Oftentimes, B2B brands underestimate the importance of having a well-developed social media tone of voice. Social media might seem “too casual” for a B2B brand and thus not a worthwhile investment. But at the end of the day, we’re still marketing to people, and what better way to connect with people organically than through social media?  

Eighty-three percent of B2B marketers turn to social media as a business solution, using it to generate leads, research other brands and deliver customer service. If that is not convincing enough, eighty-four percent of C-level and VP-level buyers are influenced by social media when making purchasing decisions.  

It’s never too late to establish your brand’s presence on social media. Starting with a social media tone of voice guide will help your brand find the right balance between authentically engaging with real people and presenting your brand professionally. Once you have your brand’s tone  of  voice guide, planning your social media strategy will be a breeze. 

Social media tone of voice refers to the persona of your social media accounts. It’s the way you embody your brand to your audience—visually and verbally—which affects how people perceive your company. Your company’s history, mission and values should all be reflected in your social media tone of voice. 

A social media tone of voice guide should be tailored to your target audiences, helping customers to connect with you on an emotional level. If done right, it gives your audience a feeling about your brand that lasts longer than the actual message you’re putting out there. 

Start by compiling all your brand guidelines for reference during this process. Your social media tone of voice should tie back to your overall brand, acting as an extension of the brand across channels. 

There are several exercises you can use to help define your brand’s tone of voice. Here are a few of our favorites: 

Include examples for your team so they can better understand how to apply the guidelines and use them for future reference. 

Take Hootsuite, for example. Though easily accessible to consumers, Hootsuite frequently markets its services to other businesses that have, or desire to have, a social media presence. Hootsuite’s new social media branding and tone of voice align to convince businesses and customers that they are at the forefront of social innovation.  

Using internal expertise from several teams, customer feedback and stakeholder input, Hootsuite was able to develop an extremely thorough tone of voice guide. In addition to their casual copywriting approach, their font choices, colors and new photography style encapsulate their identity as a social-first brand. 

Next, identify and prioritize your top social media channels. What role does each of these channels play in your customers’ journey? For example, you may use LinkedIn to communicate business updates, products and industry news in a professional manner while taking a more behind-the-scenes, friendly approach on Facebook. 

Think about how you want your brand to look on social media, and include a condensed style guide with examples of what you want social media posts to look like. 

Finally, incorporate hashtag usage and community management into your guide. Identify branded and nonbranded hashtags that make sense for your company. Decide how your brand will interact within relevant social media communities. 

The best way to synthesize your brand’s visual identity into a social media tone of voice guide is to actively collaborate with a holistic team. Hootsuite, for example, consulted their own creatives, developers and key stakeholders when developing their new visual guidelines. By immersing different teams in the guideline development process, you not only get an accurate representation of your brand but you also have an organization that fully understand and can implement the new visual guidelines.

Having a full grasp and being able to master your brand’s tone of voice guide on social media will ease the content planning and production process. But sometimes, you might still hit a wall when it comes to writing for social media. Check out “Ways to Spice Up Your ‘Boring’ Business Content” for quick tips on how to make B2B content more exciting.

The advent of metaverse platforms brings with it tools to tell stories in newly collaborative and immersive ways. For instance, where brands once controlled much of their story and image, Web 2.0 allowed users to shape the story significantly. Now, as we move beyond the current generation of web technologies, users and brands will shape authentic narratives as collaborative partners. 

The end result is a more inclusive, democratized ecosystem for shaping and engaging with stories—all happening in immersive media that bridges digital and physical environments in real time. 

To tell authentic, meaningful stories in the metaverse, brands, influencers and individuals alike need to keep the following characteristics in mind: 

The metaverse isn’t fully present yet. It is, however, a place where audiences of all ages are already spending billions of hours each month and billions of dollars each year.

Where people spend time, people—including marketing leaders—can tell relevant stories. Where people spend their money, marketing is already happening. 

Brands using the hero’s journey as a form of brand storytelling isn’t a new concept; it is an easily recognizable format popularized by mythology professor Joseph Campbell in 1949. A character goes on an adventure, faces a crisis, and returns home having been transformed by the journey. In total, Campbell identified 12 steps of the hero’s journey: 

When we think of “hero,” we tend to immediately think of characters with superpowers from the Marvel or DC universes. We might also think of Olympic athletes or notable celebrities with humble beginnings. However, brand storytelling has gradually shifted from glorified protagonists to everyday people with diverse backgrounds and realistic struggles. From “hero” to human, the consumer is now able to relate to the journey. They are able to extend empathy, as they can see themselves more realistically in the character’s shoes.  

