Storytelling in the digital age: Driving business with authentic customer stories

Storytelling in the digital age:
Driving business with authentic
customer storiesDriving business with authentic
customer stories
With plummeting ad budgets, a general »»Open up to all types of contribution. distrust of advertising, and the power of the Contributors will send in videos with your personal touch, customer stories give brands products, photos of themselves, and more a chance to reach untapped consumers with - encourage this to further personalize more credibility - through the words of others the experience. These assets also drive like them. incremental search traffic and enhance readership and sharing. Stories can go far beyond input about specific products, helping brands align »»Optimize the content for search. User-themselves with topics important to the target generated content is great at driving audience to draw people in, and they can also search because it uses consumers' own help steer shoppers to specific recommended language - both in stories and subsequent products. search threads. Refer to the white paper written by Range Online Media, This paper explains the best way to execute "Optimizing User-Generated Content: consumer-generated storytelling campaigns Creating Success with Cross-funnel that drive business goals, with specific Indexing" (August, 2009) to effectively examples and best practices. When reading index this content. this paper, keep the following basics in mind. »»Let contributors recommend their favorite Quick Tips: Gaining maximum benefits products. If online sales are part of your from stories site's goals, so encourage writers to link to their favorite related products or attributes »»Begin with measurement in mind. Set - accessories or their favorite product specific campaign goals, tag content for colors, for example. web analytics, and keep an eye on results. »»Think outside the box. Stories campaigns »»Direct the conversation. Ask specific, let you reach out to consumers about open-ended questions about topics, topics that are important to them - and focusing on specific products, the brand, to you. Experiment with topics and mix or an overall topic. Make it easy for it up to keep all types of shoppers and visitors to find and participate for consumers engaged and coming back maximum participation. to your site.
2Making sense of social
68% of online marketers believe "media is "Person like me" still most trusted source for in big trouble and will lose dollars to user- information about a company and, therefore, generated content." (iMedia Connection, products. (Edelman Trust Barometer, February 2008) November 2007)
See more stats at www.bazaarvoice.com/stats.
Stats
With all the social media buzz and disjointed example, a retailer would likely focus on applications, it's difficult to know exactly driving sales; manufacturers focus on driving where to start and who to target. As you sales through the channel and building brand would with any advertising or business equity. A financial services firm may want to initiative, begin with the end in mind. What's gain new accounts or increase adoption of a the business goal? Sure, you want to engage special feature. with your customers - you love to see them tweet about you (usually), and it's great to Getting your customers to speak about their watch your number of Facebook fans grow. firsthand experiences with you is the most But how do these activities help further a authentic type of social initiative, and is much measurable, meaningful business goal? And more easily aligned with business goals than, if they don't, are they really worth doing? for example, collecting fans on Facebook. On Facebook or Twitter, you are initially speaking The intersection of social technologies and in general to consumers or followers, which measurable business results is called Social can easily cause your interactions to devolve Commerce. Looking at social initiatives from into marketing messages. When you get the perspective of core business goals helps consumers to tell their stories on your behalf, ensure you pursue the right social initiatives however, they start - and extend - the for your business - those that are the most conversation, making the whole process authentic, trustworthy, and measurable. For more organic and trustworthy.
3Combining the power of
social and stories
"People love to share sto... [download for more]