Frank Rose, author of The Sea We Swim In, recently spoke on a podcast about the importance of storytelling in advertising. He said that with “the demise of interruptive advertising,” companies have begun waking up to the fact that “when [you just] tell people to buy something… it doesn’t work.”

In the modern battle for people’s attention, the only way to effectively market a product is to entertain them. Stories entertain.

Rose goes on to point out that the Millennial Generation in particular has wanted to hear a company’s founders tell the story behind their product. He references Simon Sinek’s book, Start with Why, to make the point “that people don’t care quite so much [about] what you do as why you do it.”

Businesses that have been popular with Millennials in the past decade have often been the ones who understood this.

 

The Democratization of Storytelling

People don’t just want to hear about the company founders. Generation Z, especially, is concerned about equity. Translated into storytelling, this means that they want to hear from people at all levels of the company. The regular folks, not just the C-suite.

This actually presents a great marketing opportunity. There’s a limit to the number of times people will let you tell the same story. But if you look throughout your company, you’ll find hundreds – or even thousands – of stories. The stories your employees can tell.

Younger audiences want to hear from the regular people who make your company work. But people of all generations will connect to the stories – real stories – that your employees can tell.

In an Online Sea of Fake Stories, Real Ones Stand Out

With the simultaneous rise of storytelling in marketing and the fall of audience captivity, the trick is no longer just grabbing people’s attention, but holding it. If you want to sell more, if you want your content to perform better, you need to keep telling them new stories. In other words, you need more stories.

Luckily, it turns out that you already have lots of real stories within your company – stories people will connect with on a deeper level.

If you’re worried that your employees might say something unscripted, relax. They will. That’s why your audience will love hearing from them. (Of course, you will always have final approval, which means you can veto anything problematic.)

Young people are hungry for real stories. Gen Z is tired of celebrity marketing. Millennials define themselves as “authentic.” #nofilter is always trending (so to speak), even though many people know that half the photos posted with that hashtag are, in fact, filtered.

The Internet is filled with fake stories: scripted Instagram stories, carefully cultivated TikTok personas, scams, misinformation, conspiracy theories, and exaggerations. This is why real, “authentic” stories resonate so strongly with people of all age demographics.

Your employees can give you those real stories your audience craves, which means you’ll have better performing content (people will actually pay attention to your marketing messages), and you’ll sell more.

Crowdsourcing

The idea here is crowdsourcing. It’s very hard for a small group of people to churn out new stories every week. But a diverse workforce already has more than enough stories to meet the demand for fresh content.

A lineman has a different story than the lift operator, and the process engineer has a different story from both of them. The quality control lead has another story entirely.

Stop trying to generate ads that disrupt your audience’s digital consumption. Start telling them new stories, real stories, ones they will actively seek out and engage with. Start crowdsourcing your content. Just make sure you don’t overlook the stories your employees can tell.

Early January is traditionally the time of year when most people think about change. We set goals, make plans to achieve them, and attempt to start the new year off right. We reflect on what worked – and what didn’t – in the previous year. And we resolve to do better.

If you’re thinking about mixing up your content marketing, now is a great time to plan for the changes you want to make in 2022. Before you do that, though, let’s take a quick look at some changes that hit in 2021.

Democratization

One big change in 2021 was the Great Resignation. America saw a rash of quitting throughout the year, but it really ticked up in August, September, and October. Mid-career workers and young people went looking for better opportunities or went out on their own to found solo businesses. Some older members of the workforce retired early.

Hiring pressures weren’t the only trends on the side of individuals in 2021. The rise of independent journalists, freelance copywriters, social media influencers, and self-employed creators continued apace. While large organizations do still produce content, much of the digital realm has been taken over by new voices: individuals, small merry bands (pirate skiffs), and partnerships.

As we close out 2021, we can definitively say that content is controlled by the many. And as you begin planning for 2022, you might want to consider embracing that, rather than avoiding it.

Decentralized Content Creation

2022 is an excellent time to decentralize your content creation.

What does that mean? It means crowdsourcing.

If you’ve been reading our blog in recent months, you’ll know that we’re passionate about a concept we call employee advocacy.

If you haven’t read what we’ve written about this idea, you can scroll back through some of our recent archives to check out posts like, 3 Reasons Employee-Generated Content Makes Sense or How to Cultivate Influencers Inside Your Company.

Employee advocates are influencers inside your company. They’re workers that you’ve empowered to create social media posts and articles on your behalf. They submit their content to you for approval, and then post it under their own names, on their own social media profile.

If you think about it, your best employees have already been doing this for you in person for years. They’ve been recommending you to friends, family, and acquaintances. This is just a new way for them to be your best ambassadors, doing what they used to do in person in the digital realm.

We think that if you experiment with letting your forklift operators, delivery drivers, technicians, designers, architects, and even your HR people create content, you’ll find hidden talent with your company.

