Yes, content is still king, but there are so many kingdoms now the question is, “how do you make yours break through?” There’s an old but effective tactic that you need to revive. Storytelling.
According to Inc. every minute there are 1.3m pieces of content shared on Facebook, 350k tweets posted, and 100 hours of video uploaded to YouTube. WOW. So how do you created that “aha” content? By telling great stories.
Inc. also reported that “the adult attention span is shrinking every year (now 3-8 seconds).” The amount of time spent consuming content keeps growing as well. It’s up to 10 hours per day (according to Schaffer), but how much more can this keep growing? There are obviously limits simply due to how many hours there are in a day. Schaffer, also states that consumers will soon start experiencing “content shock” from so much content being thrown at them day in and day out. As marketers we need to be prepared to combat this with creative, emotion, and relevant storytelling. Sounds easy enough, but really how do you do this? You have to be unique and you have to be memorable. Doing what others are doing is not going to cut it anymore. It’s going to take venturing into the unknown in order to find some space to be unique and to stand out. In a day and age of rapid advertising, humanizing your brand and content needs to be your priority. Creating something that people can relate to is going to help you develop those motivating and impactful stories. You need to find that margin that is not already consumed with content and make it happen.
Telling stories that have that human-to-human connection in a way that no one else is doing is what you need to look for. Again, be creative, unique and don’t be afraid to try something new!