Since the hero’s journey is an easily recognizable storytelling format, brands can truly exercise creative liberty in order to differentiate themselves from competitors. The beautiful thing about this narrative technique is the fact that all 12 steps are not necessary to complete a story. In fact, the stages do not have to be in chronological order. Brands can be selective with which stages they want to incorporate and amplify to create amazing content.  

We’ve compiled three great examples of brands using the hero’s journey storytelling format but molding it in their own unique way.  

Lyft’s “Yes, You Are a Bike Person” campaign, advertising its new bikeshare capability, incorporates the introductory stages of the hero’s journey. This example is perhaps the closest to a more traditional approach to the hero’s journey from a brand perspective; it calls the consumer (the hero in this case) to go on an adventure. Yet it applies the hero’s journey in a more “normal” or realistic setting. 

Lyft portrays the monotony of the ordinary world by capturing typical scenes, such as in an office, a bathroom and a random street.   

The seemingly ordinary people release their disguises and get on their bikes to go start their adventure, emphasizing that anyone can embark on this adventure. 

Similarly to Lyft’s, LinkedIn’s “#FindYourSpace” campaign also applies the hero’s journey in a more humanistic way. What’s different about this campaign is how it encompasses the gist of the hero’s journey without having to touch on every stage.  

The main character could either be unemployed due to the COVID-19 pandemic or could be looking for a new job opportunity that meets their needs and values.  

The different communities of working parents, corporate executives, recent college graduates and more serve as tests for the main character to figure out which community they truly fit in. 

The main character finally finds their community among musicians and subsequently decides to use her experience to help someone starting on the same journey.

Aflac’s animated short “The Park Bench”, featuring a family of color, pulls at the heartstrings by carefully selecting which stages of the hero’s journey will simultaneously represent the brand and foster empathy from the audience. Similarly to LinkedIn’s video, the animated short begins with the ordeal. 

A small family goes through emotional hardship as the father experiences the effects of a chronic illness. This leaves the only child alone, as the mother is trying her best to take care of the father before he ultimately becomes hospitalized. 

While alone outside, the child finds a duck. The duck quickly becomes the child’s mentor; it teaches her to still enjoy hobbies and to have fun even while the father is in the hospital. This mindset slowly reaches the mother, and she begins to spend more time with the daughter.  

Persevering with a positive attitude, the father comes back from the hospital. The whole family is reunited and is able to spend quality time together.

Here are some key takeaways you can bring back to your brand’s next campaign:

Use a protagonist that is more representative of the average consumer. Representation can produce more relatability and even brand loyalty. 

Select stages that are not only representative of the whole hero’s journey, but also stages that will set your brand’s campaign apart from the competition.

Though all of our examples were short videos, you can challenge your brand to accomplish the same hero’s journey effect with a series of graphics, VR, audio, etc. 

Want to become a master at storytelling? We recommend checking out “7 Effective Storytelling Tricks and Tips To Win Your Audience Over” and “The Future of Storymaking: How Stories Persuade Us To Change Our Minds and Actions” to understand what makes an effective story.  

This blog post was originally published on August 20, 2015 by Alex Herring and has been updated and republished. 

The good news is that a customer win in any of these areas is a win for the long-term position of financial institutions and their stakeholders.

This resource offers practical insights on how providers of financial services can evolve their customer marketing and address urgent and emerging trends across:

If you don’t like a particular social media platform, just wait a few weeks. Things will change. 

The speed with which popular platforms (think Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube) evolve is part of why social media strategy is so difficult. One week Twitter might be dropping story–like content tools. The next, TikTok video lengths could be different, or Instagram could be ditching swipe-up features. Like living languages, social media platforms keep shifting to stay current.  

How do marketers and business leaders shift to keep their social media strategies relevant? 

Here are two simple but powerful steps to do this, steps with validated success across virtually all social media platforms. These principles work for big platforms and niche ones alike, and they won’t go out of style anytime soon.

Being social is just as easy as it sounds in theory and just as difficult as it sounds in practice. 

You’ve probably encountered social media accounts that aren’t particularly social. Think about the brand that faithfully shares content but only talks about itself, the relative who doesn’t post at all but complains when they can’t find new pictures of your pet turtle, or the interest group that hasn’t seen an update in three years. 

