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Brand Stories

Small business storytelling: Easy ways to make a major impact

The biggest and most recognizable brands in the world use storytelling to raise brand awareness and build loyalty and trust. It’s often part of a sophisticated content strategy that involves targeting diverse audiences across disparate platforms and channels. This approach often involves big teams and even bigger budgets. But that doesn’t mean that small businesses…

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Corporate storytelling Leadership

Thought leadership: Beyond the buzzwords

We’ve talked at length about how thought leadership can benefit organizations of all sizes. When developed and executed with care, thought leadership can strengthen company culture, add depth and authority to an enterprise content strategy, and provide a platform for big, innovative ideas. All these considerations aside, thought leadership still has an uphill climb. It’s…

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Brand Stories

The story of 2020: Connecting past and future

Crisis breeds opportunity. The year 2020 was evidence of this as brands connected with audiences in unprecedented ways, with new messages and new goals. It was a scramble, for sure. The companies that performed best were the ones that already had a strong identity and the energy and resources to share that identity in novel…

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Content creation Effective communication Leadership

Content strategy in 2021: What “human” means

Countless experts are weighing in on how brands must build a content strategy in this fragile age. They are largely in agreement that brand messaging must be “human” and “empathetic.” This notion shouldn’t be revolutionary, but somehow it is. Perhaps brand gurus are acknowledging that until now, the expression of their brand identity was canned,…

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Brand Stories Content strategy

What 2020 can tell us about content in 2021

We’ve said before that the best way to greet 2021 is to plan, not predict, for the future. A key part of planning? Taking a good, hard look at the events of 2020 and how they affected consumer behaviors. Today, we’re looking at some particularly astute observations about brands and consumers and how these observations…

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Effective communication Language and ideas Leadership

Lessons from 25 great year-end messages

We’ve discussed at length the challenges of holiday messaging as well as the importance of language when building a brand and a company culture. Today, we take a closer look at end-of-year employee communications. Entrepreneur Keith Miller shared a “top 25” list of year-end messages on the Future of Working website that look straightforward –…

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Brand Stories content marketing

2020 holiday messaging: Don’t kid yourself

The marketing experts are out in full force with ideas for clever marketing strategies and cheery brand messaging this holiday season. It seems that many have taken their ideas from a past holiday season, slapped “2020” in the headline, and republished them as something new and enticing. Let’s be honest. We’re all eager for a…

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Corporate storytelling Language and ideas Leadership

Speechwriting lessons from FDR

On this day in 1941, Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor in the first direct attack on the United States by an Axis power. The following day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his “date which will live in infamy” speech. Roosevelt had been delivering fireside chats via radio since 1933. His voice was well known to…

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Brand Stories content marketing

For holiday messaging, cut the clichés

During the holidays, our holiday messaging overflows with familiar expressions based on tradition and pop culture influences. Most people know what we’re talking about when we refer to the Grinch, “Yes, Virginia,” “white stuff,” and the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. But these phrases and many others have become so ubiquitous and tiresome that the holidays…

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Brand growth Content strategy Leadership

Plan, don’t predict, your 2021 content strategy

The year 2020 is nearly over, and not a moment too soon. Experts are predicting another tumultuous year for brands and content marketing. These predictions reflect months of unease, as well as the rapid-by-necessity reframing of the sales funnel (and sometimes business models as a whole). But are they helpful when it comes to content…