Good content: the heart of a good story

Assuming that you have a good, strong and clear message, you only need three things to successfully get that message across: content, content, content.

Of course there is nothing new really. Communications professionals have known this for years – so for most of us it’s business as usual as we try to extract information and stories from our sometimes reluctant organisations and turn the input into interesting articles, blogposts, press releases, podcasts, videos etc.

And while a good story is always a good story, we should bear in mind that readers’ attitudes and expectations have changed. Most of them no longer rely on a single source for their news input. They tend to be more selective as they forage for information – and attention spans have been reduced to seconds rather than minutes.

The real and the virtual worlds are converging, and people have become more cynical, more selective and more sensation-driven. The speed and spread of information means that this morning’s good story is already forgotten by the end of the day, UNLESS you can make your content truly compelling. Because even in today’s changing media landscape, there is still plenty of room for stories that touch us, information that matters and messages that are meaningful.

Readers still appreciate genuine and high-value information – on topics that matter to them – and only if they believe that the messaging and value statements are genuine and inspiring. And of course the real crux of the story should be clear from the outset. No-one has time to decipher hidden messages or poorly constructed logic.

Compelling, concise and clear stories will always be in demand – and will continue to inspire customers and colleagues, provided we make them relevant. Thankfully, today we have a wide choice of outlets – so once we have identified a story, all we need to do is make it audience specific by introducing for instance an engineering, design or production point of view. At EMG we have the in-depth industry knowledge and the experience to create content that appeals to the interest of your audiences. All you have to do is start by telling us a good story.

 

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Media Relations