Story in the Age of Mass Content

ConsumerismWhy Storytelling Matters

My Story

Husband, dad, sports nut, PR guy,

entrepreneur

We’re about BIG ideas and

innovation.

We LOVE our work.

We create stories, influence and awareness for

companies and ideas that are changing the

world.

Content is everywhere

Content is everywhere

Content is Everywhere

But it’s getting overwhelming

Why?

• Anyone can publish• Distribution has become a science,

filled with pipes, tools, analytics and insights

• Social media has turned everyone into a distributor

• The impact is a world of massive content production, disruption and consumption

Numbers• Twitter registers 50M Tweets per

day• 30B photos uploaded to Facebook

every year• 12.2B videos viewed per month on

YouTube in U.S.• There are more than 3.5B pieces of

content (web links, news stories, blog posts, etc.) shared each week on Facebook

But Volume ≠ Quality

Social is a Huge Filter

Filters Give Us:

• Meaning• Engagement• Interest• Inspiration

Cool Beans

All the tools and science are there for

publishing, distributing, analyzing and socializing. They exist. They work. Use

them!

The harder questions to answer are:

Do you have an original idea?

Do you have a story that will make people care?

A Good Story

• Informs/teaches• Entertains• Has interesting characters we care

about• Is credible and authentic• Is sustainable, not just a blip on the

screen

3 Stories

A Good Story

• Product discovery focused on high-end luxury beauty products

• One part media company, one part e-commerce, one part subscription one part social network

• Founded by two female entrepreneurs from Harvard

• Crushing it and reinventing several businesses

• Their entire business is centered around storytelling, being authentic, capturing attention and keeping their audience engaged long term

A Good Story

• ServiceMax makes software for managers of fleets and field service agents

• Audience is very niche but thirsty for insights, new technologies

• Industry press dying• We’re building an independent media

property aimed at this audience.

• Content platform– Original blog content - 70+ posts,

Q&As– Aggregated content from custom

news feeds– Sponsored content (ServiceMax

blog)– Industry whitepapers from content

partners– Twitter/FB integration, mobile

browser & app

• Since Jan 1, 2011– 5,000 PVs– 2,199 visitors– #2 Google rank for "field service

news”– Small numbers but high quality

and translating into very high CPM audience

• What’s Next?– ServiceMax blog on SmartVan– Newsletter (to build a targeted list

which the client owns)– Contests - Pimp Your Van, Van Rally– News section (with custom feeds

organized by topic)

A Good Story

• Quidsi: fastest growing e-commerce company in the world (parent of Diapers.com brand)

• Began working with them in December 2010

• They wanted to get mainstream visibility and prime the pump for the launch of Soap.com

• We created a video about “robots” to support a PR push in advance of the Soap.com launch

• Goal was 10K views. We’re now at 47K views

Think Legendary!

http://www.youtube.com/user/Soapdotcom%23p/a/u/1/6zXOW6v0c8s

Four Things

1. The content economy is wonderful. Drink it up, take it on and embrace it as the future of business.

2. Publishing, distribution, social and analytics tools make it easy to produce in volume.

3. It’s up to you to produce great stories!

4. Thank you for your time!