Media today is a crowded space. One of the main goals of your online activity needs to focus on that fleeting moment of initial attraction, on pulling eyes towards a story. Then you might be lucky to hold attention long enough to get a point or three across.

So you must have fabulous imagery. The human brain cannot resist a beautiful, emotion-invoking or quirky image.

It’s particularly true in social media, with platforms like Instagram and Snapchat relying on beautiful photographs that stand out from the rest of the humdrum. In twitter and Facebook too, a quality image with written content will result in higher engagement, more views and more shares.

So we’ve put together a few pointers to help you get there. Brenton Edwards created these tips for a recent event called Storytelling in Science Communication. You’ll see the selected shots have a science focus. But the messages apply equally to any other field.

Plenty more examples of Brenton’s images are published on our Instagram feed: http://www.instagram.com/storieswelltold/

Tip 1. Take time to think about and plan the image.

What is your goal? Are you showing the work you’ve done or trying to get a message across? What features of your image will ‘talk’ to the viewer and provide an instant indication of what this story is about?

Tip 2: Composition and lighting is critical

Great and revealing lighting can hugely elevate the impact of your image. That doesn’t always mean having a well-lit face at the centre of the shot. Can you frame the subject?

Would backlight, front light, side light, top light create an unusual aspect? What other elements can you bring in through playing with the light?

Tip 3: Take your science out of the lab.

Science can be scary, out of context and off-putting for people not used to a sciencey environment. So take it out of the lab! Apply your science to things the average person in the street can relate to. Use normal, everyday props and places to allow people to see scale, colour, volume, context and relevance to human life.

Tip 4. Hold your smartphone or camera horizontally

This is the solution to obtaining a clear, high-resolution image every time. It creates less distortion of the subject, and you can easily zoom in and crop later to adjust to your preferred shape and size. Cropping to a square shape for Instagram is simple within the app itself, or you can now use the rectangle full frame. And remember, never zoom in within the camera app! Take the wide shot, and crop later.

Tip 5. Be wise with your choice of hashtags

Hashtags will help you find your audiences, and conversely assist your audiences in finding you. Keep tags to unique terms that relate both specifically and indirectly to your image. #science is too broad and won’t have the same impact as say #ghostbat (for this example above).

The post 25 years of photography experience compacted into 5 hot tips for digital media appeared first on Stories Well Told.

Human beings are drawn to stories.

When we share our experiences through stories, we pull others towards us. We find common ground.

Stories let us laugh, cry and learn together.

Stories help us know ourselves.

Stories let us know each other.

Stories forge connections and build communities.

Whatever your story, others want to hear it.

Whatever your community, there are stories waiting to burst out from it.

Whatever your business, stories tell the world what you stand for.

Anyone who has ever worked in a newsroom understands the passion and love for the craft of storytelling that drives journalists and photographers to work to deliver the information we all read, watch, listen to and share.

Traditional journalism relied on trained professionals tracking down stories of perceived interest, and interpreting and recreating them for general consumption.

But now things are different.

Advances in digital technology continue to dramatically affect where, when and how stories are consumed and engaged with.

The audience is in the drivers seat, searching for information when and where they
want it and when they find something they like they share it with their own social or professional networks.

The possibilities for story creation and publishing are endless but digital media means the assets required to tell those stories well have significantly changed.

Storytelling is far more than just words – it is pictures, sound and video. It is hyperlinks, social media posts, streaming video and SEO. It is an endless list of possibilities that might seem impossible to achieve – unless of course you know how!

The best multimedia stories are obviously multi-dimensional. They include action for video, a theme that can be illustrated with a graphic or an illustration, strong quotes for video or audio, and/or powerful emotions for still photos and audio.

They also are the kinds of stories where you can use the strengths of each medium to tell the story in a way that draws the reader – who is most likely consuming the story on a small screen – into the story experience.

Multimedia stories are nonlinear. You engage readers by letting them choose which elements to enjoy and when to enjoy them.

Being able to create stories through text, audio, graphics, animation, video, and photographs to convey information is a highly valued skill and it is heaps of fun!

As a society the way we shape and tell our stories determines our future and digital storytelling provides the opportunity for everyone to create and contribute.

Everyone has stories. Stories come from a person’s past or from their imagination. Some can be funny, some can be painful, but all are personal.

The opportunities are endless and irresistible.

Come on – tell me a story!

The post Hey! Come over here. Let me tell you a story appeared first on Stories Well Told.

