December 2013 – Talent Trends & Insights

Last Thursday I saw a Q&A with author, speaker and social media strategist Gary Vaynerchuk. He was in the UK to promote his new book and took a lot of questions from the floor. He was funny, anecdotal, energetic, swore a lot and made a number of observations on social media marketing, most of which resonated with me…

Can’t automate the human touch. It takes time to build a relationship. You can’t apply email marketing techniques to social media.
Social media is a marathon, it takes time to build engagement.
Every business is now in the media business, the only way to compete is to become an authority on content.
Stop thinking of social media as a distribution channel, think of it as a storytelling channel.
Storytellers are controlling the conversation and making the money.

My last two blogs have been about the importance of content, blogging, brand journalism and story telling, so it was good to hear many of Gary’s takeaways refer to the same topics. As with much social media marketing wisdom, it’s the simple principles that many seem to find difficult to grasp – yet the notion of conversation, relationship building, give before you ask, speak with an authentic voice are all part of the basis of meaningful human interaction and should be second nature to a marketer.

The creation of content and building of authority may be something that comes less naturally, particularly to businesses used to pushing out one way messages, but the concept that Gary mentions of everyone being in the media business is one that is recurring. This recent piece on IBMs predictions for the top social media trends of 2014 observed:

They have a reported 40,000+ content producers and brand journalists within IBM, some of which are writing for their industry’s most well-known publications. IBM is becoming a powerful media house and does not rely on the media to tell their story

For businesses from all sectors and industries there can be no excuse for not embracing storytelling and developing customer relationships that rely on conversation and engagement rather than telling and one way dialogue. As Gary says:

Your core story must remain constant. No matter how you tell your story, your personality and brand identity must remain constant, too

And for those still unsure there’s no better place to start than this slideshare on Storytelling in 2014…

No sooner had I posted my last blog than I noticed more content marketing research showing a drop in the outsourcing of content creation from 56% to 40%. This makes more sense to me – you can’t outsource your voice to someone else, but you can hire in people who are able to bring your stories, culture and values to life – articulate them in a way that engages others.

CocaCola have recently created a new blogger network of experts. Watch the following video, which says a lot about changing attitudes to content marketing. It only lasts a couple of minutes, but in it Ashley Brown from Coke is able to give us a glimpse of the future:

The corporate website is dead – think beyond it and turn it into a media property.
The blog is more important.
Kill the press release – by 2015 in Coke’s plans
Create something that you would want to share if you weren’t at Coke – spark emotion and connection
Hire brand journalists

To fully understand brand journalists we need to think about what we understand a journalist to be. According to author David Meerman Scott:

“A story teller is a story teller no matter who is telling the story”

Anyone who writes or creates something, who understands the need of the reader, could therefore be classed as a journalist. As the journalist Dan Gillmor said:

“We are all creating media. Any one of us can, and many of us will, commit an act of journalism. We may contribute to the journalism ecosystem once, rarely, frequently or constantly. How we deal with these contributions – deciding to try one, what we do with what we’ve created, and how the rest of us use what’s been created – is going to be complex and evolving, But it’s the future”

As I said in my most recent post, it is the blogger who is most likely to be able to articulate the brand for the reader that you want to engage.

And I’m now finding this through experience – companies are currently approaching me to write for them not because I am a trained writer, but because I can write things in a way that engages HR professionals and InHouse and Agency Recruiters. They are my network, and an audience whose needs and concerns I understand.

A future without a traditional corporate website, press releases and old school comms may seem a big leap but it will certainly happen. If Coke can envisage this for 2015 then smaller businesses can be looking at this now, leading the way and innovating.

It will start with understanding your customers and employees, their journeys and needs, and finding story tellers with the insight, authority and creativity to talk to them.