Thanks for visiting the Trafcom News Blog, where you’ll find
strategies and tactics for communicating in person and online, with an emphasis
on content marketing and storytelling, content curation, social media and multimedia,
particularly podcasting.
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This is quite possibly the best thing I've seen on the topic of content marketing and the coming deluge of crap masquerading as content. If you're a marketer or publisher of information of any kind, this is a must-see.
Actually, much of what he says here applies to not just content marketing, but content curation too. What do you think?
Thanks to Chris Herbert for tweeting this. Glad I saw it on a Saturday!
Or at least figure out this darned Twitter and Google+ thing.
Would
you like to strengthen your social media skills? Do you want to get better
at integrating social media into your day-to-day work so you can meet
some of your business goals? Check out this social media workshop at the
Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto on February 16, 2013.
Here’s what we’ll cover between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.:
The importance of having a communications/marketing strategy before getting too deeply into social media
Blogging for business: Why and how to blog; advantages of the Wordpress platform
Becoming
a Twitter power user: Shortcuts; using a dashboard like Hootsuite or
TweetDeck; setting up lists; joining chats; persistent searches;
following influencers; gaining valuable followers
Making the most of LinkedIn: Optimizing your profile; joining groups, participating in discussions
Using Facebook for business: Setting up a business page; winning likes; engaging with your community; pitfalls of Facebook
Advantages of GooglePlus: Search, Circles, Hangouts, Communities and more
Pinning with Pinterest: How brands are using Pinterest; setting up boards; building a following
How to integrate social media into your daily activities
How to keep learning
Why
spend this time building your social media skills? If you’re an
entrepreneur, writer or designer, or work for a small business, you can
enhance your marketing, lead generation and customer service efforts
through social media. Those who work for larger organizations and who
need to get up to speed with social media will also benefit from this
workshop.
Prerequisite:
You must have accounts on some (not all) of the major social media
platforms and familiarity with the operation of your own computer.
Please
bring your own laptop computer, and be sure to have all the login
information for your existing social media accounts with you.
Here's what some participants said when I conducted this workshop in December:
"Donna
is extraordinarily knowledgeable and very generous in her sharing of
information, and very responsive to participants' questions and needs.
As always, very professional and well done!" – Eileen Chadnick, Big Cheese Coaching
"Donna
is such an expert and explains social media in an engaging, informative
manner. Fabulous!" – Kristy Elik, Along the Lakeshore magazine
Questions? Contact me directly at 905.844.7645 or register now. The early-bird discount expires February 1.
Of course I
would never call your organization boring,
but you may. You see, often when I
speak to groups at conferences, or individually to clients about storytelling
and communications, they say: “Well, all that interesting stuff might be fine
for a fun business like Domino’s or Zappos or Pepsi, but what about us? We’re
in life sciences, or IT, or engineering, or widgets. How can we tell stories"
My answer is
this: I believe any organization can be interesting if we go to the trouble of uncovering
relevant, compelling stories.
Junk. Supply chain management. Solder paste.
Do these
topics sound scintillating to you? Well, guess what: In each case,
organizations have unearthed interesting content despite their “boring” industries.
On his blog, David Meerman Scott showcases
the example of 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, whose communication geniuses often share
content linked to something in the news or a particular season. For example, in
the New Year people may resolve to “get organized.” What’s more, the JUNK people focus on
customer needs, rather than pumping out bland ad copy. They also tap into the
emotions that people feel when they are unburdened by the excess stuff in their
lives. We can all learn a thing or two from them.
Kinaxis, a company specializing in supply
chain management, employs funny videos, among other tactics, to communicate
with customers and prospects. To showcase thought leadership, they publish videos of their managers
discussing industry trends. If they can do it, so can you.
And finally, I give you Indium Corporation, whose
bloggers, many of whom are engineers, have managed to make the topic of solder
paste fascinating.
There you have it: No more excuses. No matter
what industry you’re in, you can produce stories. Feel free to share your own storytelling experiences in the comments.
If you follow this blog or my Twitter feed, you know that I'm very much into both content curation and storytelling as integral parts of communication. Curation can help you avoid getting knocked over by the information firehose, and storytelling can win over your audience and let your message flow through.
So here are some of the latest and greatest links I've found on these two topics recently. Let me know what you think, eh?
Sometimes people tell me: “Well, this storytelling stuff is
very interesting, Donna, but my company is too boring. We have no stories to
share.” Really? Here are two examples of how to find engaging content,
no matter what industry you’re in:
Visit the Trafalgar Communications website for
information about how we can help your organization to share its story through
traditional and new media.
This is the most common question I hear from new podcasters. My answer: Sure, you could script your introduction and ending, but don’t write down your whole podcast word for word, unless you are totally confident in your skills as a voice performer (and most of us are not).
Overall, think of the most compelling way to share your story. Should it be conversational, highly polished or something in between?
I’ve written and spoken further on this topic in these posts:
Visit the Trafalgar Communications website for
information about how we can help your organization to share its story through
traditional and new media.
Here is a
fresh installment of my almost-weekly roundup of communications-related links you
may have missed.
Time
for content marketers to abandon Facebook?
When I conduct social media workshops, I always admit that I’m not a huge fan
of Facebook for business. This post confirms my way of thinking.
New
rules of social business After
reading this, you may think twice about keeping your eyeballs glued to your
iPhone at a conference.
Fotobabble Talking
photos, you say? I haven’t tried Fotobabble yet but it looks cool: add a short audio
file to a photo. Suggestion: If you use a service like this, invest in a
decent microphone. There’s no sense sounding like you’re in a tunnel.
Shattering
stereotypes one video at a time I just
love this video, which highlights some of the north/south stereotypes we’ve
come to accept. Take a look and let me know what you think.
Visit the Trafalgar Communications website for
information about how we can help your organization to tell its story through
traditional and new media.
I've been a fan of Paper.li for a long time because it's a fast and easy way to share great content. Lately they've been offering trials of their Pro version, so of course I've been experimenting. Here's today's Donna Papacosta Daily, which pulls in tweets (with links) of people I follow on Twitter. I'll be writing more about curating with Paper.li in the next few weeks.
Last week I moved a few of my videos
from a proprietary platform to YouTube. Suddenly, one of those videos is getting
a lot of attention, thanks in large part to Robin Good, who included it in his
own curated links.
This particular video is a version of
my talk about content curation this past summer at the IABC world conference in
Chicago (“Coming soon to a job description near you: content curation.”) If
you're interested in this topic, please check it out and let me know what you
think. If you’re reading this blog post
by email, click here to see the video.
Related to this video: My slides on “Best practices for
content curation” (which inexplicably have garnered more than 11,000 views). If
you’re reading this blog post by email, click here to see the slides.
