Hey all,

Myself and Anjali are going to be talking at SXSW in March about the importance of formats for capturing and holding Audience Attention. I know it’s a long way off, but we’re thinking of putting on a fringe event too. So if you’re planning on heading out to Austin and would be interested in meeting up, let us know.

We are currently speaking to a lot of people who are rethinking their content strategy in light of changes in social, budgets, and other things. It’s not easy doing this work alone. So we’ve developed a Content Audit Workshop that will save you money and time while clarifying your next steps. Hit the button below to find out more and enquire about a FREE 30-minute consultation.

I'd like one of those content audits

OK! The weekend has landed, my inbox is close to zero and I’ve got my first box of mince pies waiting to be devoured. Have a great weekend and see you all next week.

Hugh

Search Engine Traffic is Broken (5 min read)

Why Visual Stories Over-Index on Engagement Metrics (8 min read)

The Three Ts of Magical Storytelling (13 min watch)

What’s Your Definition of GREAT Content (6 min read)

Elements of Appeal - Working Out What Works (6 min read)

Palestinian Heroes - Illustrated Posters (Instagram account)

Formats Unpacked: The Merilly Watkins Mysteries (6 min read)

A Nice Explainer About Google’s AI Traffic Project (2 min watch)

Transferable Skills From the Genius of The Prodigy (2 min read)

Explaining One of the Greatest Ads of All Time (4 min read)

How we can help you

Storythings is the content marketing agency of choice for some of the world’s most forward-thinking B2B brands and organisations. If your content isn’t getting the results you need, let us help you understand why. Here are 3 reasons to get in touch. 

1. Audience Research – We help B2B brands understand modern attention patterns and how they can get more engagement with content.

2. Content Strategy – We use our bespoke process to develop unique content formats that hold audience attention, build community, and increase brand salience.

3. Content Production – We craft beautiful and diverse stories of impact that capture and hold attention using podcasts, videos, editorial, and newsletters. 

We do other things too. We're very friendly and always enjoy meeting people, so get in touch for a FREE 30 minute consultation. 

Free 30 minute consultation

Search Engine Traffic is Broken
This is the third part in our series that looks at the numerous ways content disovery is broken. In this piece our very own Matt Locke looks at search engines and how AI is impacting how search results are displayed and what that means for content publishers in the future. If you are interested in audience engagement and audience attention then you should subscribe to Attention Matters. (5 min read)

Why Visual Stories Over-Index on Engagement Metrics
This is a great read on how the FT’s new Visual Investigation Team has developed a playbook for creating award-winning visual storytelling. The team is split between an investigative team finding a needle in a haystack and a team with visual expertise that can explain what is discovered in a much broader context: “These explanatory stories often offer a “lightbulb moment” for readers, Joiner said: ‘If you break down these things, explain it to them, they get so much from those pieces, it helps them really understand the story and that in turn makes the project much more memorable. It’s this visceral response to showing people stuff that when you combine with great reporting becomes super powerful.’ This is why pieces from the visual and data teams ‘over-index’ for engagement rates with readers, both among existing subscribers and for attracting new sign-ups.” (8 min read)

The Three Ts of Magical Storytelling
Whether you tell fiction or non-fiction stories, this video is definitely worth 13 minutes of your attention. London-based photographer and director, Timi Akindele-Ajani, talks through what it takes to create a compelling story, using ‘Teleportation’, ‘Telepathy’ and ‘Transformation’ as his framework. (13 min watch)

What’s Your Definition of GREAT Content
Sticking with the theme of great content frameworks, this is useful for anyone working with B2B. A majority of our work is B2B and I fully endorse these four attributes, especially the importance of leaning on experts and the value of human expertise to build trust with audiences. We do this a lot and see fantastic results from mining their expertise and turning that into stories that truly connect. (6 min read)

Elements of Appeal - Working Out What Works
Another great read from Ian Edgar’s Screen Theories. Like us here at Storythings, Ian is obsessed with looking at popular culture, breaking it down and identifying the elements of appeal to use as inspiration. Here he brilliantly pulls out the 6 elements of appeal from a hugely successful video series he worked on. Excellent stuff. (6 min read)

Palestinian Heroes - Illustrated Posters
London-based illustrator Peonica Fernando has created these posters of journalists risking their lives whilst reporting on Palestine. (Instagram account)

Formats Unpacked: The Merrily Watkins Mysteries
Formats Unpacked is back after a short break with this unpacking of the popular paranormal book series. Do you have a format you would like to unpack? At the moment I’m particularly interested in great examples of content marketing formats. Recently we’ve covered The Michelin Guide and Sample Breakdowns but I’d like to include more. (6 min read)

A Nice Explainer About Google’s AI Traffic Project
Explainers are tricky. As regular readers will know, we’re big fans of those who do it exceptionally well. So this video is worth a quick look. It’s an interesting idea told well. Thanks to Video Yes Please for sharing. (2 min watch)

Transferable Skills From the Genius of The Prodigy
We are big fans of taking lessons from popular culture. We’d even go as far as to say that B2B communications could learn something from 90s rave gods The Prodigy. A thought echoed by our friends over at Wavetable or rather Ravetable as I now affectionately call them: “The first two skills aren’t enough on their own. To create something people want to engage with you need to synthesize the ideas, then sequence and arrange them in a way that’s fresh but also familiar. Genre and structure matter.” (2 min read)

Explaining One of the Greatest Ads of All Time
Eddie Shleyner from Very Good Copy on why this is his favourite ad of all time. It’s a brilliant example of how you show and not sell. (4 min read)

We hope you've enjoyed this week's newsletter. I'm sure some of your friends would love to read it. Sharing it would be really appreciated. If you've received this from a friend, you can subscribe below and get it direct to your inbox every Friday.

Thanks for reading. We’ll see you all next week.

Hugh, Matt, Anjali and the whole team at Storythings.