Facebook encouraged companies to build their own networks at a considerable cost and then charged them to access it by throttling organic search.

Not that we need more evidence that spending money creating stories and content that is solely poured onto rented social media site space like Facebook was unproductive, but here is another announcement that should make your future path into owned media even clearer……

Facebook has announced in a blog post that the latest tweak to their News Feed will now give posts by friends priority over Brand Pages.

“The goal of News Feed is to show you the content that matters to you,” wrote Max Eulenstein, Product Manager and Lauren Scissors, User Experience Researcher for Facebook.

“This means we need to give you the right mix of updates from friends and public figures, publishers, businesses and community organisations you are connected to.”

Now users will see status updates, videos and images from friends higher up in their News Feed, at the expense of Brand Pages.

Posts by friends aren’t completely exempt from changes either.

Facebook says users have expressed concern about seeing posts their friends have Liked or commented on in their News Feed so these will be pushed further down the feed or banished altogether.

So how will this affect Brand Pages? Facebook says it depends on your audience and posting activity. To help you work this out, Facebook posted a Page post best practice guide.

In short, more than ever marketers must ensure their content is engaging, targeted and entertaining. Or pay for advertising to achieve any real reach, as the age of free Facebook exposure seems well and truly over.

To find out more newsroom.fb.com has the details or think outside the square and talk to us about owned media and stop renting space!

The post The not so friendly face of Facebook – what’s not to like? appeared first on Stories Well Told.

Today, connecting at a personal level with your potential customers or clients is essential. This emotional connection breeds loyalty that in turn boosts business opportunities.

But how do you create and strengthen this connection?

Approaches include website articles, blog posts, sourced articles and social media posts. But it is not just about writing words, it is about telling a story that strikes the emotional aspect for your potential and existing customers and ensuring that all the assets – photography, illustrations, data, video and audio – support the information on the page or screen.

If you just write articles about how good your products are or how long you have been around, no one will be interested to learn more about your brand. You need to provide information about people and outcomes such as useful advice, how-to tips and latest developments; basically anything that provides value.  And it should of course relate to your products and services and drive readers back to your website.

While change is difficult here are 10 benefits of community journalism that will result in positive business outcomes.

Identifying your audience

Often, brands and businesses make the mistake of not identifying and understanding their customers. To communicate your messages effectively, it is important to identify your audience. This way, the content created will be designed to achieve a particular outcome. Once you have identified and understood your audience, that knowledge will come in handy in other aspects of marketing and customer service.

Better social media strategy

Social media is an inherent part of 21stC marketing. By incorporating a effective corporate journalism marketing strategy you will take bigger steps in brand promotion on social media.

Increased inbound traffic

One of the best and most effective ways to increase the amount of traffic coming to your site is by creating content that naturally attracts people. This is called inbound marketing where visitors come to your site without being coerced (as is the case with banner ads). This type of traffic is considered to be better quality because conversion rates are higher.

Higher search engine ranking

When your content is good enough it will spread on social media and other news sites will link to it or publish it.  This is the perfect recipe for a higher page ranking on Google. Effective SEO is simple – original, consistent stories placed on a mobile first site.

Increased brand exposure

As a business, you must continually grow your customer base by seeking to expose your brand beyond the current limits. This will bring in new leads and consequently new customers that guarantee sustained business growth.

Corporate journalism is an excellent way to create this exposure. The increased ranking and engagement on social media ensures that large numbers of people receive your message. Using short videos and images that tend to be viewed and shared more than textual content will increase engagement even more.

Establishes you as an authority in a specific field

When people are searching for information online, they want it from a site they can trust. This means that to increase your inbound traffic you must show yourself to be an expert and authority in your area of business. You can achieve this by producing valuable and relevant journalism – whether on your site, social media or on other sites. If Google perceives your site as a thought leader, your ranking will benefit immensely. In addition people are more likely to opt for your site over others.

More open communication with clients and customers

Sometimes it is really challenging to collect feedback from customers. Even if you use questionnaires and surveys to ask about their customer experience, they most probably won’t be very open. A better way to obtain feedback is to do it naturally by engaging customers through journalism.

Creates trust

Written words are more powerful than the spoken ones. Consistent, high quality owned media creates trust.

Cost effective

Though, at the beginning you may have to invest money and time into corporate journalism, gradually it will prove to be cheaper than other forms of marketing. Paid search engine marketing, sponsored ads on social media and banner ads all call for constant financial investment. With owned media you just need to continually produce the right content and spread it out.

