Think you know how much data is created every day? Think again. Here are some shocking data growth statistics from techjury:
- Every single day, humans create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data (a quintillion is a one followed by 18 zeros).
- If we look at data created since 2019, it would account for 90 percent of the world’s data.
- Just today, 95 million photos and videos were shared, 306 billion emails were sent, and 500 million tweets were created — and that will repeat tomorrow.
Digital content is the fastest way to share your company with prospects. As more content is created, however, the harder it to get your content discovered.
Must-Read Content Is the Holy Grail
Every company wants to have content that resonates. What many companies have not learned is that persuasive content starts with your company’s story. This communication shift is important to understand to get content to break out of the digital fray. Here are four steps to get more eyes on your digital content.
Step #1: Create values-based marketing that leads with the organization’s values. Values-based marketing is described as leading with “purpose” and aligning with customer values. The issue with digital content arises when companies use customer values as their center point rather than their own core values. As smart companies know, the customer base can, and oftentimes does, shift as the company matures and grows. If a company makes the organization’s values those of the customer, there is a high probability those values will be in flux.
Companies that jump from value system to value system erode the very thing that makes content stick. Understanding your values makes sense in theory — demonstrate how your company values are similar to those of the people who buy your products. The execution of this marketing strategy has been mixed at best, because companies have not clearly articulated why they were created.
Keep Calm and: Document your company’s birth story. Every company was started from an idea, comment or thought. Interview the founders to learn about that moment of creation or review historic documents and interviews to find any hidden information. Woven into that story are the company’s values.
Step #2: Share your organization’s values as a digital story. Once your company has identified its birth story and uncovered the company values, it is time to create the digital story that shares those values. There are several reasons to share your company values. First, sharing your values allows them to become part of the fabric of your digital storytelling. Why your organization solves problems is as vital to your prospects as how your organization solves problems.
Second, sharing those values helps to reinforce them with your customers, going from words to action. The values of your company have a life of their own. Sharing the values helps to strengthen their use in your company’s everyday existence. Finally, if you are not sharing that story, someone else can and possibly will develop and share that story for you. That narrative will not only be inaccurate, it could be negative.
Keep Calm and: Create digital stories that make those values come to life. If your company has the value of sharing knowledge, for example, this should be a cornerstone action in your stories of your client engagement and how that knowledge made a difference.
Step #3: Allow your company to be relatable and human to build trust. When companies identify and share their moment of existence, they create a space for being open, being raw, and where audiences understand their reason for existing. A human element to their brand story makes it have meaning. Because there is an inherent vulnerability in doing this, there is resistance to it by organizations.
By sharing their own digital story that is relatable, companies are allowing their audience to trust in the company messaging and the company brand. This type of communication will touch, move and inspire beyond an organization’s target audience. Each organization’s moment is uniquely theirs — a single moment in time when the founder(s) took a new and completely unforeseen path. That is what makes this type of communication so powerful. Identifying that moment is simple and oftentimes the hardest thing for a company to master.
Keep Calm and: Let the human element of your brand story in. While many marketers talk about B2B or B2C communication, what is occurring is P2P (people to people) communication. Each company has people behind it, so instead of resisting the human element of your organization, embrace it.
Step #4: Once you have shared your company story, focus on the audience. Your company has just felt the powerful shift associated with sharing your story. Many companies continue to focus their communication on their company instead of the audience. Once that birth story has been shared, the focus now needs to be on prospects and their pain points.
The rationale for sharing your company birth story is to establish your company’s reason for being and the values that were created from that. Now the shift comes to taking those company values and highlighting them in your client success stories. Consumers want to read content that is relatable. While they won’t be able to see themselves in your company’s brand story, they will be able to see themselves in your client success stories. That does not mean, however, the values you have ascertained and established shift.
Keep Calm and: Consider what your audience gets from purchasing your products and services. In your client success story, the focus moves from what your company did to the benefit the client received. Your brand values help guide you in showcasing those benefits.
These tips help your organization guide the audience through your digital content, showing the relatable qualities of your organization. Even with digital content being created every day, current content misses the first step of establishing the company story. By sharing your company story, your values will also be shared and prospects can learn about your organization on a human level.
Lisa Apolinski is an international speaker, digital strategist, author and founder of 3 Dog Write. She works with companies to develop and share their message using digital assets. Her latest book, Persuade With A Digital Content Story, is available on Amazon.
