Pages

Sunday, April 03, 2016

Notes from NetSquared DC's Crafting Amazing Stories

Speaker #1 - Melissa from Stone Soup Films

Shared a video from Wise Young Builders about math being used in building. This was to show how math is used in real life.

Shared a video from DC Diaper Bank about a question they get all the time about why they don't use cloth diapers.  

Finding Stories
  • Biggest obstacles and frustrations in communication (Example- DC Diaper Bank)
  • Who is your audience
  • Finding main characters
Story Content Basics
  • Make audience care or take action
  • Show journal/transformation (beginning, middle, end)
  • Keep message simple
Rules
  • Show don't tell (Example- Wise Young Builders)
  • Don't overburden with facts and figures
  • Shorter, the better

Speaker #2 - Vladimir
  • People don't connect with organizations, they connect with other people
  • Make it personal
  • We all love stories
  • Two questions to ask - Who is your audience? What is your goal?
  • Use same footage for different social media sites
  • Promote video on social media, e-mail, and ads on Facebook

Speaker #3 - Tanya from Machinists Union

Basics
  • Who is audience?
  • Tell both sides or all sides (different points of views)
  • The story structure should have a beginning, middle, and end.
    (How did the issue come about? What is happening now? What’s next?)
Advocacy Journalism
  • Show why position is important
  • Advocate for certain point or position
  • Back it up with facts
Advice
  • Be different
  • Take notes
  • Search everywhere for stories
  • Get people to realize that they have a story that can help other people

Speaker #4 - Brandi from Vanguard Communications

Stories come from your network.
There are more tools now to capture stories and share them.

Science of Stories
  • Engage more parts of the brain
  • Generate interest and engagement
How to Ask
  • Invite people to share
  • Provide guidelines for content and an easy way to submit 
  • Offer an incentive
  • Get releases (it is ok to use content submitted for website, blog, or social media)
Farm Aid Example

  • They wanted stories and set up a submission form
  • 500+ people shared #Road2FarmAid stories
  • Stories collected helped with content
  • Social Media Results - 6,416 new Facebook followers, reached 5 million Twitter accounts, generated 15.4 million Twitter impressions, generated 9 million+ Instagram impressions