How to make content work for different social media

There was a time when the print industry used to think that social media was just about taking the same articles in their papers and putting them online. But different social media platforms have different needs. You can use one story source and cross purpose it successfully on different social media platforms. Nowadays the print medium is becoming more flexible about how its content reaches audiences. 

Subscribers to Audible get free downloads of The Washington Post and New York Times in podcast format. You can now listen to their articles.

Joe Rogan (one of the biggest podcasters in the USA with millions of listeners) films his podcast and uploads it to YouTube. Each format gives one a different experience. His podcasts are long, running between two to three hours. It is more convenient to listen to a podcast if you are busy doing other things. 

Joe Rogan

But watching the video allows one to see the nuance of facial expressions. He does online searches when a topic comes up in conversation which viewers can see. The popularity of his podcast has shown that people have an appetite for in-depth content (if it is good content!). So in an age where long form journalism was declared dead, it appears that not everyone has the attention span of gnat.

Ricky Gervais

Comedian Ricky Gervais cheekily uploads his podcasts with no visuals on YouTube. I have done this on my Facebook page because it only allows one to upload video or photos. I uploaded a podcast (in video format but with just a thumbnail image) so people can listen to it directly on Facebook. But I also give a direct link to my podcast platform.

The UK Health Foundation promotes its work through podcasts stories about the individuals who work in health service. They use a looping visual while you are listening. It is strangely hypnotic. They also transcribe the podcast so you can read it if you prefer. This is an example of one of their stories. 
UK Paramedic Ryan Parry

Here is another example of what I mean. In order to promote the work done at the Red Cross War Memorial Children's hospital in Cape Town, I focused on an individual who works there as a volunteer.

Two interviews were conducted with Wouter van Warmelo. One we used in podcast format. The second, we adapted into a written story for our blog post. Two pieces of content for different platforms using one person.

Wouter van Warmelo

The first worked well as a podcast using a combination of the nuances of Wouter's voice and music. The second was a mini memoir about Wouter's career in the Royal Air Force during the Cold War. It worked in a written format because of the detail of the story. I will post the second part of Wouter's story in our next blog post.
In the meantime here is a link to our podcast. See, I am promoting my podcast on my blog!

The Volunteer Ward Photographer Red Cross Children's Hospital

The point is one can cross purpose your stories in many different ways on many different platforms reaching a variety of audiences. 
However this does not mean all content will work on every platform.

One does have to be more strategic about whether your content is best suited to video, audio or the written word. I will cover this subject more in depth in another blog post. 

Why is story telling important in marketing?

Story telling is universal and an ancient custom that began when our first ancestors learned to communicate sitting around a fire. Our brains are hard wired to communicate through stories. Even today if we are standing around a barbeque or sitting at a dinner table, we communicate with each other by telling stories about our experiences. We don’t list facts like a power point presentation. We engage using a story telling format which is much more powerful than a recital of facts and figures.

We are drawn to stories because we can see something of ourselves in them and we gain insight into other experiences. We find commonality and connection.

There is a theory that people who read stories develop more empathy because they are exposed to other people’s perspective which allows them to grow their own world view. 

Our brain experiences imagined stories the same way we experience reality. One can extrapolate this finding to the way we experience films, listen to the radio or audible books.

The television programme in the United States known as “60 Minutes” tackles a variety of social and political issues. 

But it has one golden rule. Find people whose personal stories make the issue more real to the viewer.  They connect to the story better because it is no longer an abstract issue. It has real life consequences for real people.

Stories are far easier to remember. Facts are twenty times more likely to be remembered if they are embroidered in a story. 

Stories are the most effective way of exerting influence. If you are a business, you want to influence your consumers. So consider finding ways to communicate your brand to your market in a variety of story-telling formats. It is the best way to connect with your market and to be remembered by them.

https://www.harvardbusiness.org/what-makes-storytelling-so-effective-for-learning/