But fear not; there’s a secret weapon that can lift your brand above the noise: customer storytelling. It’s not just about spinning a good tale; it’s about building trust and creating connections by allowing your customers to do the talking for you.

Because it turns out that only 30% of consumers trust companies. That’s not a great percentage. So, if you run ads listing the six reasons consumers should choose your product, the consumer won’t believe you. However, if you have a verified customer post the six reasons they love your product, consumers will start to trust you.

And companies that are able to gain the trust of their customers outsell their competitors by up to “400% in terms of total market value” and customers are 88% more likely to buy again if they trust the brand.

Sure, you should still talk about yourself, share your origin story on your “About Us” page, and fill your product pages with all the product features your heart desires. But when it comes to telling potential customers why they should buy your product, the message is better received when it comes from actual customers.

While there are countless reasons why customers should be at the center of your marketing strategy, here are the top four reasons customer storytelling will help your business.

1. People trust customers (and even influencers)

Let me tell you a story of when I was trying to choose a travel credit card. I had been researching for weeks, and I just couldn’t decide. Then, a travel influencer on Instagram said she used the Capital One Venture Card. My research was then complete, and I immediately got the Capital One Venture Card.

Was that the best travel credit card for me? Who knows? But someone I trusted said it had good travel rewards, so I went for it.

The thing is, this story isn’t unique. According to a study from Oracle and Brent Leary, “80% of consumers have purchased products in direct response to social media content.” When it comes down to it, consumers are skeptical of businesses, so it’s no surprise they trust social media influencers, peers, and celebrities to give them advice on new products.

The reason influencer marketing is so effective is because influencers have already built a loyal following of people who trust their opinions. So, when an influencer introduces a product, their followers assume they have used the product and are promoting it because they love it. And most of the time, their followers can ignore the fact that the influencer may be getting kickbacks for promoting the product.

The real value of customer storytelling stems from the fact that real people don’t talk like brands. Instead of highlighting the latest technology, newest features, or energy efficiency, real people talk about how the product makes their lives better.

2. Big brands use customer storytelling because it works

I know what you’re thinking. Of course, big, established brands can rely on word-of-mouth marketing—they’re already household names. The truth is, customer-centric storytelling is a sound marketing strategy for any company. But just for fun, let’s check out some word-of-mouth marketing examples.

Tesla’s customer-driven marketing strategy

When was the last time you saw a Tesla ad? The answer should be “never,” because they don’t use traditional advertising and don’t spend any money on paid ads or endorsements. Tesla’s entire marketing strategy relies on customer referrals. Initially, Tesla offered extravagant rewards for referrals, including exclusive access to events, early delivery of new models, and even limited-edition vehicles. But they revamped the program in 2019 to offer more attainable incentives like Supercharging credits, FSD access, and discounts on new vehicles.

Duolingo’s polyglot fans

Duolingo acquires about 80% of its users through word-of-mouth marketing. Duolingo’s gamified approach, coupled with a witty social media presence, has created a loyal and enthusiastic user base. The app’s ability to quickly demonstrate language proficiency has fueled a viral loop, with satisfied learners sharing their success stories and encouraging friends to join.

This organic growth is evident in Duolingo’s impressive user acquisition costs, which are significantly lower than industry averages. By focusing on creating a product people love and leveraging the power of social sharing, Duolingo has proven that word-of-mouth can be a formidable force in driving business growth.

Dyson’s vocal customer base

By consistently introducing groundbreaking products like the bagless vacuum cleaner, the bladeless fan, and the Supersonic hair dryer, Dyson has cultivated a reputation for technological superiority. This innovation, combined with a strong emphasis on design and engineering, has created a loyal customer base eager to share their experiences.

While Dyson launched their brand in the 1990s with traditional marketing, they now let product quality and customer satisfaction drive word-of-mouth. Their focus on WOM marketing has intensified in recent years as social media platforms have amplified consumer voices.

3. Customer marketing strategies provide long-term SEO value

We already mentioned how your “About Us” page and product pages are the perfect places on your website to toot your own horn. These pages are also great for SEO because they’re packed with keywords and phrases. But you also want to include customer-generated content on your site so the SERPs can be filled with authentic, trustworthy content about your brand. Here are some customer-focused pages you might want to add to your website:

Customer reviews

Did you know that 90% of customers read reviews before they buy a product? When you allow your customers to speak for your brand, you get more user-generated content on your site and more engaged followers. It also helps improve your SEO and provides fresh content for search engines to spider.

These reviews can either be in written or video form. And always make sure to post your video reviews to YouTube so you can rank for keywords in two places.

Bonus points: Scour social media for customer reviews and mentions of your brand. Be sure to engage with your customers (both happy and angry), so these interactions will also end up in search results.

Case studies

While case studies aren’t traditionally written by customers, they do allow you to show potential consumers how other people use your product to build their business and make their life easier. If you’re a B2B brand, try to highlight well-known and trusted brands who use your product or service.

Testimonials

Testimonials are the fancy cousin of customer reviews. Brands usually request written or spoken statements from their happy customers to feature on their websites. While they’re not as candid as a traditional customer review, they do provide customer-centric content.

4. Word-of-mouth marketing still reigns supreme

As mentioned above, only 30% of consumers trust companies. On the other hand, 88% of consumers trust brands when a friend or family member recommends it. This means that if you want your customers to trust you, they need to hear about your brand or product from someone else, preferably a trusted friend or family member.

And the first step to building great word-of-mouth around your brand is to create a great product that people want to tell their friends about. When you provide quality products and good service, your customers will talk about your brand if they have a good experience.

Today, people are all too ready to share their opinions about products and brands. The trick is to provide a good experience to each of your customers, so they’ll want to share all their positive thoughts and feelings about your brand. Inspire rave reviews that can spark your next customer-driven marketing strategy. And the next time you think about creating a marketing campaign around your latest product features, consider focusing on your customers and highlighting their experiences.

Ask the Content Strategist: FAQs About Customer Storytelling

How can businesses implement customer storytelling if they don’t have a large customer base yet?

Small businesses can start by leveraging testimonials from their earliest customers. They can also engage with their audience on social media, encourage satisfied customers to share their experiences, and use these stories in their marketing materials. Partnering with micro influencers can also be effective.

What is a micro influencer?

A micro-influencer is a social media user who has a smaller, yet highly engaged, following, typically between 1,000 to 100,000 followers. They are often considered experts or enthusiasts in a specific niche, such as beauty, fitness, technology, or travel. Their recommendations are often seen as more credible and authentic, as they usually promote products they genuinely use and like.

What are some effective ways to encourage customers to share their stories?

Businesses can create incentives such as discounts, contests, or loyalty programs for customers who share their stories. Additionally, they can make it easy for customers to leave reviews by providing links and clear instructions. Highlighting customer stories on social media and in newsletters can also encourage others to share their experiences.

What are some common mistakes businesses make when using customer storytelling?

Common mistakes include over-editing customer stories to the point where they lose authenticity, not obtaining proper permissions from customers before using their stories, failing to follow up with customers after they share their stories, and not integrating customer stories across various marketing channels for maximum impact. Businesses should ensure stories remain genuine and respect customers’ contributions and privacy.

For more tips on customer-focused marketing, subscribe to The Content Strategist.

The post 4 Reasons To Add Customer Storytelling to Your Marketing Mix appeared first on Contently.

As an employee of Spoon, the content marketing agency for Volvo Trucks, Glad is helping drive some of Europe’s increasingly ambitious content marketing projects. Across the continent, more than 70 percent of European marketers created more content last year than they did in 2014.

Volvo Trucks, which is one of the largest B2B truck companies in the world, may be best known for its 2013 video, “The Epic Split,” which featured Jean-Claude Van Damme doing a split across two vehicles moving in reverse. The clip became an immediate hit, racking up more than 80 million views.

Since that viral success, innovative content has been the fuel that keeps the marketing engine running for Volvo Trucks.

“To succeed with content marketing, you must have a multi-channel way of thinking simply because a brand’s audience is scattered among a lot of different platforms, channels, and media,” Glad said.

