Ford Escape now and love it. Though I had searched for an SUV, a Honda CR-V never entered my consideration set. It just didn’t seem to be a fit for me.

But I find myself thinking of Noah and his family’s CR-V lately. My mileage is about to exceed 50,000, and I wonder where I’ll be at 100,000, and I think of Noah’s story. When my wife and I were at Babies“R”Us this past weekend to register for her shower, we looked at car seats, and I thought of it again. I wondered what kinds of practices I’d bring my child to. I wondered if my Escape would be as cherished as his CR-V. Granted, the video is fresh in my mind, but I watched a lot of TV yesterday and I couldn’t tell you five commercials I saw.

Stories are so powerful because they move us emotionally (which ads also can but rarely do). We may not remember the story forever, but we certainly remember it longer than we do that $4 million Times Square Billboard or Super Bowl ad.

THE BEST ADS AREN’T ADS

At the end of last year, our company put together a list of the best ads of 2012, and go figure, the best ads of 2012 weren’t ads. I’ll argue that Noah’s story is going to be Honda’s best CR-V ad of 2013—one the company didn’t pay a single dime for, and one that isn’t even an ad. It’s a story.

If the non-ad does come out on top, it will be no surprise. The most shareable media is most often owned or earned, and that’s because effective advertising isn’t about exposure. It’s about conversations. Since 99.99 percent of the time, the conversations people have with one another are not about your ad (or anyone else’s), only the most relevant, entertaining and informative content will be remembered and shared.

HONDA’S REACTION

I’m actually surprised by Honda’s reaction. If I were Honda, I’d be embracing Noah’s performance in a bear hug. But other than earning a passing mention on Honda’s Facebook page, Noah’s story (which has received nearly half a million views) was practically ignored by the brand. Granted, it’s still early. Honda may have larger plans. Maybe it’ll record his performance in a real studio and use it as a long-form ad. Or maybe it’s distancing itself from the story because it features a two-mother (and no-father) household. I don’t know.

Unfortunately, there’s not much a brand can do to create stories like this one. That’s what makes them so effective—their authenticity. But brands have to implement ways to find customer stories like Noah’s and embrace them in a way that will amplify the message and allow it to be more searchable and shareable. It also requires a certain commitment to quality. If the CR-V constantly broke down and was unreliable, they may have never it might never have made it to 100K.

LEAN FORWARD

Whatever the case may be, Noah’s story is 100 percent authentic. It’s from Noah, not from a brand. That allows audiences to uncross their arms and lean forward, accepting the story into their lives even if it contains a brand, because the story isn’t from the brand.

Most people don’t have 30-seconds to be interrupted by a commercial or held hostage by a pre-roll ad, but nearly a half-million people had six minutes to hear Noah’s story. Heck, I had 90-minutes to blog about it.

The greatest brand stories are the ones told by the brand’s fans.

Read more from Jon here.

Tags: Attention, Brand, Jon Thomas, Storytelling

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Understanding Trends in Church Websites: Mobile First is Growing

by: Justin Wise

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If you wanted to predict the future of the web, how would you go about doing it? Further, what if you wanted to know how people accessed and utilized their church’s website?

For starters, you take a look at the hard data. We’ve been collecting data on 50+ churches for over three years and the data, dear friends, is astounding. If I told you everything we’re uncovering through these analytics, your head might explode.

But, not one to disappoint, here’s a peek into where we’re going.

We wanted to know, with a degree of certainty, what the trends were surrounding church websites. Take viewing location, for instance. The data we’ll be looking at in this post measures four areas:

1. Mobile
2. Computer
3. Tablet
4. Others

Here at Monk, we’re definitely seeing a trend with churches wanting to design for mobile-first. We worked with The Village Church recently to create a site-wide responsive design. If you’re not familiar with responsive, it means a website is “aware” of the type of browser it’s being accessed on—mobile, tablet, or desktop—and “responds” accordingly.

(If you want to see responsive in action, go to Village Church’s website and adjust the size of your browser window. Watch the images move! This is responsive design in action.)