Whether you’re using social media to build brand awareness, get web traffic, provide better support or attract prospective customers, it pays to interact socially. Here are some examples of what socializing might look like across various platforms: 

With these ideas in mind, consider just a small sample of data on being social: 

A good way to sum this up is with some classic Winnie-the-Pooh wisdom: “You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.” 

When you put yourself out there in a social way, you’re a lot more likely to find that others return in kind. 

Go figure that social media principle No. 1 is about being social and principle No. 2 is about media. 

It’s surprising how often organizations want to build a social media following or pursue social goals without investing the time to create or even share existing media, but the media aspect is half of what social media means. As an added plus, it works.  

In practice, sharing media is similar across social platforms, no matter what type of content you’re dealing with. Whether you’re a content creator or curator—or both, as is often the case—your content should be platform-appropriate and should benefit the community of users who have a chance to come across it. If your content contributes real value, you’re probably well on your way to reaching your social media goals. 

Adding value can still take various forms, and some of those forms will be unique to individual social platforms. However, there are platform-proof tactics to consider here all the same: 

A few figures to help make the case for media/content across the board: 

TLDR: High-quality content—the media part of social media—drives awareness, engagement for new and old audiences alike, positive brand sentiment, in-app purchases, and conversions of all kinds. 

There are no magic bullets for reaching your social media goals. It will still take effort since socializing and sharing media still take energy and time at the very least. The brands and individuals who consistently tie socialization and media together, however, are the ones who reap the rewards. As a takeaway, you might look closely at social media profiles you like and think of in a positive light. You’ll probably find them winning in either the social or the media game, if not both. 

Wondering how to get more eyes on your brand new social media content strategy? Be sure to read our article “Real Ways to Increase Followers on Instagram and Twitter.”

SWOT: Strength, weakness, opportunity and threat. A simple yet effective strategic planning technique, it can guide the goal-setting process for any client or business program.  

This blog post will outline the best practices to develop a SWOT analysis that will allow you to identify areas that are experiencing success and areas that need some improvement. A thorough and honest analysis of the subject at hand will help kick-start your organization’s strategic planning. 

It can be easy to fall into the trap of starting a project at lightning speed without first taking time to solidify your goals and develop a plan. But, without a goal, you’ll end up going on a reckless, winding trip with no GPS and no final destination. To ensure program success, we always recommend beginning with a discovery phase. 

This stage is critical to establishing a strong foundation for your project and includes outlining goals and objectives. Take the time to identify and digest all available data that is relevant to the specific results you want to achieve with this project. A SWOT analysis will help define your client or company’s current positioning in relation to the end goal or desired achievement.  

A SWOT analysis is a high-level summary that details your business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats at the time you conduct the analysis. A SWOT analysis allows you to holistically assess the current state of your business—including both the internal and external factors that impact your business performance—so that you can plan strategically for a better future.

Factors within an organization that lead to its unique standing among competitors 

Sample Questions to Uncover Strengths 

Factors within an organization that need improvement and hinder it from reaching its full potential 

Sample Questions to Uncover Weaknesses 

Strengths and weaknesses are factors of internal origin including human capital, resources and brand awareness. Opportunities and threats are external elements out of our control, such as the state of the economy and market trends. 

External factors that could be maximized for the benefit of the organization. 

Sample Questions to Uncover Opportunities 

External factors that put the organization at risk and need to be mitigated. 

Sample Questions to Uncover Threats 

Starting a project is often the hardest phase of a project altogether, but having a plan from the start is not just helpful—it’s critical. 

A SWOT summary is not the only planning framework, of course, but it is a powerful high-level analysis that assists at a project’s infancy. There is also SOAR (strengths, opportunities, aspirations, results), which works similarly—perhaps with a more positive spin—and other frameworks like gap planning that compare where an organization is now, where it wants to be and how the “gap” should be filled to reach goals. 

There’s no right or wrong choice for the framework you choose to use—research and experiment with the framework that works best for your organization. But a SWOT analysis is a great place to start as it will simplify your planning process to get the hard part “right” from the beginning. 

Practice makes perfect. Here are our recommendations when implementing a SWOT analysis:  

Need some ideas to catalyze your SWOT brainstorm session, or facing financial barriers in your strategic planning process? Check out these articles: “Virtual Brainstorming and Whiteboarding Sessions” and “Where to Invest and Where to Cut Back When Budgets Are Tight.”  