Over the last few years, Spoon has created a variety of big projects ranging from Swedish-language stories for Volvo Trucks Magazine, infographics about energy trends, animations, the Welcome to My Cab web series that takes viewers inside customized truck cabs, and even a demo companion piece for “The Epic Split” that received 1.7 million views of its own. (“The Epic Split” was created by another agency, Forsman & Bodenfors.)

Glad stressed that most of the content is meant to be repurposed for multiple channels. For example, a recent story titled “Keeping alive on one of the world’s most dangerous roads” was published on the digital version of the magazine last August, reformatted with a new layout for Facebook, adapted into a video, and accompanied by an animated GIF. The story was also expanded into an eight-page spread with the title “Close to Heaven” in the print version of the magazine.

While Volvo Trucks relies on a diverse output, video has become its biggest resource when it comes to engaging its target audience: companies with large fleets of trucks as well as small businesses looking for transportation solutions and a brand with a premium image.

“Video is a very flexible media where we can create a longer story for YouTube, which then can be cut down in shorter episodes and published in other social media channels like Facebook or LinkedIn,” said Agneta Malmcrona, the global content manager at Volvo Trucks. “We see this as a smart way to think broad and narrow at the same time, and it is also a very cost efficient way of working.”

A year after “The Epic Split” came “Volvo Trucks vs. Koenigsegg,” which pitted a Volvo truck against a high-performance sports car to showcase the dual clutch gearbox in the brand’s heavy-duty trucks. The campaign which ran for three weeks, took Spoon more than six months from concept to conclusion. But the effort was well worth it. The video only needed a week to get a million views online, leading to 412 earned media headlines in 35 different countries

Creating all of this content requires a colossal amount of manpower. According to Eric Lundekrans, a Spoon account manager, the company employs dozens of creatives, from editors to art directors to motion graphics designers to video reporters. “In a big project, all of these roles are represented,” he said. “But our editors should be able to do what editors at any modern publishing house are doing—write, handle photos, create GIFs, simple video editing, simple coding as necessary, publish on all digital platforms, boost posts in social, and analyze data.”

When it comes to collaborating, Volvo Trucks provides the direction for what it wants to communicate about a product, service, or core brand value while Spoon devises the concepts and executes. “It is very much a tight and transparent client-agency-relationship where everybody brings ideas to the table,” Lundekrans said.

“In bigger marketing campaigns, the aim is often to create broad awareness, but at the same time to create leads,” Malmcrona said. “We have been successful in creating leads in marketing campaigns simply by linking from video-based content in social media to a dealer landing page. This gives us a very good ROI.”

A little Jean-Claude Van Damme didn’t hurt either.

The post How Volvo Trucks Turned B2B Video Into a Viral Art Form appeared first on Contently.

With that in mind, I’m staying away from all the major Super Bowl and Oscars ad campaigns[note]Sorry, Erlich.[/note] that have been covered more than Donald Drumpf. With that in mind, let’s get to this month’s picks:

Facebook: “Three and a half degrees of separation”

Facebook is in the process of eating the entire media world, but it’s also scoring some wins with original research content. Last year, Facebook released fascinating reports on topics like LGBT culture and how people laugh online. In February, the research team came out with “Three and a half degrees of separation,” which revealed the surprising level of connectedness of all 1.59 billion people on Facebook.

I know what you’re thinking: It’s a crime that this post wasn’t titled “Three and a half degrees of Kevin Bacon.” Someone should probably be fired—or, at the very least, have snack privileges taken away for a week. Nonetheless, it’s a great example of a brand using internal data to tell a story.

Bernie Sanders: “It’s Not Over”

Political preferences aside, this is one of the most powerful campaign ads I’ve ever seen. Activist Erica Garner—daughter of Eric Garner, who was tragically killed by police on video in July 2014—tells the story of her fight for justice and why she’s endorsing Sanders.

The ad had a big impact, earning press from just about every major news outlet. If Bernie beats all odds and keeps it close with Hillary Clinton on Super Tuesday, this ad could be a big reason why.

Pantene: “NFL Dad-Dos”

I’m pleased to introduce a video series that will, as New York magazine put it, spark “that weird moment when you finally cave into cheesy viral marketing.” In the lead up to the Super Bowl, Pantene released a series of five videos featuring NFL players doing their daughter’s hair. (With Pantene products, of course.) Their banter is heartwarming whether you like football or not—but if you are a fan, it’s pretty awesome to see this side of players. I’ll even forgive the video’s awkward attempts at sports analogies, which sound like something Liz Lemon would say when pretending to talk football.

Veritas/T Brand Studio: “Data Goes to the Movies”

It’s time for your quarterly dose of native ad porn, courtesy of The New York Times. (Not to be confused with these guys.)

The Times‘s T Brand Studio lived up to its stellar reputation with this interactive longform essay—paid for by big-data company Veritas—on the role predictive analytics plays in Hollywood,

This piece, surely, was very, very expensive, and begs the question: Given their considerable resources, why can’t all brands pull this kind of thing off themselves? Hell, they don’t even need the resources: The Atavist will let you create your own “Snow Fall”-style story for about $50 per month.

JetBlue: “Reach Across the Aisle”

With the Super Bowl and Oscars over, we’ve officially entered “election-jacking” advertising season. This is bad news. Bud Light’s fake political party is pretty much the worst frat prank ever. However, we do have a shimmer of hope: JetBlue’s “Reach Across the Aisle” video.

JetBlue gave a group of passengers a chance to win a free round trip ticket anywhere on earth if they could all “reach across the aisle” (GET IT?!) and agree on the same destination. Sure, the whole concept is little corny, but the social experiment angle makes for an intriguing piece of content.

(Full disclosure: JetBlue is a Contently client.)

Qantas: “AWOL”

Quietly, Australian airline Qantas has built one of the most successful upstart brand magazines out there.

Created in partnership with Junkee Media last year, AWOL—run by a four-person editorial team—receives over 250,000 readers and 2 million visits each month, according to Digiday. One post, “Science Says It’s Totally Ok to Spend Your Money on Travel,” has been shared over 335,000 times. The site is designed to appeal to Aussie millennials, and with posts like “You Can Sleep in a Huge Beer Can at This Music Festival,” it does a pretty good job.

Impressively, the site even runs native campaigns for advertisers like Patagonia. My only criticism would be for Qantas to clearly label that it’s funding the site. Right now, there’s just a small disclosure in the footer. Not only would the change be more ethical, it would also lead to a bigger brand lift on the site.

Kleenex: “A Caring Chorus”

Like a playground bully, I want to make you cry at least once while reading this column. As Carly Miller wrote for The Content Strategist last week, Kleenex’s new video hits “all the right points on the emotional scale.” I’m not going to ruin it for you. Just watch it and consider the key lesson: Branded storytelling is so much more powerful when it focuses on what the humans inside a company care about, not what they sell.

Think I missed anything? Have suggestions for next month’s roundup? Whether it’s targeted at bros, B2B, or B2B bros, holler at me @joelazauskas on Twitter or email lazer@contently.com.

The post The Best Branded Content of February 2016 appeared first on Contently.

Over the past few months, Brenner has been busy as usual: He co-authored The Content Formula: Calculate the ROI of Content Marketing & Never Waste Money Again, and left NewsCred to start his own venture, Marketing Insider Group.

Last week, Brenner called into the podcast to discuss the state of content marketing, why most marketers need Sixteen Candles-style makeovers, and what brand Ben Carson would be. Listen below or download the episode on iTunes.

Highlights:

(2:00) Michael discusses how content marketing has evolved during his decade in the business and names his favorite brand storytellers.

(17:10) We dive into “marketing’s marketing problem,” how to fight against the plague of self-promotional content, and the secret to content marketing ROI.

(34:10) Finally, we play a lightning round of a new game, asking Michael to name the brand he most associates with each political candidate.

The post Content Sutra Ep. 7: Michael Brenner on the Future of Content Marketing appeared first on Contently.

Squarespace, a website building platform, is giving two aspiring sportscasters, Lee and Morris, the chance to air their own live commentary that will stream on Game Day. And we can already tell it’s going to be hilarious.

Why? Because Lee and Morris are the creations of Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key, the stars of Comedy Central’s Emmy-nominated series Key & Peele.