The trends towards mobile comes with good reason and concrete data. Here’s what our stats show: Nearly 97% of users accessed their church’s website via desktop in 2009:

Keep in mind, this is only four years ago. Barack Obama was still a new President and poor ol’ Tiger Woods announced an “indefinite leave from professional golf” to work on his marriage. Seems like it was just yesterday but, of course, it wasn’t.

Our online viewing habits have changed significantly since then. Here’s how users accessed church websites in 2010:

It isn’t a big change, but the divergence from desktop was just beginning to pick up steam. Keep in mind the first iPad was released in April 2010—a stake-in-the-ground moment for mobile/tablet usage. Here’s what the same chart in 2011 looked like:

Desktop usage by church website users decreased 7.5% from 2009 to 2011. Desktop usage decreased another 1.7% in 2012, thus solidifying the downward trend for desktop internet use. Desktop is out. Mobile and tablet use is in. (Maybe that’s what led Google to declare “desktops will be irrelevant“…by 2013.)

Look at mobile-savvy cultures like India to see where the U.S. is headed in terms of website usage. According to Mary Meeker’s research, India become a mobile-first country in May 2012. for the first time in history, more people accessed the web in this country via mobile than did desktop.

This is not insignificant.

As the slide states, many more countries will follow. So will many churches. Organizations must begin considering a mobile-first environment. This can be especially daunting for churches who still wrestle with the purpose of their desktop-based website.

Conclusion

The data I’ve presented here is a small snippet of what we’ll be covering in our yearly “State of the Church Online” report, due out the end of this month. You can get early access to the report by joining our mailing list here.

Read more from Justin here.

Tags: Attention, Brand, Justin Wise, Social Media, website

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Five Reminders for Making Ministry Videos Viral

by: Jon Thomas

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An interesting insight into what makes social content effective has emerged, or at least made itself more visible, in the past year or so. Content is king, but editing may be the queen who’s actually running the castle.

Our traditionally analog means of consuming media—television, newspaper, radio, outdoor—are quickly being replaced by digital means. We supplement TV watching with our iPads, get our news in near real time from Twitter, and share life’s moments in an instant on Facebook.

This consumption of digital content has led to the concept of “virality.” Just a few years ago this concept didn’t exist. Videos, images and articles didn’t “go viral.” Exposure on all levels, particularly for advertising, was limited to the very rich or very lucky.

Now individuals, media outlets and brands alike are owning their channels, creating and publishing content in hopes of that content’s being consumed, appreciated and shared. So now the question is not whether or not to own a channel and create content but what type of content is most likely to be shared. This leads to other questions. What resonates with audiences? Where do they consume it? Why do they share it?

THAT’S WHERE EDITING COMES IN

If you’re reading this, it is likely that within the past day or so you’ve encountered an article by the likes of BuzzFeed, This Advertising Life, ICanHazCheezburger? and any of a number of other sites (there are millions) dedicated to curating and sharing quick bites of content.

But what’s important is not so much why the editors at BuzzFeed create this content; it’s more the lessons learned from how they do it. BuzzFeed has concocted a lethal formula for social-publishing success, combining dozens of unique pieces of content each day with pop culture, timeliness, topics proven to be shareable and brevity. Most articles contain images with captions, and only a few articles contain more than a couple of hundred words.

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN FOR BRANDS?

The idea of editing and succinctness isn’t just a concept for media outlets pushing Grumpy Cat memes and Gangnam Style videos. There is a correlation between the success of viral-media sites and the success of brands on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Vine and other channels. Shorter content works (hence the existence of Twitter, Vine and Instagram). Here are a few tips to keep in mind when creating content in hopes of achieving viral success:

1. Understand your platform
What works for Facebook doesn’t necessarily work for Twitter. Write with the platform (and its audience) in mind.

2. Push the boundaries
Many platforms have technical limitations, but that doesn’t mean the boundaries aren’t there to be pushed. Brands are already using Vine for creative stop-motion videos.

3. Stay on topic
Nothing can derail a shareable piece of content like too much irrelevant content. Stay focused and stick to what your headline promises (easier said than done, especially for me).