It is timeless

Many digital marketing approaches have come and gone because of the ever changing nature of the internet. But high quality communication is one technique that will never cease to be effective. In fact, it can only get better.

It is as simple as identifying your measurable objectives, understanding your audience and creating owned media marketing methods that are in line with your business targets.

The post The ten main benefits of an owned media corporate journalism strategy appeared first on Stories Well Told.

The problem is that lives are hard to fit into the space provided in an article. Storytellers who simply try to cram into a profile all the facts they can come up with inevitably end up with something more like a narrative version of a person’s resume rather than a journalism story.

Like all other stories, profiles must have an angle, a primary theme. That theme should be introduced in the lead, it should be explored and often it will be returned to at the end of the story. Something of a person’s character, spirit and style will then be revealed through that theme.

Whatever the theme, it takes a thorough understanding of a person’s life to create a revealing sketch of that life. Storytellers should spend time with their subjects while they’re doing whatever makes them newsworthy. For example, if you’re writing about a ballerina, try to observe her performing on stage or at least practicing in her dance studio.

Good profiles – and all good journalism stories – show, instead of telling. Use all five senses when you interview someone. What are they wearing? Do they fiddle nervously with their pencil? Is there a chocolate smudge on their shirt? Is their hair stylishly spiked?

Because a profile cannot be complete without quotes – there is no way to write a profile without extensive interviewing. Frequently, more than one interview is necessary unless the writer already knows his subject well. Good profiles also contain quotes from people who know the subject of your story well. Spice your story with the words of family, friends, enemies and the subjects themselves.

Finally, good profiles strike the appropriate tone.  Think about your profile – is it someone who is involved in a serious issue, like eating disorders? You probably want to be more serious in your tone. Is it someone playful – a comic book artist, perhaps? You can be more playful. But remember – your personal opinion is not appropriate. You are there to merely paint a picture of this person – to let the facts speak for themselves.

One of our next education pieces will be a step by step guide to profile writing so stay close.

The post How to write a profile appeared first on Stories Well Told.

Yet in an age of journalism where writers are often rewarded for the speed, not the depth, of their reporting, great sourcing is quickly becoming a lost art.  Content is created with quotes taken from previously published work or just no authorative view is sought.

Here are some important tips to help you focus on finding the perfect source for your story

Sources want to talk to you

If you ask people questions, they’ll answer you most of the time.  When people know something about what you are researching, and you come to them with interest, they’ll definitely help you out.

It is hard when you are starting out as a journalist.  You tend to feel shy and nervous when you call people. You quickly realise that most of the time you can be successful, as long as you come at them with an attitude of, ‘You know something I don’t, and I want you to share it with me’.

Let experts see their quotes

Quote approval is becoming an increasingly common request by sources. You should never grant quote approval if you want to maintain your journalistic credibility, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t let experts see their quotes.

Especially with an expert, I’ll always let them see a quote. I won’t say that they can take it back or change it—my reporting belongs to me—but especially for an expert, where it’s not an adversarial point of view, you want to make them look smart.

What I will say is “I’ll run the quotes and I won’t give you approval, but I’ll send the quotes to you and if I have missed something or are running it out of context, tell me and we’ll talk about it.”

Your sourcing won’t always be pretty

Though journalists always strive to find the perfect original source for your story, sometimes you don’t have that luxury when facing a time crunch.

You tend to see people saying the same thing in every publication, so try to avoid being that person. Still, that doesn’t mean that you have to accept the same generic quotes the source is giving every publication.

Tools will help you find sources

Though you’re sometimes forced to copy your sources from other publications, it’s always best to find an original source. Tools like Profnet that connect journalists with subject-matter experts do just that.

Another one is Sourcebottle - a free connection platform that enables journalists and bloggers to efficiently find knowledgeable sources.

The Journalist’s Toolbox  has a comprehensive list of other sites that can also help journalists find sources.

Find the sweet spot with every source

When you’re writing about something that’s a little bit complicated and you need to explain it to your readers, you don’t want to drag them through a seminar in something boring.  You need to give readers something to a little fun, a little compelling, while they’re taking their medicine – so to speak!

Sometimes, that little bit of sugar to sweeten your story comes in an unexpected form.

The post How choosing great sources will bring your story to life appeared first on Stories Well Told.