Key and Peele are secret geniuses at creating branded content, as Contently co-founder Shane Snow pointed out back in 2014. Just check out this sketch that smartly incorporates a promotion for Liam Neeson’s film, Non-Stop. It can teach content marketers a thing or two (or five) about their craft.

And this isn’t the first time Squarespace went beyond the basic 30-second ad, either. For last year’s Super Bowl, Squarespace launched a literal album of soothing sleep-time tracks, featuring the sound of Jeff Bridges’s voice. All of the proceeds from album sales went to the charity No Kid Hungry.

While we won’t know how it turns out until the livestream airs, all signs points to “awesome marketing move” for this latest project from Squarespace. To check out Lee and Morris’ debut sportscast for yourself—and take a break from the usual commentary you hear every year—head to Squarespace’s Real Talk site starting at 6 p.m. ET on Sunday and tweet along with #RealTalk.

Really, though. These guys need all the support they can get.

The post Should Livestreams Become the New Super Bowl Commercial? appeared first on Contently.

Content Express: How Amex Raised the Bar for Longform Brand Storytelling

A lot of brands talk about “committing to content,” but Amex showed what that overused phrase really means when they embedded a reporter in a North Carolina startup, Buchi Kombucha, for three months to document their unique and compelling story, writes Celine Roque:

“The Journey“ is a prime example of what happens when a company executes its content marketing with an ambitious editorial mindset. Each of the story’s seven chapters contains high-quality photos of the founders, their staff, and the 180-acre property that holds their farm and brewery. There are three short video documentaries that intimately profile the Buchi team, and the written part totals over 10,000 words. Read it.

7 Things Marketers Should Know About Working With Journalists

As brands get serious about storytelling, a lot of marketers find themselves just now working with journalists for the first time, and they’re inexperience with this relationship can lead to some frustrating and poisoned relationships. Ryan Galloway has the scoop on what marketers need to know. Read it.

How Sun Life Financial Turned Their Blog Into a Lead-Gen Machine

It’s finance content marketing week here on The Content Strategist, and in this piece, we look at Sun Life Financial, which turned their content strategy around by doing something that’s not exactly intuitive for brands—they stopped talking about themselves.

Brighter Life shaped itself as a resource by focusing on useful tips and tools about money, health, family, working life, and retirement. Sun Life made sure their content served consumers, not the company’s bottom line.

“Consumers are quick to dismiss content that’s little more than thinly veiled sales messaging,” Brenda Spiering, manager of content strategy at Sun Life Financial and editor for BrighterLife.ca, said. “Brighter Life articles do not discuss Sun Life-branded products and services. Instead, the site looks to engage consumers with content that’s credible, unbiased, written in plain language, and free of marketing tactics.” Read it.

‘The Antidote’: Jay Baer on How Brands Can Stop Annoying People and Start Earning Trust

Content marketing savant and best-selling author Jay Baer spends his days traveling the world and helping brands turn their content marketing around. In an in-depth interview, he reveals what your brand is doing wrong—and what you need to do to get it right. Read it.

Quiz: Who’s Your Content Marketing Soulmate?

A little fun to end your week—because you know you’re dying to know. Take it.

The post Content Catchup: Amex Raises the Bar for Brand Storytelling, Content Marketing Soulmates, and More Must-Reads appeared first on Contently.

Nissan isn’t the only company to take notice of what YouTube has to offer. Digital beauty gurus Michelle Phan and Bethany Mota generated major buzz for their respective partnerships with L’Oréal and Aéropostale, and other companies are catching onto how valuable YouTube stars can be as content creators and brand ambassadors.

At the Interactive Advertising Bureau Annual Leadership Meeting, Erin McPherson, chief content officer of Maker Studios, the largest distributor of short-form video content in the world, said, “This generation doesn’t dislike brands. What they don’t like is advertising.”

If millennials can learn about brands through content they’re already consuming (YouTube videos) from sources they trust (YouTube stars), they’d probably be more likely to pay attention. Plus, these YouTube stars have obvious appeal—they bring incredibly loyal audiences and will most likely accept cheaper endorsement fees than every celebrity not named Pauly Shore.

For brands looking to team up with these online influencers, let’s take a look at some of the best creators YouTube has to offer.

1. DevinSupertramp

Devin Graham, a.k.a. Devin Supertramp, is like a one-man Red Bull media powerhouse. For four years now, he’s been creating high-energy extreme sports videos for his YouTube audience, which has grown to almost 3 million subscribers. This exposure has landed him sponsorships from some major brands, such as Mountain Dew, Reebok, and Speed Stick Gear. For those interested in the gaming space, he also films these awesome live-action Assassin’s Creed adventures with parkour master Ronnie Shalvis.

2. Mamrie Hart

You can make a convincing argument that Mamrie Hart is the funniest person on YouTube. In her show “You Deserve a Drink,” Hart creates wacky cocktails with punny names in honor of big pop culture events, special guests, and basically anyone who really needs a drink. Expanding her own personal brand beyond YDAD, Hart has a separate vlog channel (featuring her must-see dog, Beanz), and a book coming out in May.

Hart also accounts for one-third of what fans have dubbed the “Holy Trinity,” a trifecta of awesomeness and hilarity including fellow YouTube stars Grace Helbig and Hannah Hart. The three mixed their talents together to star in the 2014 comedy film Camp Takota, co-written by Hart.

3. Kurt Hugo Schneider

A self-taught musician, Kurt Hugo Schneider is the man to go to for music on YouTube. His channel, which has over 5 million subscribers, consists of high-quality covers, mashups, and original tunes featuring a slew of other music artists from the platform. In 2013, Schneider partnered with Coca-Cola to create music videos and commercials that showed him covering songs by playing Coke bottles. The video above also features Kevin Olusola, best known as the beatboxer for Pentatonix, a Grammy-award-winning a cappella group that launched on The Sing-Off and blew up on YouTube.

4. Glam Life Guru

Tati of Glam Life Guru is a Hollywood makeup artist and stylist who serves up beauty hauls, tips, and tutorials to over a half million subscribers five days a week. Tati stands out on YouTube because she reaches a more mature audience than the plethora of teen beauty gurus, and she also does product reviews of drugstore and department store brands. As with every other YouTuber worth her salt, Tati’s popularity has exploded on social media. She also delivers content to her 15,000 Pinterest followers and 50,000 Twitter followers.

5. Corridor Digital

Filmmakers and friends since middle school, Sam Gorski and Niko Pueringer founded Corridor Digital in 2010 as a VFX production house. But it wasn’t long before they decided to make short films and post them on YouTube. And that certainly paid off because the pair has built an audience of over 3 million subscribers and is recognized for creating some of the most high-quality productions on the platform. Corridor Digital’s most popular video is a live-action Minecraft battle. But my all-time favorite is the one involving kittens, above.

6. WhatsUpMoms

By moms for moms, WhatsUpMoms serves up kitchen tips, easy recipes, DIY projects, and comedy sketches three times per week. Elle, who started on YouTube as WhatsUpElle, teamed up with fellow moms Meg and Brooke to offer motherly advice online after she became pregnant with her second child. Through the platform, Elle has been responsible for partnerships with several brands, including Tide, Capital One, and Keurig Coffee.

7. Joshua David Evans

Joshua David Evans used to work for a network that was trying to sign YouTubers, and now, after four years of posting videos, he’s running his own vlog channel with over a half million subscribers. Last week, he also launched his own YouTube talk show called “What’s Up Internet?” where he ran funny sketches and interviewed YouTube stars in front of a live audience. As his loyal viewers know well, it’s hard to talk about Evans without mentioning another talented YouTuber: his fiancée Colleen Ballinger, who’s the creator of one of YouTube’s favorite weirdos, MirandaSings (with over 3 million subscribers).

Evans has integrated brands like NatureBox, ProFlowers, and Taco Bell (they let him inside of their test kitchens!) into his videos. And he recently uploaded the video above, in which he’s completely transparent about why he (and other YouTubers) take on brand sponsorships. However, he was adamant about the fact that he only promotes brands and products he’s passionate about, something YouTuber Tyler Oakley also emphasized in a recent interview.

