Today’s stories are never really finished.
How a conversation with a group of science fiction writers made me think about ongoing audience engagement.
Last weekend at a literary science-fiction convention in Austin, Texas I was one of the speakers on a panel discussing multi-media and non-traditional storytelling models. It was a fascinating conversation discovering how different authors expanded their digital footprint and built communities around their work.
One of the main consensus from the panel discussion is that we have moved on from the old model of completing a story, publishing it, and then hoping someone will find it, read it and enjoy it. In the old model the authors developed a distance from a project once it was completed, and tended to focus on the next thing.
That is no longer the case. Today as we move from that old broadcast type model to a more engagement driven conversational model, a project is never truly finished.
Authors on the panel discussed how they used other media to expand and support their writing projects even after publication. This included podcasts that expand the story, or provide background information. Novellas and short stories published in installments on social media platforms and subscription-driven newsletters. Short videos on YouTube (all but one author on the panel had a YouTube channel), gamification. One author used their Patreon account to give their backers regular updates on their next novel in progress, and found that it also helped keep themselves on schedule.
No matter which platform used or media, be it sound, text, or video, all reported that one key element was the development of an engaged audience of readers.
On my long drive home from the convention I got to thinking about how this also applied to the world of corporate storytelling. It is no longer enough to just build and launch a marketing campaign, fire and forget it, and then move on to the next one. Prospects and customers today expect to be engaged, and to have the ability to engage your brand in conversation.
To develop that relationship means reaching out to the audience wherever they are and provide them with extra value across different media.
We need to think, like the authors on the panel with me, about how we can use multimedia platforms to go beyond our original message.
In short we need to realize that the stories we tell never end.
Alan
A Note of Appreciation
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Weekly Thought
How easy is it for your customers to interact with your company / brand? Do they have to know the way you work to achieve what they want, or do you make it easy with a guided customer experience? Do you assume that just because you know how to do something, that your customers (or even other employees) will?
Customer Focused Storytelling Workshops
THE CONTENT POOL is pleased to announce that we are now offering our popular Customer Focused Storytelling Workshops
We are now taking bookings for the rest of 2024 and Q1/2025, and we wanted to make sure that as a newsletter reader you got an early opportunity to lock-in a date.
“Weaving storytelling into the mix makes the content more compelling, accessible, and effective!”
Learn how to deliver content-driven experiences that your customers relate to on our two-day Customer Outcome Focused Storytelling workshop.
In this workshop, we will:
Examine content from the customer’s perspective.
Plan how to adapt content delivery to meet the needs of a rapidly changing marketplace
Examine why every business transaction is a story
Outline the 10 Rules of Storytelling as applied to Customer Experience
Apply proven storytelling techniques to your content.
Identify potential opportunities for incorporating storytelling techniques
into the production of your customer-facing content assets.Facilitate an interactive feedback session on your existing customer-facing content.
If you would like more details, or you like to discuss reserving a date for yourself and your team to benefit from a Customer Focused Storytelling Workshop, just email us at alan@4jsgroup.com to reserve your date.
In The Bookstore
If you enjoy the contents of this newsletter and would like more, we have three books always available from XML Press.
You can also check out The Content Pool website or follow us on FaceBook .
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Till next time - have fun paddling in The Content Pool.
Alan J. Porter
The Content Pool™ is a division of the 4Js Group LLC