4. Don’t under-deliver
If you’re spending more time on your headline than on your content, you’re doing it wrong. Don’t promise “10 Tricks You’ve Never Heard Of” only to repurpose tricks everyone has heard of.

5. You can sacrifice time or quality, but not both
If your content is quick, audiences will forgive a lack of quality. But if you’re publishing long-form content, the production quality must be able to override the audience’s brief attention span (think Harlem Shake versus Kony 2012).

Of course, a brand’s content-marketing strategy must correspond to its goals, since bite-size content won’t work for every brand. But in 2013, there’s no question of the power of effective editing and the shareability of entertaining short-form content. Thinking like an editor when creating your brand’s content may just turn ordinary into viral. 

Read the full story here.

Tags: Attention, Brand, Jon Thomas, Social Media

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What Does Your Ministry Brand Say About You?

by: Justin Wise

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Every tweet, every status update, every avatar, every social network background image—they all say something about your digital brand. Have you taken inventory to see what they’re saying?

For most organizations, the answer is, “no.” It’s not an intentional “no.” It’s a “no” stemming from not enough time in the day. People usually stumble into digital ghost towns by accident, not on purpose.

A Few Good Brands

MailChimp does a fantastic job at translating who they are as a company to their online presence. Their Twitter feed is filled with irreverent kookiness. The welcome greeting on the dashboard borders on nonsensical.

Wherever you interact with MailChimp online, they are the same company. There’s no confusion about who they are, what their company is like, and what they want their customer to experience. It’s all intentionally, purposefully crafted.

Kristina Halvorson and the folks at Brain Traffic are another shining example. Here’s the website for her book Content Strategy for the Web:

Beauteous. Her message of “better content, better business” is actually built into the website itself. I can guarantee you every word on this home page has been poured over and intentionally chosen. For good measure, here’s the website for Brain Traffic, the company Kristina helps run:

And here’s the site for one of their events, Confab Twin Cities:

It’s all in-sync. It all works together. The brand’s values seep out of every corner of the web, ready to be enjoyed by whomever comes across it.

What Does Your Brand Say About You?

Take a quick look at your online presence. Twitter, websites, fan pages, Instagram feeds—the works. Go ahead, I’ll wait =)

What do you see? Do you see a continuous presence, flowing from one channel to the next? Are your values prevalent in each digital outpost? For instance, if you say you value “quality,” does your website actually reflect it? Do you have an online home you can be proud of? Did you invest the time, effort, and, yes, resources to build something of actual quality?

Here’s the thing (and I’m going to shoot straight with you): you don’t have the luxury of sandbagging your digital presence any longer. The game has changed. It is no longer in the act of changing.

You can no longer simply have a blog, you must have a strategy for it. You can no longer simply tweet, you must have a strategy for those tweets. Catch my drift?

As a business, brand, individual or organization, you need to be considering:

• Content strategy
• Content marketing
• Social media strategy
• Social media management
• Social media audits
• Email marketing
• Editorial calendars
• Over digital communication strategy
• And, yes, more…

If you’re not actively developing plans for most of these, I’m afraid the widening gap may prove too wide in the future.

Read more from Justin here.

Tags: Attention, Brand, Justin Wise, Social Media

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7 Questions Your Ministry’s Social Media Must be Answering

by: Jon Thomas

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The leader who shapes culture understands that not all stories are created equal. 

The use of social media continues to rise at at a rapid rate into our world.

The combination of social media and storytelling, the term social media storytelling could be the holy grail of buzzwords. Half emerging technology that everyone said would either rule the world or totally fail, half proven method of transferring emotion and knowledge since the dawn of humanity, social media storytelling is a relatively new and an oft-misunderstood term. Nearly every digital agency claims that they’re “storytellers,” and if the client is interested in a social media activation, then they’ve magically become “social media storytellers” as well.

The combination of social media and storytelling, the term social media storytelling could be the holy grail of buzzwords. Half emerging technology that everyone said would either rule the world or totally fail, half proven method of transferring emotion and knowledge since the dawn of humanity, social media storytelling is a relatively new and an oft-misunderstood term. Nearly every digital agency claims that they’re “storytellers,” and if the client is interested in a social media activation, then they’ve magically become “social media storytellers” as well.

