When you start on your journey of being a 'Storyteller' it's vital to remember who it is you're trying stimulate and engage with your stories. 

All content is NOT good content, and bad content can negatively affect your brand’s reputation.

You need to capture shared thoughts, interactions, and if you get the formula right, hopefully you grow your audience who will want more.

After all YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram wouldn't really add value to any of us if it wasn't for it's users generating millions of pieces of niche, or broader pieces of content in all it's formats from video, copy, pictures, and Podcast.

 As this type of 'content strategy' becomes more mainstream,  it's going to be increasingly difficult for you to be able to stand out among all those other people who share the same passions as you do, and want to share them with the world. Let’s be perfectly honest here, most content sucks. It’s low-effort and manipulative. It hides the answer to the viewer’s question behind layers of fluff. And Its sole purpose is to drive sales.

So here's a few thoughts (more in the link below) that might help, and provide some context around what I think underpins a successful  'Content Strategy';

You are unique, that's a fact, every person on this planet, and those yet to be born are also unique. There are literally billions of people inhabiting this blue planet of ours, and today there are circa 3.5bn of them on social networks, many of them wannabe 'content writers'. 

So lets just agree that's a lot of digital noise clamoring for our attention. 

Example; If you go and see a movie, or go to a sporting event with your friends, each of you will have seen the same movie, and the same sporting event, however, you will have a different perspective than your friends based on how 'they' percieved what they saw. Some are more into fashion than you, some know more about the actors than you, and some know more about the stats side of the game than you, but you all saw the same movie, or sporting event - din't you?. 

Therefore you all have a slightly different perspective on the same subject matter, which is where your super power can kick in. Focus on on what you like, are knowledgeable about, and have a passion for it. 

When we take companies through our digital transformation project with 'Social Selling' one of our key principles is around the power of 'employee advocacy'. Depending on how many people are in your company, and in which department they operate, they will all have a different perspective on what it is that makes your company special, so Jenny from Finance will have a different perspective than Gail from Marketing, the same is true for each of your leaderships teams.

Companies are reluctant to take this first brave step forwards because of the overriding view by the 'brand police' that 'we can't control it', But, if this 'super power' is harnessed within our tried and tested framework for 'Social Selling', chances are your company would never advertise again, why? 

Because you, your colleagues and your company will be considered the greater thought leader in your area than any of your competitors.

Powerful, powerful stuff eh!

Oh, and one more thing - we often see employees with a greater social footprint than most of their leadership teams, makes you think doesn't it?

We are active 'practitioners' of what we do, we already know and can evidence the ROI of a robust and internally aligned 'Social' strategy.

Part of that evidence it that you are reading this blog, just like many others - including your competitor!

We also don't do outbound pushy, salesy marketing, so if you would like to explore more, please contact the author of this blog.