This blog post was originally published on August 13, 2019, by Misty Sutton and has been updated and republished.

Last year, we talked a lot about the power of TikTok as a marketing tool for businesses big and small—and particularly for those in the financial space. We even discussed Pinterest and its resurgence amid the pandemic. But the truth of the matter is that both Instagram and Twitter continue to be important components of a comprehensive social media ecosystem. However, with all that power comes more competition. These platforms can sometimes feel like the most challenging to grow on. In order to increase followers on these social channels and create a sense of community among your followers, you may need to try something new. Here are a few tactics you can try to increase your brand’s following. 

While it has been around for over a decade, Instagram is still one of the top growing apps on the market; currently sitting at the 7th spot for most visited website in the world. The platform is continuously evolving its algorithm and adding new features, which can be tricky to keep up with. With a few tips, tricks and tools, you can beat the algorithm and gain new loyal followers on Instagram. 

The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, recently made the statement that the platform is no longer a “square photo-sharing app.” More specifically, they have been working to expand their video and shopping capabilities. Now that photo is not the primary content type on the app, it’s the perfect time to experiment with their variety of formats like Reels, Stories and Instagram Video. Providing users with variety can help boost your business within the algorithm, find new followers and expand your reach. While this can be a tactful way to increase followers, it may be overwhelming to manage all those different pieces of content. Using a tool like Tailwind or SocialPilot to manage and schedule your posts can make planning out your content that much easier. 

Instagram is a two-way platform. People don’t just want to hear from you, they want to interact with you and feel connected to your brand. So don’t post and ghost! Every time you share something on Instagram, make sure you are keeping an eye on how your audience is engaging with it and engage back. Make your followers feel seen and heard by liking, replying, and resharing their comments and responses to your posts. You can also encourage interactivity by utilizing the platform’s stickers, like quizzes and polls, on Stories. This provides your followers (or potential followers) with an additional opportunity to share their thoughts and feedback with you. Plus, it’s fun! An all-in-one analytics and monitoring tool like Hootsuite can help you monitor engagement on your posts and see who is talking about your brand and allow you to join in on the conversation. 

When trying to grow your following on Instagram, it can help to increase your reach as far as possible (within reason). Working with other creators or influencers, as well as other brands, can help expand your following by introducing your brand to your target audience who might be interested in your offerings. When using influencers for a campaign, you can almost instantly gain new followers. People trust social proof and recommendations from creators they can relate to or aspire to be like much more than promotional content from brands. Instagram makes it even easier to team up on posts with their “Collabs” feature that allows two accounts to co-author a post and then share it to both profiles at the same time with combined engagement. Influencer platforms like Upfluence or Aspire have databases filled with potential collaborators to build mutually beneficial relationships with.

The key to growing a following on Twitter is getting your tweets in front of people who are not following you. This can be achieved by posting more often; boosting your chances of getting retweeted or engaging in existing conversations and trending topics. Let’s look at a few ways to go about this.  
 

One of the biggest hurdles for brands on Twitter is how fast it moves. Sometimes it feels like no one is seeing your tweets and the reality is the lifespan of a tweet is approximately 15-20 minutes. One way to combat this is to post on Twitter multiple times a day, but realistically, who has the time for that? Batching and scheduling your tweets in advance allows you to show up more consistently on the platform and optimize your chances of having your tweets be seen. Twitter-owned schedulers like Twitter Business and TweetDeck make scheduling your tweets a breeze.

Tweets are notoriously short, leaving little room for extended coverage of a singular topic that people can actually follow without searching on your profile. Twitter threads are great because they allow you to connect a series of Tweets. When done well, threads can attract new followers and increase the chances of your tweets being shared. With a thread, you can provide expand on a thought, provide necessary context, give an update, or add a variety of visuals. In a few easy steps, you can post your first Twitter thread create a more impactful way to share thought leadership, key insights and trends within your niche.

Joining a larger conversation is essential to having success on Twitter, so why not jump in while the action is happening? Live tweeting during noteworthy events within your niche, especially if it’s trending, is a great way to extend your tweet’s reach. Users who are tuning into these events—whether it be a major sporting event, political debate or the premiere of a TV show—are ready to engage with likeminded people (or brands). They are reacting in real-time with you. Live tweeting also humanizes brands by allowing them to show a bit more personality. This helps build stronger communities of followers who relate to your brand’s perspective. Don’t forget to utilize the most relevant and dominant hashtag(s) for that event because it will have a higher likelihood of trending. To find trending hashtags try Trendsmap or test out a more advanced tool like Sprout Social with social listening features that let you view topics and track hashtags that people frequently use when mentioning your brand. 

