Join the AOS team to begin exploring the world of content strategy - and where stakeholder storytelling fits in to the plan.
Introduction to Content Strategy
Stakeholder Storytelling
Community Voices and Endorsements
Featuring:
Hugh Blanc
James O'Connor
Hosted by Julianne Neal
I said to somebody the other day. Content strategy is basically just like a business plan. People say "yes, content... but noise!" and the answer to that really is looking at your values and looking at what you really stand for and finding voices within your community of relevance that can support that message and can kind of echo it back and talk about their own life experiences and how you and your service or product has affected them and those life experiences, creating content and creating a story around it that's relevant that impacts you much more than just you know... content for content's sake or telling me about the product or service.
Gotcha, good morning guys - morning James, morning Hugh, it's so good to speak with both of you again today for our second episode of the podcast and we're going to be talking today about stakeholder storytelling and content strategy. Doesn't that sound exciting?
Yeah it does, if you work in the in the field we do!
So according to market muse, I will give you the strict definition from them. Content strategy is the ongoing process of transforming business objectives and goals into a plan that uses content as a primary means of achieving those goals. That's pretty wordy, right? So in your words, what is content strategy to you?
I wanted to firstly is take issue with that definition you read there because they used the term they were defining in the definition, which is like, you know, the number one rule. Don't do that. I'm just kidding, but we have to accept it the way we engage is as people is different than the way we used to engage. We went through a phase where we were struggling. People were adopting to the idea of we just need to create content. We need to constantly have new stuff coming to work with the algorithms and I think we've moved to the next step now where OK, we established that we understand the importance of content and now it comes back to sort of becoming more sophisticated and saying OK, it's not just about making sure I have something to post. It's about understanding what I'm going to post, towards what end and a sort of a business plan as James said, which I think he stole from Miranda... But having that that sort of business plan of of these things - creating this content, engaging with the with the public in a certain way in a certain way with the strategic end in mind.
The reason why we're still having this conversation now, why it's still important now, it's because it's 2021 and people are still doing content for content's sake and you can see it everyday you know, people just posting well it's Monday, what's my Monday meme? That's totally not the point. That's not what we're about. That's not what we're doing. We're about, you know, we might spend a little bit longer trying to identify who are the stakeholders and what can they bring to your story. Because we think that the results are far, far more impressive. Content is a funnel, you know that's the thing, it's just the first step in this huge funnel. Entertain everybody, trying to get everyone's attention, but it very quickly narrows down to be: "Oh well, that was fun. I've been entertained. But you know, this is not affecting me in any way, is not impacting me..." so you know I might engage with it, but what is the point for the brand? What's the point six months later, when they still haven't figured out what their values are and who they really want to talk to?