8. Unbox Therapy

Lewis Hilsenteger managed to build a YouTube channel entirely focused on reviewing, suggesting, and, of course, unboxing products. While he typically sticks to consumer electronics, Hilsenteger has unboxed everything from cars and weird potato chips to giant gummy bears and Happy Meals. He’s probably best known for initiating the iPhone 6 Plus bend test, which proved that Apple’s newest smartphone is not as durable as we’d hoped.

9. IISuperwomanII

Lilly Singh is one of the most consistently entertaining artists on YouTube, producing everything from comedy sketches about her Indian culture to motivational talks for millennial viewers. Some of her most popular videos are those in which she plays her parents reacting to scandalous things like Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” video and crazy YouTube comments.

10. ScottDW

Similar to the guys at Corridor Digital, Scott David Winn has made a name for himself by producing high-quality, imaginative videos. With 27 million views, his most viral project to date is his real-life Fruit Ninja recreation set to dubstep music. Winn was also one of the first YouTube creators to shoot and upload content in 4K resolution for his popular video of Stormtroopers twerking. Because if you could watch anything in 4K, it would obviously be that.

As YouTubers continue to emerge as trusted voices for different communities—be it beauty, music, or parenting—Google’s platform is becoming a goldmine full of potential brand influencers. To reap the benefits, companies just have to be willing to sacrifice some brand sensitivity and let YouTubers do what they do best: Serve up creative content for millions of loyal viewers.

The post 10 YouTube Stars Your Brand Should Partner With appeared first on Contently.

On the surface it’s an easy question, but in a world where marketers have co-opted storytelling and turned it into a monstrous buzzword, it can be easy to lose sight of the answer. And, in truth, the answer is different for anyone.

For a new storytelling mini-series, we gave four filmmakers or producers an open-ended assignment: Create a one- to two-minute film that interprets and answers that critical question, “Why do stories matter?” To be honest, we had no idea what to expect.

The first film in our series comes from John Shankman and his creative agency, Hashtag Labs. You may remember John as the former publisher of The Awl; today, he’s busy telling amazing stories—like his submission for our series. Check it out below.

We emailed John to learn more about how his film and how he approaches storytelling:

Why did you choose to tell the story you did in this video?

We wanted to tell a funny story because we love to make people laugh (or at least try to. A lot of (all of) the pre-production credit goes to the writer/director/editor, Brian Neaman, really. It was a great idea by him. He analyzed our production constraints (limited budget, time, etc) and created a story framework that would allow us to get the most bang for our buck.

Shoot day was really rewarding too, because once the cast and crew were on location, everyone contributed their own ideas and that led us to new places—it’s always exciting to see the creative process in action.

Do you think stories actually matter, or were you just humoring us?

I’ll let a person much smarter than I handle this. George Saunders on why stories matter: “The best stories proceed from a mysterious truth-seeking impulse that narrative has when revised extensively; they are complex and baffling and ambiguous; they tend to make us slower to act, rather than quicker. They make us more humble, cause us to empathize with people we don’t know, because they help us imagine these people, and when we imagine them—if the storytelling is good enough—we imagine them as being, essentially, like us.”

What’s your favorite story?

Back to the Future is pretty epic. Goonies too.

Tell a funny story in 50 words.

I was going to the gym for the first time in months with my younger brother and I came out in a work out shirt that was too small. He gave me a shocked look and then calmly said, “Is that a size schmedium?”

What advice would you give brands that are trying to tell stories that don’t suck?

This is pretty cliché at this point, but be authentic and genuine. Marketers should build their online brands/stories/digital footprints one piece of content at a time. A library of interesting, honest, and relevant content is possibly worth more in the long run than a one-time viral hit.

In business there’s this saying that I like that goes TIME + PRESSURE = DIAMONDS. That’s to say: Stick with it over a decent amount of time, and you’ll start to see results. I think marketers who are getting into creating content regularly, as opposed to previous eras where they created only a couple of messages per year, could use that saying too. Keep the pedal to the metal one piece of content at a time and over time you’ll see results.

Who are your three favorite wizards?

Julia Wicker, Quentin Coldwater, and Janet Pluchinsky.

Name your least favorite band.

Honestly, pretty tough. All music is pretty good in my book. Hashtag create and all that.

The post Why Do Stories Matter? Ask This Millennial Stuck in an Elevator appeared first on Contently.

The question is: How do you accomplish that?

Altimeter’s new best practices report, “A Culture of Content,” written by Rebecca Lieb and Jessica Groopman, provides a framework for how organizations of any size can establish, evangelize, and foster a culture of content. Let’s take a look at the most important takeaways.

Establish a unified vision

Since your content helps establish your brand’s voice so you can build meaningful relationships with your readers, you need the right people championing your values. But before you can begin to find the best people to create your content, it’s crucial that you establish a content strategy to guide your future team of writers, editors, and strategists.

There must be a single, shared purpose that unites company members and everyone involved in creating content. This commonality will also help each person understand how their day-to-day tasks impact the big-picture business goals of your company.

The brand vision can be spread throughout the company with training and evangelism—more on that later. And above all, this unified brand message provides an editorial game plan. Creators should only produce content that supports this vision.

Invest in people and creativity

Not everyone in your company will be a content creator, but each employee can still contribute to the cause. Content marketers often receive tips and ideas about potential story ideas, strategies, and pain points from customer support and sales teams.

For example, here at Contently, we noticed clients were expressing interest in paid social distribution, so we launched the “Distribution 101” series, which serves not only potential clients but also readers of The Content Strategist who may be fortifying their own content operations.

At Wells Fargo, the marketing team noticed some employees were working on inspiring projects during their free time. Wanting to celebrate and share these good deeds, the marketers launched Wells Fargo Stories, an online multimedia magazine that highlights how team members are positively impacting communities across the world.

In a similar vein, quite a few companies, such as IBM and Airbnb, invite their employees to blog regularly.

Fill your company with these kinds of people—doers, makers, inspirers—and you have an internal pool of engaging stories ready to be mined for publication. In order to create this type of altruistic culture, qualifications for new hires will be less about aptitude and more about attitude. In order to contribute, company members must have a passion for participating in the brand storytelling operation.

Evangelize content

Company-wide enthusiasm for content marketing doesn’t materialize overnight—it requires constant communication and reinforcement. And this reinforcement is crucial because in order for a culture of content to thrive, each company member must play a part.

This responsibility generally falls on what the report calls the “Content Leader.” I’m more comfortable using the term “content team,” because, as the report also notes, there is much debate among companies about the definition of who the Content Leader is and how far that person’s authority stretches. At Contently, our content team consists of a chief creative officer, VP of content, editor-in-chief, associate editors, assistant editor, and a badass intern or two.

As the report notes, whoever leads your content operation should be responsible for proving the value of the content, creating and employing a strategy, coordinating across departments, and nurturing the creative talent. For us, that’s our VP of Content, Sam Slaughter.

Senior leaders, meanwhile, won’t necessarily implement the content, but their support is crucial to its implementation. They need to be on board with the marketing efforts in order to fund projects and back ideas that might go against the status quo. For us, that’s our CCO, Shane Snow.

How can the content team make this happen? “By providing metrics of actionable results,” the report states, “and proving that building a portfolio with small, well-performing projects over time can lead up to a larger, more ambitious campaigns.” If you can prove your content campaigns lead to increased sales and brand lift, how can any executive possibly say no? More importantly, why would an executive want to say no? That’s the challenge for us, just as its the challenge for every content team that’s telling stories on the business side’s dime.

The content team must also be sure that customer-facing groups within the company (support, sales, subject-matter experts, IT, researchers, legal) are a part of the process. Check out John McRory’s “How to Get Legal to Say ‘Yes’ to Your Content Marketing” for more on this.

How can the content team motivate these groups? Mainly by tying content into each department’s objectives and developing metrics everyone can easily use and follow. This is all much more effective than just saying, “Hey, can you do us a favor?”

Once the content team has the support of internal departments, they must get external partners involved in the culture. Homegrown content can be crucial to effective outreach, but sometimes in-house resources aren’t enough to scale an operation. Many brands are partnering with agencies, content services, and analytics platforms to build out their brand newsrooms.