By utilizing these tips and tools, your brand can create a sense of community among your target audience, expand its reach and visibility, build brand awareness and connect with influencers in new ways. So, what are you waiting for? Increasing followers may be easier than you think.

This blog post was originally published on June 23, 2015 by Jennie Ahlgren and has been updated and republished. 

We can all probably think of “best seconds,” whether it’s a new band covering an old song, a new technology doing an old task, or an author remaking a classic from Shakespeare or folklore.

Last year, I was introduced to Buddy Scalera and Joseph “JK” Kalinowski’s monthly video series, “The Creative Show,” while attending the 2021 Content Marketing World virtual conference. The conference included a livestreamed episode of “The Creative Show” titled “The Idea Etherverse,” which included the assurance that being the first to have a great idea isn’t always necessary. Instead, Scalera and Kalinowski noted that sometimes having the “best second” version of an idea can be just as successful and engaging. Their point of view has stayed with me and brought to mind three ways that content marketers can think up best seconds of their own (or in other words, optimize campaigns), and three great examples where that clearly happened.

Marketers want to get into the minds of their customers, and one insight you may be well aware of is that it takes 21 days of repetition to form a habit. Psychologist Maxwell Maltz published that recommendation in his 1960 book Psycho-Cybernetics, and it’s been shared, debated and tried ever since.

European soft drink company Green Cola UK set up a social-media first campaign using that timeframe with its #21daychallenge on Instagram inviting health-conscious moms in the United Kingdom to try Green Cola. The beverage has no sugar, no calories, no artificial sweeteners, and no preservatives and gets its name from the green coffee beans that provide the caffeine. Remember the Pepsi Challenge, a famous blind taste test of Coke versus Pepsi with focus groups in the 1980s? It’s another echoed idea in this campaign.

The challenge was to substitute their current diet cola with Green Cola for 21 days, share their experience on social media and tag other friends to take the challenge, too. Within five months, 140 microinfluencers racked up a total reach of 2.5 million people.

Moreover, sales benefited. Green Cola tripled its Amazon orders in the five months of the campaign, and they were also shortlisted in the 2021 International Content Marketing Awards for “Best Use of Influencer Marketing.”

One of the most challenging spaces for marketing is travel, and that was true well before the pandemic. I worked for a number of years in both travel journalism and marketing, and standing out from the competition was an ongoing challenge for hotel, cruise, tour and destination brands.

Atlas Obscura has found a delightful part of the space to own: curious and lesser-known sights around the world. The company markets guided tours, online events and online courses.

I connected to the brand’s “best second” idea first, which is a spinoff called Gastro Obscura. Realizing the interest among travelers in regional food and food history, Gastro Obscura plays up the food and drink aspects of the travel offerings from Atlas Obscura. The Gastro Obscura e-newsletter has a fun mix in each issue of nostalgia, recipes, destinations and food curiosities.

The audiences for Atlas Obscura and Gastro Obscura are potentially very similar, and the products overlap, as well. But this principle of repeating your own success by optimizing an old campaign could be used in a way that reaches a unique audience from your primary brand (such as promoting cosmetics and skincare products to men) or that is timed apart from the original campaign (such as the classic Christmas in July promotion).

In the early 2000s, Wachovia Bank awarded a scholarship for high school and college students. I say scholarship, but in fact it was a sweepstakes. Requirements were minimal, which made it easy and accessible for any student to enter. The campaign was successful in building awareness of the bank as a source of financial services for students, and it was of course meaningful to the winning students, who had that much more help paying for college.

Wells Fargo renewed the campaign for several years after Wachovia merged with them in 2005. And again, it continued to deliver broad awareness and reach.

In 2020, the marketing team brought back the campaign, but this time they focused it more narrowly. No longer a sweepstakes, the Wells Fargo Student Impact Scholarship for 2020 offered $1 million in total funds, given out to students who demonstrated financial need and a commitment to help their community.