 You’ll also engage your employees in a new and creative way.

Engaged Employees are Good Employees

If you can pull it off, and successfully make content creation interesting for your disparate workforce, your people will feel more invested in their jobs. (One way you can do this is by gamifying your content creation, which we’ve covered in a previous post.)

If they’re more invested in your company, they’ll also be your best advocates to potential new employees. That’s right. They’ll help you avoid future staffing challenges and solve any current ones you’re facing.

A happy, engaged workforce is one of the best recruiting tools available. New recruits will be intrigued to hear your current workers talk about this new content creation program you’ve implemented – one in which anybody, at any level, can craft posts.

If engaging your employees helps you solve any hiring challenges you’re currently facing, it can reverse the Great Resignation of 2021 (at least for your company). Which will make 2022 a great year.

Keep the Good, Throw Out the Bad

When making resolutions for the new year, we typically try to keep what worked in the old year, and throw out what didn’t.

Decentralizing your content can help you embrace the good side of 2021, while mitigating the bad. You’ll have more content, better content, and happier employees. But you won’t have 2021’s quit rates.

January is the time for trying new things. Give employee advocacy a try.

New Year’s is traditionally a time of reflection. We look back on the previous year and begin planning for the next. We read reviews of the last 365 days and raise a toast to the coming 365. Whether you make resolutions or not, this holiday is a good time to think about what went well in 2021, and what you plan to do differently in 2022.

So, as we celebrate the calendar-change, let’s take one last look back at 2021.

Change in 2021

Perhaps most relevant for companies of all sizes, 2021 was the year of the Great Resignation. Thousands of employees left for greener pastures. Some wanted new jobs. Others wanted new careers. And some wanted to go out on their own as solopreneurs.

The Great Resignation gave fuel to the rise in entrepreneurship that began during the pandemic. Not all of these new entrepreneurs participate in the gig economy, but many do, working as independent contractors in engineering, design, financial planning, and even marketing.

Some of these solopreneurs produce content. Which makes them part of the democratization of content, a trend begun in the early days of the Internet and accelerated in this past year by influencers, copywriters, and independent journalists. When select YouTubers can now earn more than many Fortune 500 CEOs, we are truly living in a different world than we did a decade ago.

Not all of these solo content creators are young people, but some are in high school or college. Gen Z is certainly making its voice heard. 2021 was a good year for the generation born between 1997 and 2012, which has now become a serious presence. Gen Z may not produce a majority of the content, but pop culture has always been aimed at the under-25 crowd. Which means Gen Z consumption choices and tastes are fueling the democratizing trends. While many popular creators are older than 24, their audiences often are not.

A related trend that grew in 2021 is the shift away from an ad-based Internet. While advertising remains a powerful force, people increasingly use ad-blockers (or they just tune ads out). Interruptive ads can no longer hold people’s attention unless they entertain. The growth of streaming services and platforms like Substack indicates that many consumers are turning away from ad-based content.

Combined with increased demands for privacy and transparency (and consumer demands that their data won’t be monetized), as well as Apple’s move to kill read receipts, these changes are forcing marketers to rethink their strategies.

Rethinking Your Content Creation in 2022

Facebook’s new facelift – rebranding as “Meta Platforms Inc.” – may have sparked a lot of jokes, Mark Zuckerberg clearly saw the signs that his company needed to shake things up.

If you’re thinking about changing things up in 2022, here are some suggestions.

• Crowdsource: Take advantage of the democratization of content creation. If you’re having trouble churning out new articles and tweets, you now have thousands of options for outsourcing.
• Embrace Gen Z: Whether you’re giving your youngest employees a louder voice or watching young consumers’ taste preferences, 2022 is a good year to get serious about Generation Z. If you want to tailor your content to Gen Z tastes, you might think about asking a few young people what to say.
• Engage Your Employees: If you want to bring people back, focus on treating your workforce well. Much of the Great Resignation was fueled by worker burnout. While some who left don’t want to go back to corporate life, many do. They just want an employer who treats workers well. You can set an example by making sure your current employees love their jobs so much they don’t want to leave. If you pull it off, you’ll have no end of job applicants.
• Try Something New: You could combine each of the previous three. You could crowdsource your content creation to your employees, including your youngest employees. It’s a new concept, but one we believe in. If you’re on the fence, 2022 is a great time to give it a shot.

Experiments, not Resolutions

Everyone knows that New Year’s Resolutions often fail. That’s why some gurus advise a different tactic. If you want to get in shape, or change a habit, don’t set an unrealistic expectation you’ll struggle to meet. Instead, think of it as an experiment

While resolutions create pressure and set people up for failure, those who think of change as an experiment often succeed in getting healthy or quitting smoking (at least over time). If you want to start going to the gym, don’t resolve to go to the gym. Just try doing it a couple times a week starting in January. If you miss it, no big deal. Just go next week.