My mom and dad are clueless about what “social media storytelling” means, and that’s okay. But I fear there are other agencies and brands that are misunderstood, and that can be dangerous for audiences.

Effective social media storytelling starts at the beginning as does all brand storytelling on any platform or in any medium, and that’s the difference. An effective social media campaign rooted in storytelling will be united by one aspect—the brand’s Story Platform.

THE STORY PLATFORM

At its core, the Story Platform serves as the emotional heart of the brand—the enduring idea that will serve as the consistent basis for the many stories that a successful brand must tell over time. It’s developed by deeply understanding a number of elements including audience, brand and category, as well as the goals and objectives of both the brand and the business.

Not just a tagline (though sometimes it can end up being the tagline), the Story Platform is a central thought around which all communications can be built. In the case of social media, it gives direction and coherence to all subsequent marketing work.

It’s the single thought that should be apparent in everything your brand does and says—the core narrative of every story that is told about your brand.

SOCIAL MEDIA STORYTELLING FROM THE HEART

Without unearthing the brand’s core story, it’s difficult (if not impossible) for a brand to effectively tell its story across social platforms. But having done it, the brand has a starting point—something it can use to ensure that every single post, tweet and video is on-brand.

From there a brand’s social media presence has a heartbeat. That heartbeat fuels the executions while offering inherent weights and measures. It helps answer these 7 questions:

1. Who is the audience, and how do they interact with our brand?
2. How are they innovating our brand? What are they saying?
3. How do we differ from similar brands, and how can we use stories to persuade customers to choose our brand over a competitor’s?
4. How quickly should we respond to social comments (positive and negative)?
5. Which pop-culture events should we be ready to respond to in real time?
6. What user-generated content should we encourage? Which contributions should we share?
7. Does this app make sense to our brand? Will our audience use it, and more important, can it add value to their lives?

HOW CAN YOU FIND YOUR STORY PLATFORM?

It’s not simple or done overnight. If you have time to spend with your brand’s stakeholders, you can take a giant step toward understanding your brand’s core story (and continue to do this every few years as things change). Start by investigating your audience, your brand and your category. Try to ensure that you’re working with some sort of core story for your brand, and map all executions back to that story. Develop a content plan with that core story in mind. 

Social media storytelling isn’t telling a number of stories about a brand. It’s unearthing the core story at the heart of your brand and telling it in meaningful ways that people enjoy, appreciate and share.  

Read more from Jon here.

Tags: Attention, Awareness, Brand, Jon Thomas, Social Media

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Brand Storytelling: What Fear Can Teach You

by: Jon Thomas

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KAREN THOMPSON WALKER—WHAT FEAR CAN TEACH US

Walker, a fiction writer, explains that fear is a kind of unintentional storytelling we’re all born knowing how to do. We imagine our own futures, accurately or not, by creating stories. Doing so can alter the paths we choose to take. And as is evident in the story she tells of the shipwrecked sailors, how we read the stories we create in our minds can determine whether we achieve our desired outcomes.

What brands can learn from this talk:
Creating content worth sharing often requires faith and courage. Few brands are brave enough to go out on a limb, and instead create uninspiring content that prevents most people from reacting in any way, positively or negatively. It’s the fear of the unknown and the stories that brand managers create in their minds that bind their creativity and limit their spontaneity. What if the content is too edgy? What if the article ruffles too many feathers? Won’t responding to the irate customer’s Facebook post just make the problem more obvious?

Instead of fearing the unknown, take a look at the types of content and brands that have succeeded in the post-advertising age. From Red Bull to Oreo and Warby Parker, the brands that aren’t afraid to push the creative envelope, embrace unique and innovative marketing techniques and actively (and equally) respond to customers’ praise and criticism are the brands that have succeeded.

Watch Part 1 and Part 2 of Brand Storytelling

Read more from Jon here.

Tags: Attention, Awareness, Brand, Jon Thomas

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