Getting everyone involved in the culture of content will require certain education and training. Anyone who holds a stake in the company’s well-being has to understand the importance of content in order to support it. At Contently, we hold “Lightning Talks” during lunch on Fridays, when company members and departments can share their latest project developments or expand upon industry-related topics of interest.

For more on how to evangelize content, check out “A 4-Step Guide to Evangelizing Content Within Your Brand” by Natalie Burg.

Set up a system of communication

Once everyone is well-acquainted with the advantages of a culture of content, it’s time to integrate the operation across the company. A system of governance must be set into place, establishing who does what and when. It’s crucial that the content is accessible company-wide.

Make it clear all employees have the potential to be publishers. Each expert in his/her field can write a thought leadership piece exploring the nuances of their overarching responsibilities. Experts can’t just come from the marketing department. One of the best examples of this is IKEA’s “Home Tours” campaign, which assembled a squad of employees from IKEA stores around the world to visit their customers’ homes and document their experiences.

Make sure all technology is streamlined for communication throughout the company. Set up an editorial calendar everyone can view so employees know when case studies and ebooks will be published and can be distributed to potential clients.

Final thoughts

A culture of content will benefit everyone. It will make the customer experience richer, flesh out the roles of every employee, create smoother channels of communication, pull in better engagement statistics, and convey a unified brand voice. Departments and specialists shouldn’t be duking it out for control of content. Instead, they should be combining talents and working together toward this common goal.

With 2015 being the year of owned media, it’s time to make your content count, make your voice heard, and make sure the voice people hear aligns with your brand’s values and your customers’ needs. If you create a culture from the ground up, your content will succeed organically.

The post How to Build a Culture of Content and Transform Your Marketing appeared first on Contently.

That’s about to change.

December marked the launch of Gone, a collection of travel stories on Medium sponsored by hotel company Marriott International. A hybrid of a digital native ad and a brand magazine, Gone takes a journalistic approach to storytelling that showcases both the Marriott culture and the main attributes of the brand. The project is part of a wave of new Marriott production deals that include Snapchat programming and YouTube stars. According to reports, Gone will publish 60 articles over the next four months, and its success will be measured by time spent with the content rather than pageviews or clicks.

Gone isn’t Medium’s first rodeo. Earlier this year it introduced Re:form, a BMW-sponsored story collection about design. As Medium told us in August, the collaboration between publisher and advertiser was the startup’s initial step toward generating revenue. Reports suggest similar ventures sponsored by tech and music brands could be next.

The timing of Gone is particularly noteworthy. It coincides with a Medium site redesign that has some speculating the platform is poised to woo other advertisers as well. A new navigation bar with seven content sections—Culture, Humor, Tech, Design, This Happened to Me, In My Humble Opinion (IMHO), and Long Reads—is meant to improve story discoverability. A personalized homepage “reading list” offers staff picks, stories published by authors each user follows, and stories recommended by them.

Apart from supplying a near-endless stream of content, the new system makes it easier for Medium bloggers—including brands—to ensure that their posts are seen.

What’s the appeal of Medium to advertisers like Marriott and BMW? It’s more publisher than blogging platform, offering a wealth of content and themed collections on every topic under the sun. By some accounts, Medium now receives 17 million monthly unique visitors, an increase of 4 million since March. The site’s clean design puts stories front and center, a content discovery system allows users to file posts under relevant categories, and a social media-friendly infrastructure helps posts generate shares.

As the company outlined in its 2013 Writer’s Guide: “Our goal is to make Medium the best platform possible for everyone to share great ideas or stories.”

With sponsorship opportunities slow to arrive, and the platform available to anyone who wants to blog, some brands are taking the initiative to publish independent of Medium’s corporate development and strategy team. Starbucks started its collection of stories in November and has already built a following 32,000 users strong. The company shares original content about its products and excerpts from books that reflect the brand’s social efforts. It also curates existing Medium content it feels “nurtures the human spirit.”

Other brands to join the platform include UNICEF writing about the Ebola crisis, O’Reilly Media with insights about the future of technology, and Tesla Motors with a post by CEO Elon Musk. Publisher Penguin Random House has reposted content by its authors and staff that previously appeared on a biography site maintained by Random House. General Electric has been using its Medium profile to recommend articles on subjects like innovation and sustainable energy.

Medium’s capacity to host exclusive content as well as disperse existing material to new readers means it has something for everyone—including small businesses who don’t have Fortune 500 resources.

San Francisco-based DODOcase, maker of handmade cases for mobile devices, recognized an opportunity to educate audiences about a new product category on the site. The company recently ventured into virtual reality with toolkits, inspired by Google Cardboard, that turn smartphones into virtual reality (VR) viewers. A Kickstarter campaign was launched to fund their DIY VR kits. That required not only informational content, but a unique approach to amplifying it.

“We’ve had so many questions from customers about what VR is and why we’re doing this,” says Macy McGinness, VP of marketing with DODOcase. “We felt like we needed to take a leadership position by developing content around VR, and Medium is the place to do that right out of the gate.”

To date, DODOcase has published three of five articles in a series created specifically for the site. Posts include a look at the technology behind the DODOcase VR viewer, a guide to third-party VR apps, and an exclusive interview with VR innovator Tony Parisi.

Though primarily intended for consumers, the company’s Medium profile has also proved useful to its business development staff, which is tasked with explaining the product’s value to potential business partners. “The in-depth storytelling, the way the stories can be shared and interacted with—that’s huge,” McGinness says. “It’s more than we could ask for from our blog.”

When it came to producing its Medium posts, DODOcase eschewed its usual in-house content development process for a marketing consultant who already knew the site well. A fresh publishing platform, McGinness explains, required a fresh perspective.

The company chose Rob Goodman, who formerly worked in marketing at both Google and Simon & Schuster. “Medium gives you that space to be a bit more free and open with ideas that circle around your core product but aren’t directly tied to its promotion,” Goodman says. “For brands, we talk about authenticity a lot in content marketing, but on Medium especially, that becomes really key.”

DODOcase’s first post received 2,700 views and a 25 percent read ratio, while the second had a read ratio of 50 percent. “I’ve been thrilled by people’s reactions and the excitement around [the posts],” McGinness says, adding that they played a part in ensuring the company’s Kickstarter campaign reached its funding goal.

In an age when 60 percent of consumers favor storytelling over traditional ads, smart brands will experiment with new publishing platforms. When the platform prizes good content, the medium really is the message.

The post Is Medium the Next Big Frontier for Content Marketing? appeared first on Contently.

This creative approach is typical of the ads played on shows from 5by5, the podcast network that’s home to “Back to Work” and over other 30 podcasts about tech, design, and pop culture. While not all the ads are musical projects, they’re all more innovative than your everyday marketing. In fact, considering the format and storytelling is very similar to the actual content of the show, it’s not too much of a stretch to call these native ads or “sponsored content,” depending on which buzzword you prefer.

5by5’s experiments with podcast ads may just be the beginning of a new way for brands to capitalize on what appears to be an increasingly popular storytelling medium. As more people get into the podcasting experience through popular programs like “Serial,” “This American Life,” and Bill Simmons’s “B.S. Report,” it’s worth asking the question: Could podcasts be the next big territory for sponsored content?

Podcasts Can Deliver Exciting Sponsored Stories—But Few Do It

“When you hear a 5by5 host talking about a product, and you wonder why it doesn’t sound scripted—it’s because it really isn’t,” says Bailea van den Brink, sales associate for Archer Avenue, the ad network that finds and coordinates sponsorship deals for shows on 5by5. Rather than getting a full script, Archer Avenue’s sponsors are encouraged to send only key bullet points about their products so the podcast hosts can include their personal stories and tips in the ads.

“If the host doesn’t sound excited, the listeners won’t be either,” van den Brink adds. “This is great for the show because listeners have told us that sometimes they don’t even realize they’re listening to an ad, so it doesn’t interrupt the show and it keeps the listeners’ attention. Of course, this also makes sponsors happy because the ads are different every time and many of our sponsors see a great ROI.”

Creative podcast ads aren’t limited to songs and entertaining banter. One notable example is StartUp, created by former “This American Life” producer Alex Blumberg. Since the podcast tells the story of how Blumberg is launching his own startup, the ads are relevant to entrepreneurship and rely on a documentary or interview-style approach. For instance, in an ad for MailChimp, Blumberg interviews the company’s head of marketing about how much they pay StartUp for advertising—around $6,000 per episode—and how much value they get out of it.

