Commercial Transmedia Storytelling
In the good old days — actually, not that long ago — market development for a new product or service launch was considered to be predictable. A skilled marketing communications or PR person would contact “the media” and pitch them the same story — over, and over again.
That repetition resulted in a crescendo of editorial coverage — as that limited list of qualified journalists recited the “messaging” to their assumed to be receptive audience. Any reported market buzz was typically followed by a prolonged period of relative obscurity.
Why Cross-Media Methods Thrived
Those schooled in legacy marketing or public relations practices offered a non-solution. They would essentially perform the exact same exercise again, only this time expecting a different outcome. That wasted effort would likely generate little incremental value.
The more enlightened digital marketing practitioner would use cross-media techniques to take the same basic narrative — about the product or service attributes — and repeat it across different media. Sometimes that effort rekindled or sparked new interest in the marketplace.
How Digital Storytelling has Evolved
Today, the savvy marketer is experimenting with a more advanced approach to digital storytelling and multimedia asset development. It’s inherently strategic in nature, partly because it’s not an afterthought. The story-world is conceived at the very beginning of the project. It’s the foundation for purposeful ongoing story development.
Transmedia storytelling is the technique of telling stories across multiple platforms and formats using current digital publishing methods — where we develop narrative across multiple forms of media, in order to deliver unique pieces of related content via our chosen channels.
These storyline threads are woven together and are in sync with each other — closely linked by the structure that was envisioned within the conceptual story-world ecosystem. Commercial non-fiction storytelling is now being transformed by this forward-thinking methodology.
When to Tell the Whole Story in Stages
Armed with a holistic view of the market potential, transmedia storytellers will design the hooks and connections for interactive engagement in the pre-production phase of content development — with the intent of creating the environment for story immersion.
By having gained the foresight of a story-world outline, you’re now able to position individual characters or storyline elements within the context of an episodic story arc. You can then decide when to introduce the main narrative and the back-story ingredients to the marketplace.
Moreover, emerging social commerce practices enable your target buyers to tap the recognized market influencers — who have been exposed to your transmedia story assets — and follow their collective shared insights and trusted guidance. That’s why real thought leadership is so valuable.
Where to Apply Commercial Transmedia
Learn how to tell your own authentic story in the most compelling and engaging way. We can show you how to develop your own distinctive next-generation narrative. We’ll also help you uncover the back-stories that demonstrate the true depth and meaning of your organization’s accomplishments — in words that engage and inspire your stakeholders.
Once your plot is set, and you’ve produced the multimedia content assets that have captured the best stories, then you’re ready to arrange and distribute the key components of the narrative structure via the best-fit online platforms.
How does the shift to commercial transmedia produce results? We created the “Connected Life Exchange” for Cisco Systems. In 2013 the project was honored with the Content Marketing Award by AdAge B2B — here’s what they said about the impact.
Cisco has built upon the lessons learned and evolved — from a traditional press release producer to a forward-thinking content marketer — via branded stories. Cisco moved beyond articulating “what we make” (products) to “what we make possible” (business outcomes).
CURATED CONTENT MARKETING IN ACTION
Why should I continue to invest in advertising, when I know that the return is consistently very low? That’s a question savvy executives ask themselves. Moreover, the promise of social media marketing has left many equally underwhelmed with the results. But what’s the alternative?
You could invest your limited budget more wisely — on Curated Content Marketing. You can demonstrate that you’re more than a mere brand expert — by becoming an industry authority and recognized thought-leader that shares an informed perspective.
How Savvy Marketers Have Evolved
Traditional content marketing is a term that includes all marketing formats that involve the creation or sharing of content for the purpose of engaging current and potential customers. Content marketing is based upon the notion that delivering high-quality, relevant and valuable information to your target stakeholder drives profitable action.
That’s the theory. In practice, few marketers actually utilize the methodology. Why? Creating their own thought leadership point-of-view and associated substantive content is difficult at best and nearly impossible for many companies.
The underlying challenge is twofold — first, finding thought-leaders that have something remarkable to share; second, devoting the time to create compelling content that stakeholders truly need or want. Even if these problems are overcome, the requirement to produce fresh content, on a regular basis, is still overwhelming.
A proven solution is to curate content from third-parties, and blend it with your own — into an integrated stream of insightful editorials.
When to Publish High-Quality Content
Curated Content Marketing is the emerging trend of publishing a mix of targeted high-quality multimedia content, using a combination of automated online processes and human editor talent. Once you have mastered this methodology, then you’ll have joined the ranks of today’s most advanced practitioners.
The basic principles include: Aggregation (gathering) and Curation (sorting, categorizing, arranging); Formatting, Design and Presentation (publishing and syndication) so that material combined from multiple sources creates a unique editorial experience.
Skills required to produce an engaging ongoing narrative include: domain and subject-matter expertise, digital storytelling experience, data visualization (e.g. infographics), multimedia authorship and editing, use of online self-publishing platforms, search engine optimization techniques, and lastly social media propagation to ensure consumption.
Where to Attain the Most Impact
Learn how to harvest trending topics to supplement your own content with fresh editorial that can energize your audience and drive social sharing. We can show you how to publish and reuse high-quality curated content within your websites, microsites, email newsletters, mobile alerts, tablet apps, and social updates.
Armed with our market insights and proven guidance, you can discover how to fine tune your content marketing strategies and measure how adjustments to your publishing stream will help you meet your business growth goals and objectives.
Discover how to apply Commercial Storytelling from a Digital Polymath.