Pace was an agency partner to Wachovia in the early 2000s and is an agency partner to Wells Fargo today. I was on both teams, and it’s been exciting to take part in the optimized new version of the scholarship. By more narrowly focusing the requirements, Wells Fargo showed that it is not just a source of funds, but a brand with empathy for students impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and a brand that wanted to recognize and support young adults making an impact in their communities.

In 2022, Wells Fargo distributed $1 million in scholarship funds again, this time with a narrow target of seniors at accredited historically Black colleges and universities with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund–Wells Fargo HBCU College Completion Scholarship.

Try following these three steps and see what you come up with. Feeling lost on where to start with the campaign optimization process? Get inspired by this article here and start by spicing up your content’s language first.

Storytelling has become crucial for bringing to life and personalizing how companies do business while serving their customers. This provides opportunities to build brand awareness and attract new clients, customers, investors, and potential employees.  

While annual reports are traditional examples of how companies share their performance over the past year with their investors, during the past 10 years more and more organizations also have been producing yearly corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. This blog post provides an overview of what they are, what they include, how they are used, and ways companies can promote theirs. 

Corporate social responsibility reports are designed to improve the transparency of an organization’s activities specifically related to its impact environmentally, socially and governmentally (ESG) not only with investors, but also with employees, clients, consumers, public officials, academics, corporate managers, and the general public. ESG also is referred to at times as a company’s triple bottom line.  

CSR reports were originally proposed in the early 1950s and have evolved through the decades. In the 1980s, when global industrial deregulation and the global economy took off, the topic reemerged. Some industries worldwide started employing CSR reports in the 1990s, but they really started to take root in the United States in the 2010s. According to Harvard Business School Online, 90% of companies on the U.S. S&P 500 published CSR reports in 2019. That was an increase from 86% in 2018, which was up from 75% in 2014.

Here is what is oftentimes covered under each ESG category. This list is in no way comprehensive and varies by company and industry: 

This area is not as clearly defined as the other two. It typically includes an overview of the company’s board structure and how it interacts with the rest of the company leaders and employees to ensure oversight of the company’s overall policies and strategies. It may include information about how ESG responsibilities are managed through company committees. It also can discuss and report its political lobbying and political contributions. Boston College’s Center for Corporate Citizenship has produced a great resource for how to read CSR reports.

CSR reports are used in a variety of ways. Financial institutions have used them to analyze a company’s stock. The Great Place To Work Institute uses CSR report employment data to compile Fortune magazine’s annual list of 100 Best Companies To Work For, while consumers and investors may use CSR data to decide which companies they want to patronize and invest in. Additionally, potential employees can use the information to consider where they may want to work. 

If you’re interested in trying to find a company’s CSR or ESG report, ResponsibilityReports.com has a free searchable database of more than 10,000 such reports from more than 2,200 global companies.

After all the effort a company puts into its annual CSR report, promoting it is crucial. Because almost all reports are online-only, it’s important to have an integrated, multimedia communications plan developed with the company’s communications department and other relevant divisions. It should include promoting the report internally to employees, investors, clients, customers, consumers and the communities it serves and operates in. 

Having a dedicated page on the company site is key. Offering a downloadable PDF on that page also is advisable. Make sure all photos and graphics are clear and reproduce well. Producing short videos—under three minutes—that feature employees, a specific company division, stakeholders, volunteers and community partners can be particularly informative to target audiences. These could include testimonials, highlights of important issues and challenges the company overcame, or goals it met that are outlined in the CSR report. 

Ensuring the report is launched internally to employees is an important first step as they can be a company’s biggest cheerleaders and its biggest advocates. Giving them early access to the report so they can review the information—either through the company’s intranet or the website before it goes live—allows them to know what is in the report. Also, let them know the timeline for CSR promotional and media activities. Giving them that and asking them for their help in raising awareness of the new report at specific intervals allows them to have buy-in and feel a sense of ownership (more on this below).

A company will want to promote its report through various banner ads on its website’s homepage and relevant sections featured in the CSR report for an appropriate time period. When promoting it to the media, make sure to have an online newsroom where press releases, photos and b-roll can be easily accessed and used. Also provide a link to it on printed documents and directly link to it online documents such as reports and fact sheets using Bitly URLs to ensure links are short. Make sure to share the website and some videos at annual meetings.

Using videos and photos on social media platforms are quick ways to promote the CSR report. Companies can quickly use their images and videos for posts on their Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Vimeo and Twitter accounts. Providing sample posts and asking employees to share them on their personal social media platforms are easy ways to increase visibility. Also, provide employees who are featured in sections of the CSR report or videos with a tailored message that includes a brief explanation highlighting their connection to the report with a link to the report or their specific video that they can add to their email signature. Division leaders and executives can do the same by promoting the report in their email signature.