It’s this personable storytelling nuance that’s attractive to many of the brands that regularly advertise on podcasts.

“Podcasts are personal,” says Ryan Stansky, marketing manager for Squarespace, which has sponsored dozens of podcasts over the past five years. “We have the opportunity to get hosts genuinely excited about our products and values. When they relay an authentic message to a large audience who trusts them, it benefits everyone involved, because the show is supported, we get new business, and the customer learns about a product that is useful in their personal and/or professional life.”

Still, most podcasters miss the importance of this approach. As Stansky points out: “Many of the largest podcasts don’t allow for the personal, fun, free-flowing ad reads that smaller shows do.”

Podcasts Are Blowing Up

Many have speculated about the coming explosion of podcasting and how we’re entering into a “podcast age.” It’s fair to be skeptical about these claims because even if podcasting has been around for more than a decade, it hasn’t gone mainstream.

But this might change soon. A 2014 survey from Edison Research showed approximately 39 million Americans listen to podcasts each month, and this number has been growing almost every year since 2008. It might not be an explosion on the scale of an overnight hit like Snapchat, but it’s hard to ignore the growth.

More importantly, the podcasting audience is engaged. The same survey shows that the average podcast listener consumes at least six podcasts per week. Another Edison Research study on the audio habits of Americans found that podcast listeners are actually “super listeners,” consuming more than one hour and 45 minutes of audio per day than the average American, and they spend more than 25 percent of their total audio time listening to podcasts.

Simply put, those who listen to podcasts listen to more of them and consume more audio in general.

This level of engagement is good news for sponsors, especially since 54 percent of podcast listeners have actually made a purchase from podcast ads, a striking figure. Then there’s the brand awareness that comes with being active in such a personal medium. According to Stansky, “It’s been good for our brand. The publishers and the listeners know us well and appreciate our commitment to supporting great content. We’re continually evaluating the cost versus benefit and adjusting the mix from both a brand and performance perspective.”

Why Brands Aren’t Podcasting—Yet

Despite the growing audience, why aren’t more brands producing their own shows? After all, brands were relatively quick to use other online publishing channels such as blogs, social media, and longform interactive stories. Podcasts have been around since the early 2000s, yet most brands either don’t have a podcast, or if they did, it was short-lived.

The simple answer: High-quality podcasts are very difficult to pull off.

“Producing a successful show takes an incredible amount of work and dedicated resources,” says Todd Cochrane, host of the New Media Show and CEO of RawVoice, a company that provides services and tools for podcasters. “Also it takes at a minimum a couple of years to build an audience. Most corporations do not have the time to do that. Most companies are also not willing to hire dedicated folks to do a show.”

Even Squarespace recognizes these difficulties, and Stansky told me the difference between creating ads for podcasts and actually running a podcast is huge. “Some of our employees host podcasts, but as a company, if we host a podcast, we’re going to do it right,” he says. “The content and production would have to be top-notch, which takes resources, time and focus that we simply don’t have at the moment.”

But he also mentions that producing a podcast in the future wouldn’t be out of the question for the company.

The Podcasting Space is Growing, Will Your Brand Grow With It?

If your brand has been ignoring the podcast industry because it seemed too niche, it might be time to reconsider—even if it’s just to explore the types of shows out there. You might not end up sponsoring your own rock song, but finding a good fit with the right podcast could be just what your brand needs to get the ear of your target customer.

The post Are Podcasts the Next Big Thing for Sponsored Content? appeared first on Contently.

Whether I was chasing my own stories or directing the efforts of others, traditional media companies always guaranteed a few constants:

1. There was a well-defined church–state division that kept our content insulated from the direct influence of the business side.

2. Everyone from analysts to corporate PR to private citizens were generally eager to speak to my reporters. At worst, PR professionals were compelled to offer a grudging “no comment” when we followed up on our scoops.

3. If a source revealed more in an interview that s/he intended, the quote was fair game. I did my best to avoid running things that could get a source into serious trouble, but it came down to our discretion once the words were on the record.

4. Our legal teams were focused on free-speech rights, and we could generally work out something that let our coverage run.

Bottom line: The content makers had excellent control of the information coming in and the content flowing out.

That status quo changed quickly for me when I first took over a corporate-content operation for a company that provided job listings to senior professionals. Don’t get me wrong: Our CEO was hungry for substantial stories that took the employment concerns of our customers seriously and delivered excellent insights. But creating stories in a brand newsroom is simply different—and more challenging—than in a traditional media company.

This wasn’t totally obvious at first. I was asked to set up a newsroom like others I’d created before. The only difference was that instead of enterprise technology or new cars or fashion, the beat would be our community of six-figure job-seekers—highly trained people with insights into their respective industries and markets. In fact, we explicitly agreed that the news section would focus on their professional aspirations and concerns, not on pitching the product.

Nevertheless, there were some fundamental truths that made the acquisition and dissemination of content much trickier this time around:

1. The whole site was dedicated to the business goals of the company—getting people to upgrade to its services. Our content played a role in acquiring, retaining, and converting readers into subscribers, but we weren’t just judging our success on audience metrics—business goals mattered too.

2. Analysts were likely to consider my reporters to be competition for the attention of readers seeking paid expertise. Other companies’ PR teams were generally concerned about associating their clients with a third-party product, and individual sources often concluded we were asking for a product endorsement. (After all, the company also featured its users in promotional spots, marketing collateral, and even a TV campaign.)

3. Our mission to report on our own customers’ real-world challenges and insights meant handling them more carefully than a publication might treat a traditional source. A company that wants to keep its customers isn’t inclined to hang them out to dry if they say something impolitic in an interview.

4. Our legal department legitimately categorized our efforts as marketing, which meant we needed to secure intimidating written releases from all our sources, avoid making reference to any other companies’ trademarks, and generally get approval for anything that might compromise our company’s IP.

Bottom line: Even with support from the top of the org chart, sourcing stories outside traditional media was a much dicier proposition—from securing the sources to obtaining permission to use them.

So what’s a writer/editor to do? Is corporate content fundamentally different from traditional reporting? And what tactics can you use to get the story within corporate constraints?

For me, getting a meaningful content operation up and running started with understanding corporate sensitivities and articulating the qualities of successful content. Both meant using skills that set my small team apart from the rest of the company.

Setting guardrails and unblocking the publishing road

First, I applied my journalistic skills to interview the company itself. I needed to understand the risks legal and compliance wanted to avoid, the language marketing and support wanted to use when catering to customers, and the intellectual property the business truly needed to safeguard.

There was a lot to learn. The content we proposed to create carried some genuine risk for the company. We fell under the category of corporate marketing, not protected speech, and the legal department was ethically bound to minimize the company’s exposure via legal releases, compliance reviews, and an approval chain that included representatives of the brand and business.

At the same time, once I’d discussed those guardrails with each department, I was able to make the barriers less formidable. Once I’d discussed with the chief counsel her concerns about legal exposure and explained our need for interview subjects, for example, she was able to streamline the company’s intimidating release form into something much shorter and friendlier—making it much easier for sources to understand what we wanted and feel comfortable signing it.

Spreading the content marketing love

At the same time, I had to articulate a different way of looking at the company’s customers: as an audience whose priorities and concerns could be served by content. Our content team scheduled an initial goodwill tour with sales, customer service, and business intelligence (among others) to explain our role and how they could help us to help them.

For instance, the customer-support team was staffed with young, bright, dedicated people who really wanted to help the people on the other end of the phone or chat window. But when questions strayed beyond technical or billing issues into subjects like age discrimination or switching industries, the conversation moved far beyond what the support team could answer with authority.

We explained that those questions were exactly the sorts of subjects content could address; give us your knottiest queries, we said, and we’d create stories to unravel them. The content team gained a rich source of story ideas, and the support team got a fast-growing reference library of content they could share with customers calling about those issues.

Driving back to business results

In time, the success of our content extended beyond informing visitors and supporting other departments; it even formed the basis for some new lines of business.

