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This newsletter is called The Creativity Business. It’s about the intersection of Creativity and Business. So when I talk to smart people with fresh insights about this intersection, I get excited and want to share it.
George Kimmerling is one of those smart people. George recently retired from his role as Managing Director of Global Content Strategy at Morgan Stanley. Before that, he worked at Time Inc. in a variety of editorial, content operations, and finance roles. George knows how to make compelling content for audiences, and he knows how to achieve marketing objectives. That is a rare mix of experience and expertise in both creativity and business.
I was lucky enough to work with George when I was at Pacific Content, and we have caught up a few times over the last few months. In our last chat, George told me about the concept of a Brand Narrative and why he considers it more powerful, effective, and comprehensive than storytelling alone. It really struck a nerve with me. It’s something he’s thinking a lot about, having just launched Kimmerling Content Strategies, a consulting practice that helps companies develop and evolve their internal and external Brand Narratives and the content to help drive them.
Before we can define a Brand Narrative, we need to start with the difference between content and storytelling.
For George, content is one or more individual pieces designed for audiences - content can be of any form, style, or length. It could be audio, video, text, or images. It could be long-form, short-form, listicles, essays, or any number of other formats.
Stories, on the other hand, are just one of these many types of content.
“There is a lot of valuable content that can help construct a brand narrative in the mind of a consumer that is not really storytelling. That is why I think storytelling falls short and that the idea of simply telling stories isn’t enough.”
In other words, stories are just one tool in the content marketing toolbox. And in George’s opinion, many content marketers have become too singularly focused on storytelling.
“In journalism, we used to see a clearer difference, say, between a news article and a feature article. Now, I think you find many more stories that bury the lede—they start off with storytelling that can get in the way of the facts and what we need to know.
“They begin something like, ‘At 19, John suffered from sleeplessness and lack of focus. Despite many doctor visits, it was only after his football coach suggested meditation that he found some relief.’ And then the story is really about meditation and how it's caught on with all kinds of nontraditional audiences based on new understandings about how it works and why. But it begins with a story about John and how he was having a crisis.
“That tactic can bring people into the article, for sure, but I think there's a little bit of fatigue in the way in which so much content is set up like a story, because there are times when I just want to know, ‘What are you trying to tell me here?’ I don't really need the wind-up. Sometimes, it's important to just tell the audience what the idea is, why it’s important or relevant to them, and what they can or should do about it.”
So how should content marketers think differently? By zooming out above the story, above the broader expanse of content, and all the way up to the Brand Narrative.
“I don't think that narrative and story are the same. I see narratives as being more open, more fluid than stories, which I see as units. Stories are just one component in a content matrix that can help a brand narrative emerge and evolve.”
A matrix suggests the strategic curation of content forms, media, and platforms, with each element chosen because it does a specific marketing job more effectively than other potential options.
“In a Brand Narrative, you can have feature stories, which might be rooted in people's experience, and you can also have hard news pieces. These are different kinds of content.”
And different types of content do different types of jobs. So instead of quickly defaulting to story, content marketers should consider taking a step back and looking at what objective they are trying to achieve, and which type of content will best do that specific job. This overall mix of content choices needs to be aligned with and determined by the overarching Brand Narrative.
“As content marketers, we sometimes lose the forest for the trees. We think of ourselves only as storytellers and not as experts who can construct narratives for brands based on a whole array of types of content. We need to have that sort of 30,000-foot view. That big picture, for me, is Brand Narrative. I like that more than storytelling.”
So what are the factors to consider in a Brand Narrative? There are three big elements that will help you determine your content strategy.
• “Know your brand. Who are you as an organization? What is your value proposition? Your culture? Are you legacy, entrepreneurial, risk-taking? You have to understand who you are and what your basic values are.
• “Know your audience. Who are they and where are they? If your audience is 18 to 25-year-olds, and you're thinking, ‘I'm going to put all my stuff on Facebook,’ that's ridiculous.
• “Know your goals and how to measure them. What do you want your audience to do vis-à-vis your content marketing? What job are you trying to do and how will you measure that?
Through the lens of these three factors, you can begin determining what to put out, where to put it out, and in what format. “The audience wants content of different sorts in different places in different ways, 24/7,” George told me, and Brand Narrative is the big-picture lens for ensuring your brand is present and relevant in the most authentic, appropriate, and sustainable contexts.
It’s also important to recognize that while the contexts where you connect with various audience members may be very different, the basic information or ideas you want to convey can still be the same. I like the way George describes taking the same idea and strategically disseminating it in different ways: “If you think of content as a liquid, you can pour it into many different buckets. This helps create efficiency from a resource and production standpoint.” The same ideas and information can take the shape of a white paper or a video or a podcast.
“Sometimes we don't think about content being as flexible as it can be. If we can understand that content isn't necessarily any specific form or media, but something that can be fashioned differently for different audiences, then we can create the right array of content to support a Brand Narrative.”
Takeaways
Are you defaulting to storytelling in your content marketing?
Where are the audience touchpoints where stories might be ineffective relative to other forms or formats?
How would your content strategy change if you viewed it through the lens of a Brand Narrative? What new opportunities would open up? How could you better connect with audiences and more effectively achieve your goals?
Big thanks to George for sharing his thoughts with me! If you’d like to know more about Brand Narratives, you can connect with George at Kimmerling Content Strategies.
What’s Earned My Attention Recently
Traffic vs Audience
My brilliant friend Dan Misener wrote this week about the differences between buying traffic versus building an audience. You can’t buy an audience. You have to earn it. A must-read if you ever engage in the art and science of promoting content and/or marketing.
The Screaming Irish Golf Instructor
Last time, I shared some funny tennis instruction from Conor Casey. This time, I’m moving to unusual golf instruction. Almost all golf instructors online are teachers on a driving range or golf course with arrows and pointers and angles. And then there’s Rob Hogan. He’s not on a golf course. He doesn’t look like whatever image you have in your head of a golf instructor. And he SCREAMS everything, seemingly out of frustration with amateur golfers doing the same dumb things over and over again. Also… his advice is pretty bang on. Yes, MAROOCH!
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The lesson about giving lessons online: when you do things differently, you stand out and people remember you.
New Colours
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