Today, CSR reports are an important part of the transparency potential employees, clients, customers, and investors want from companies they consider working for, doing business with and investing in. With the ongoing pandemic and the racial justice movement, more people—especially millennials—are taking a closer look at companies and how they do business before beginning or continuing a relationship with them. Successfully telling and sharing your company’s story through its annual CSR report is an important way to provide these audiences with the information they want. Curious about what makes a story powerful? Read this article here: The Future of Storymaking: How Stories Persuade Us To Change Our Minds and Actions

Financial services. Insurance. Medical supplies. Feeling the urge to stifle a yawn? One challenge marketers face is creative content marketing for seemingly “boring” products or services. So how do you transform content that can be complicated, dull and full of jargon into something that resonates with your audience?  

Viewing your content shouldn’t feel like hard work or make the user feel dumb, no matter the subject. Sometimes, however, adopting a conversational tone or flexing your creative muscle by taking a storytelling approach may not be the right fit. Think instructions on how to use a product or directions for a recipe. Regardless, the bottom line is people are craving something that’s clearly written (ideally paired with some diagrams or graphics). 

Research shows that 80% of people prefer clear English in legal documents. But you might be surprised to learn the more educated readers are, their desire for plainspoken language actually increases. That counters the notion that extremely formal styles somehow appear more professional and therefore more appealing. Readers wanting to solve a problem or learn something new don’t want to feel like they’re doing homework. Something else to keep in mind? Most people—including those you may be targeting with your content—don’t have a university-level reading ability. That’s why articles in newspapers and magazines are usually written at a high school reading level. It’s time to kick the overly formal and academic language to the curb. 

When a business in Ireland wanted to showcase the gender pay gap in pensions, the challenge was: How do you grab people’s attention? The answer? The creation of a pretty sweet, award-winning B2C campaign involving a “99” ice cream cone, a popular treat in Ireland.  

The campaign featured a video showing a man in an ice cream van equipped with a hidden camera serving 99 ice cream to customers. While explaining to female customers they get 22 percent less ice cream than male customers (so a “77” ice cream cone), the video showed their perplexed and baffled reactions, underscoring how ridiculous it was to think women deserved less. The video then segued into information regarding the 22-percent gender gap for pensions.  

The key to the campaign’s success? Humanizing the data. The campaign, by the way, would go on to be recognized by the Content Marketing Institute as the 2020 B2C branded content campaign of the year. 

For content creators, focus on answering four key questions to help kick off a new campaign to better engage with the audience: 

This question can help you identify your audience and their needs.
Part of answering that question is also answering: Why should they care?

This speaks to the type of emotional response you’re trying to elicit
from your content.

Understanding the CTA is the basis of this question.
Visit a website? Share a video? Subscribe to a newsletter? 

How you’ll be measuring whether it performed well should be established
at the start as well. 

One strategy toward breathing life into abstract or boring content is finding colorful analogies, which can sometimes be found in pop culture. 

Zombie apocalypse, anyone? In 2013, when the Walking Dead TV show was hugely popular, a disaster recovery services company created an award-winning zombie-themed campaign. It included an e-book, multimedia content, an infographic, and a survival kit giveaway. The e-book’s download rate was three times higher than expected while the overall campaign received a 150% higher click-through rate and 200% higher click-to-open rate versus other campaigns. But even more important: The campaign shattered the brand’s goals for qualified leads. 

Now the hard part. How do you convince stakeholders to get out of their comfort zones? The more radical, risky or creative your idea is, the harder it can be to get stakeholder buy-in. The reaction could be something like: “Zombies? Why are we talking about zombies? Please remove. We’re a serious-minded business.”  

That’s why you should take them on the journey with you so they don’t feel blindsided. Explain the reasons behind the direction you’re taking the content as it develops, along with proof points when you have them. Invite them to share their inputs so they feel they have some ownership of the direction the content takes. Making sure stakeholders feel they are part of the process versus outside looking in can go a long way toward winning their trust. 

For content creators, sometimes you might be feeling stuck when it comes to creative content marketing. Need some inspiration? Check out this article for some super tips: Marvel’s Approach to Storytelling: What Can Brands Learn From It?