Specifically, the more we learned about the job search, the more consistency we identified and explained as a coherent methodology for success. The company in turn was able to turn that process into a book and a career-coaching curriculum, all driven by the material we’d gleaned from internal and external sources.

The lesson for content professionals: In a corporate setting, the storyteller is bringing something new and desirable to the table. If you’re smart about it, you’ll turn your journalistic skills to understanding the key players in the decision chain and making your narrative essential to the business.

There will always be strings attached to corporate content, but they needn’t immobilize your creativity.

The post Bizarro Planet: How I Overcame Corporate Constraints and Found a Way to Tell Great Brand Stories appeared first on Contently.

It’s 2 p.m. in the office and the production team has gathered to discuss the new revisions for a client’s corporate video when the phone rings.

“Hello, may I speak to the producer?”

A prospective client is on the line. She wants a short, two- to three-minute corporate video that will be posted on their site. Can we do that?

“Yes, we can,” I tell her. “What should the video communicate and do you have any initial ideas on visuals?”

“The video has to be sleek, like a commercial on national TV,” the prospect answers.

“No problem, we can do that. Any concept, script?”

“No, not yet.”

“Do you have a budget and deadline that you want us to stick to?”

“Timeline is ASAP. What’s the cost?”

Silence. Scratch of the head. Tap of the table. Pretty sure they won’t like the answer.

“The cost depends,” I say.

“Oh.” Silence. Then: “On what? Can’t you just give me a number?”

This is the client-vendor tug-of-war that we have become so used to at video production companies like mine, Sinema Films. These conversations happen frequently, and we’ve had enough. So in order to reduce doubts about how to establish a production budget, we’re giving some tips that will help you if you’re looking to create a brand video.

Here are four ways to get the most accurate production estimates:

1. Understand that prices for video production are never fixed.

Video production is not a box of Kleenex or a bag of M&M’s—it’s not a commodity. It’s a bespoke service customized to your requirements and budget. Until all of your requirements have been considered, any cost you get is a guesstimate pulled out of thin air.

The cost of video depends on several items, among them:

• number of actors featured
• size of production crew
• experience of director in charge (more experience means—you guessed right—more expensive)
• visual effects (start to blow things up and the budget will do just that—blow up)
• motion graphics
• original music compositions
• number and quality of locations
• travel time between locations
• set design and decoration
• hair and makeup
• wardrobe
• amount of lighting equipment needed, etc.
• the number of man-hours of writing, storyboarding, editing, and project management

Production costs will also depend on the size and professional level of the production company: Larger, professional companies can provide better videos, but often come with larger overhead costs that you will have to foot. Freelancers are cheaper, but may be hard-pressed to meet the level of quality provided by a company.

2. Be prepared with as much information as possible.

If you know your concept, share it. Articulating your vision for the video can be the only way to get an accurate cost estimate. Also consider:

• How long do you want the video to be?
• Will you place your video on TV, online, or both?
• How long will your video be available to the public?

Some costs, such as usage fees for original music composition, will depend on your answers to these questions. If the production company knows your answers, you will receive a quote that helps you budget accordingly.

Rule of thumb: The more information you provide, the more precise the quote.

3. Know and communicate your budget.

In hopes of getting a better deal, sometimes managers withhold information on budget from the vendor. You may be lucky and strike gold, but if you do not share your budget, you will struggle to find a $100,000 production value for $1,000—or even $10,000, for that matter.

Not sharing your budget means the negotiation dance only takes longer. By stating your budget, the production company can tell you if those numbers are within their standard rates. If they are not, you can move on to the next production company.

With your budget in place, the video production company can tell you the quality they can deliver, and may point you to their work portfolio to see other videos they have produced at that cost.

4. Use a sample video to understand and compare prices between several production companies.

Without a concept or script, there is a lot of room for miscommunication. Your production company will naturally send you quotes for the best—likely most expensive—work they can do. So how will you proceed?

Find a video on YouTube that you think may be close to what you will want. Send that to your list of prospective vendors, along with the following questions:

1. This is the quality we’d like for our video. Do you have something similar in your portfolio that you can send me for comparison?

2. How much would it cost to produce this video from scratch if you provide all the elements in the video—locations, actors, music, etc.?

3. Can you send a breakdown for these estimates?

By sharing a similar video, you have provided a standard unit that can be used to compare prices across all your potential vendors.

Nervous about putting this plan into action? Here is an email that clearly articulates the unknowns and what the client is looking for so that the production company can anticipate the amount of work involved and get you an accurate estimate.

Or you can dance your way to nowhere. Your call.

Noel Maimu is a producer at the New York video production company Sinema Films. He is a fan of Pedro Almodóvar and all things Brooklyn.

The post Want to Get an Accurate Estimate for Your Brand Video? Follow These 4 Tips appeared first on Contently.

You are not a storyteller – Stefan Sagmeister @ FITC

This might just be the most quotable marketing interview ever, with Sagmeister delivering incredible lines like: “Recently, I read an interview with someone who designs roller coasters, and he refers to himself as a storyteller. No, f—head, you are not a storyteller, you are a roller coaster designer, and that is fantastic!” His Austrian accent takes it to the next level. Once you finish laughing and yelling, “No, f—head, you are not a storyteller, you are a front-end engineer!” at the bewildered developers in your office, you may wonder: Is Sagmeister right? Not quite. We are all storytellers; it’s been the key to our evolution and survival as humans, and the most successful brands are the ones that craft compelling narratives. Later in the video, Sagmeister identifies the “real storytellers” as the people who write novels or make feature films, which is an insanely narrow definition of storytellers. Try telling a veteran journalist for the Times or the Vine whisperer they aren’t storytellers. But Sagmeister’s point is well taken. If you’re calling yourself a storyteller, you should probably have the chops to back that up. And if you’re a roller coaster designer, embrace it. Because that is fantastic. Contently arms brands with the tools and talent to become great content creators. Learn more.

The post This Designer Destroys 2014’s Big Marketing Buzzword, and It’s Awesome appeared first on Contently.

Speaking at Percolate’s “Transition” conference, the founder and ECD of the London-based digital agency Poke explained that companies “without a grasp of their truth” are unsustainable in today’s world, where social and mobile are king.

Take Tesla, for instance. The story “just feels like it’s baked right into the core,” Roope said. By creating the first high-performance sports car to run on a battery, the company’s “given us a product that reconciles our desire to be good consumers of energy but also our desires to express ourselves as successful and manly.” In other words, they’ve “given us hope in the future.”

Journalists migrate to content marketing

That story is also what inspired journalist Hamish McKenzie to leave Pando for Tesla, as McKenzie wrote on Medium: “I would not be leaving Pando, or journalism, for any old reason. Elon Musk, a man for whom I have enormous respect and admiration, offered me a role as a writer at Tesla Motors, to tell stories about the company, the car, and the cause: catalyzing an electric car revolution that will help wean the world off fossil fuels.”

Contrast this with Chevrolet, maker of the Volt. According to the car’s site, owners who regularly charge their hybrid vehicle average 900 miles between trips to the gas station. But, as Roope noted, Chevrolet is also the maker behind the Suburban. “And they can’t reconcile the two. There’s still so much conflict just within the business it feels, and within their identity, to be able to make this a great success.”

It’s a lesson Roope first put into play when in 2002 he started constructing retro-inspired handpieces for cell phones and selling them on eBay. From there, Pokia—now known as Hulger—was born.

Within just a few short years, the startup tapped into a market that ultimately stretched across some 50 countries. The reason, Roope said, goes back to the fact that “we weren’t dealing with marketing, we were dealing with the story, with the core.” With every handpiece, Roope was staging a rebellion against the phone makers of the world, all of whom were locked in an arms race to produce the smallest gadget with the most features.

Years later, Roope once again responded to a shift in technology with a product that played into his background as a fine artist. Plumen debuted in 2010, and with it the world’s first low-energy lightbulb.

“Isn’t it strange that the bulb, an object so synonymous with ideas, is almost entirely absent of imagination,” the press release heralding the company’s first bulb read.

As Roope told Contently in an interview, the company had “a mission, which is if we’re in a period of transition, if we’re in a period of change, embrace that change and look for the exciting possibilities that emerge and design around those.”

In doing so, they were finding “a way to create a magical object so people feel like they’re progressing.”

This, Roope said, is what Steve Jobs got, and why Apple is the company it is today.

“Their success isn’t about being a great marketing organization,” he said. “Their success is about single-mindedness and the recognition that their storytelling and marketing is something that’s everywhere. I’m just surprised the commercial world hasn’t extracted the lessons.”

The post What Do Tesla and Apple Have in Common? A Story appeared first on Contently.

Neuroscientist Dr. Paul Zak came to this conclusion by testing the amount of oxytocin—the emotion triggered when you’re hugged by a loved one—released in people’s brains when they’re asked about brands they claim to love. He also examined their levels of other emotional responses, measured by factors like heart rate and nerve twitches. When Zak asked questions about the brands, and then followed up with questions about a loved one, an interesting pattern emerged: When a person’s relationship with a brand was tied to a story, that respondent showed more love for a brand than a loved one.

Those were situations “such as the subject who loved his watch, which was handed down from his father, more than his girlfriend, or the man whose life-long love of the Seattle Seahawks measured as stronger than his love for his toddler,” wrote Fast Company reporter Rae Ann Fera.

I loved this study when I read it and was tempted to write about it, but a couple of details quelled my excitement: The three examples above were literally the only three examples. Dr. Zak’s sample size was only eight people. That’s a liberal arts school writing workshop, not a statistically significant sample size. The study was also commissioned by ad agency Oceanan, and that made the small sample size suspicious; after all, it was hard not to imagine they weren’t hoping for a result that would help them pitch what they sell (brand storytelling!). Plus, the name Dr. Zak kept making me imagine Zack Morris dressed in a lab coat.

Still, I haven’t been able to stop thinking—or occasionally talking—about that study since it came out in March, and it’s because I believe the results would have held up under further scrutiny. Honestly, I love my friends and family a lot, but I doubt they’d outrank the New York Giants if I took part in Dr. Zak’s tests. The same might even go for Miller High Life, which was a fixture of many crazy stories from my time at Sarah Lawrence College.

Without a doubt, both of those brands lucked into my love. My dad passed down his love for the Giants; Miller High Life was on sale at $6.49 per 12 pack in Stop & Shop for the entirety of my very exuberant sophomore year.

There is really only one type of company that creates this type of emotional response without luck: entertainment brands. I will dance ecstatically to the Pete and Pete theme song at my wedding. My future grandkids will be just as tired of me talking about The Wire as two-thirds of my current friends. Tolstoy and Wes Anderson will always bring me to a place of strange, pure glee. And all that goes back to great, entertaining stories that have forged a deep emotional bond in my mind.

I maintain that brands can compete in the entertainment game as long as they make adequate investments. After all, 90 percent of media is owned by six massive corporations—aka brands. People don’t prefer the content put out by media companies because of some inherent rule; they prefer it because it’s usually better and because people these companies to create material worth their time. Meanwhile, audiences are conditioned to expect brands to interrupt them with 30-second commercials they don’t want.

But the success of blockbuster hits like The LEGO Movie, magazines like The Red Bulletin and Porter, and viral sensations from Old Spice, Dove, and Chipotle show people will watch anything from anyone as long as it’s good. If we accept that premise, most brands are being held back because they’re failing in two crucial areas:

1) Making content that’s as entertaining as what media companies put out.

2) Finding ways to distribute that content effectively.

Ultimately, the fact that brands continue to fail in this way seems a little bit insane. After all, you can complete with anyone in entertainment if you give talented people enough creative freedom and resources, and you can build an audience for that content as long as you hire the right editors or producers. Both of those things are accomplished by spending money, and brands have a lot of money to spend in the pursuit to stay relevant.

You want your brand to be loved? Give creative, talented people the freedom to do their thing, and get out of the damn way.

Make your Twitter timeline far more amusing by following @JoeLazauskas and @Contently.

The post Neuroscience Says Stories May Make People Love Brands More Than Their Families. But Why? appeared first on Contently.

The story goes that a group of sailors were “zagging” off the coast of South America in 1821. They were whaling, in a ship named the Dauphin under the command of a captain named Zimri Coffin. One day, on the horizon, a small boat popped into view — in the middle of the ocean. Here’s an account of what the Dauphin crew saw, according to Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea, as quoted by Gottschall:

“Under Coffin’s watchful eye, the helmsman brought the ship as close as possible to the derelict craft. Even though their momentum quickly swept them past it, the brief seconds during which the ship loomed over the open boat presented a sight that would stay with the crew the rest of their lives…

First they saw bones — human bones — littering the thwarts and floorboards, as if the whaleboat were the seagoing lair of a ferocious man-eating beast.

Then they saw the two men.

They were curled up in opposite ends of the boat, their skin covered with sores, their eyes bulging from the hollows of their skulls, their beards caked with salt and blood. They were sucking the marrow from the bones of their dead shipmates.”

Quick: think about where you were when you read that. Do you recall how the seat you were sitting in felt, while you were imagining the salt-caked beards of the cannibal shipmates? Did someone in the room with you happen to cough while you read this? Do you recall what background noise happened outside? Any trucks, sirens?

Think about the last time you watched a movie or read a book and were suddenly snapped back to reality by a noise in the house.”

Chances are, by the time you finished reading that passage, your brain had pulled you deeply into the story, to the point that your imagination started filling in the scene and your present circumstances started fading into the background of your consciousness. This is what Gottschall calls “the witchery of story,” and it’s what our brains have been biologically programmed to do.

“Story is the glue of human social life — defining groups and holding them together,” he writes. We are hard-wired to dramatize, to imagine, and to be pulled into good stories. Think about the last time you watched a movie or read a book and were suddenly snapped back to reality by a noise in the house. You hadn’t realized that you’d lost awareness of your surroundings, that the story wasn’t something you were really experiencing. That process — those trips to Neverland — brings us together and helps our brains remember. (It’s what our brains do all night long, in fact, while we sleep!) Interestingly, that’s exactly what brands spend millions of dollars each year in advertising to encourage people to do — remember.

I read a lot of books. And a lot of books have had profound impacts on my life. But The Storytelling Animal is the most recent one to do so because it affects the trends that are on my mind lately as a businessperson and a writer. In today’s hyper-connected world, every company is being told that it needs to become a publisher, so it can build relationships with customers. (That’s, essentially, what brands work with my startup to do, so I’m extra interested.)

The Storytelling Animal has helped me to reevaluate the way I think about human connections, and about both my business and my personal brand.”

But whether you’re an individual on Twitter or a company pumping out blog posts, publishing itself is not the point. Building relationships is the point. And the best way throughout history to build relationships, as Gottschall’s book points out, is through stories.

Our cave-painting early ancestors didn’t walk into caves with crushed berries and twig brushes declaring, “I’m going to create some CONTENT!” When they passed down family legends around the fire after a long day of foraging and hunting, they didn’t say, “Gather round, everybody; it’s CONTENT TIME!”

No. They just told stories.

I’m convinced that storytelling can transform any business, and that storytelling will transform business at large. And, as I’ve written before, it’s a skill that we the people who make businesses turn need to develop ourselves to remain competitive.

The Storytelling Animal has helped me to reevaluate the way I think about human connections, and about both my business and my personal brand. Now, when I give presentations, I start with stories — personal stories, when possible. When I pitch investors or clients, I lead with the story of why we’re doing what we’re doing, or the story of how one of our customers solved a huge problem with our product — rather than speaking in abstract terms about our product’s features.

If we are to succeed — as employees, as managers, as businesses, as publishers—we need to stop talking about selling and marketing and start talking about how we can tell real, engrossing, human stories that people will remember and associate with us. Stories with heroes and villains, protagonists and plot, curious beginnings and gripping endings. I’m not talking about fiction. I’m talking about conveying fact and information through narrative instead of marketing copy or self-serving status updates.

Gather round, everybody; it’s CONTENT TIME!”

“A writer lays down words, but they are inert. They need a catalyst to come to life,” Gottschall writes. “The catalyst is the reader’s imagination.”

Here’s to unlocking our collective imaginations.

The post “The Storytelling Animal” Will Transform Your Work appeared first on Contently.