With an experiment, the stakes are lower than with a resolution. Which makes experiments easier. In 2022, try an experiment. Test out employee advocacy. Give it a trial period. See what your workforce can come up with. See what they can do for you.

We’re betting you’ll like the results enough to stick with it. Until then, have a Happy New Year!

In recent years, gamification has caught on as a popular way of creating incentive structures around, well, everything. From building fitness habits to watching live sports, there’s an app (actually, probably multiple apps) that will bring elements from video games to the activity.

The most basic version of gamification involves creating a simple rewards structure for task-accomplishment. Typically, it includes trackable metrics, such as points earned over time, which make progress visible.

Gamification can be applied at the individual level (for example, you log your gym PRs and buy a new fitness tracker when you increase your bench by 25%), but it works best at the group level. This is because gamification relies on competition, and there’s only so much you can achieve when competing against yourself. In a group, competition plays out between individuals, or between teams of individuals, in the process driving everyone to improve whatever they are doing.

A little competition can make content creation more fun and help drive creativity and innovation. Competing incentivizes people to do better at what they already do. It demonstrates that their hard work pays off.

Competition builds camaraderie. Your team of employee advocates can bond over a fun, healthy game of content creation. When people get together with friends or family, they play cards or a video game. If they’re watching sports, they might place small bets on the outcomes. Some offices use March Madness bracket pools or Fantasy Football tournaments as team-building exercises.

Not only does gamifying employee advocacy lead to better content, it can be an exciting team-building exercise.

The most engaged grocery clerks I’ve ever met were playing grocery bingo against each other at the time. My cashier was excited to see me (because I helped her win by purchasing a 6-pack of beer). Your team can get similarly excited about content marketing.

Gamification engages employees by introducing an element of fun into the work – completely outside of the competitive aspect. Not everyone is naturally competitive, but everyone likes earning rewards and watching their progress.

Make sure to track the relevant stats and set up an internal leaderboard. Create a series of rewards for top performing content creators. You need good rewards—ones people actually want.

They can be monetary or you can go with fun rewards, anything from a Starbucks gift card to a new car (Okay, a car might be a bit much, but you never know how many sales a viral post might net you).

Recognition certainly plays a big role in incentivizing people to succeed. Give your best employee advocates the spotlight.

Crowdsource your content, but find a way for your best creators to stand out for their efforts.

There may be plenty of challenges to fully implement a gamified, crowdsourced approach to content marketing and social media. But starting an employee advocacy program, recognizing its value alone, can be the biggest hurdle.

You’ll see results when you reward your top performers, no matter how many people you have doing content creation. And, it will make the process enjoyable for all the people involved, keeping your employees engaged.

Better content. Happier employees. Increased brand awareness. A gamified approach to crowdsourcing and creating content can solve your marketing challenges and improve workplace culture.

With the proliferation of platforms, like Substack and Amazon, that empower individuals to publish their own work, the question is no longer whether content is going to be democratized. It has been.

Independently published (self-published) books now make up the largest share of sales on Amazon, well ahead of traditionally published books. Many news consumers now primarily get their news from Twitter and Facebook. Substack – and to a lesser extent Medium and WordPress – given rise to a new crop of independent journalists.

On top of all that, the Great Resignation has fueled a growing boom of freelance writers, online entrepreneurs, and influencers on Instagram and TikTok.

Some people are upset. There’s been handwringing from some traditional institutions who used to play the role of gatekeeper. One common complaint is that the democratization of information is creating a “post-truth” society.

As one author recently put it on Medium, “If the audience is not educated enough on fact from fiction, then they only believe these messages they are receiving in this public sphere. Therefore, we need gatekeepers to help dissect this, and bring out the truth in the news, and create an honest public sphere, which can control professional standards.”

Is the Democratization of Content Leading to a Post-Truth Society?

To be sure, there are some crazy voices out there. But it turns out that democratization has not led to any proliferation of conspiracy thinking.

According to Joseph Uscinski, coauthor of American Conspiracy Theories, the data simply do not show any overall increase in belief in conspiracy theories among the American public. While some specific conspiracies have gained traction, others have lost influence. It turns out Americans were just as conspiratorial back in the days of only 3 television channels (when traditional gatekeepers supposedly had a grip on what people believed).

The author of that Medium post asserts that an uneducated audience needs (presumably educated) gatekeepers to tell them what the truth is. This attitude is precisely why so many people are upset with traditional media and are turning instead to alternative voices.

The solution to the proliferation of content – some of it good and some of it conspiratorial – is not to treat people like children who are incapable of separating fact from fiction. It turns out, people don’t necessarily need tastemakers to make decisions for them.

It Turns out People are Pretty Good at Knowing What They Want

One salient example here is Rotten Tomatoes. It seems there’s often an inverse correlation between how much critics like a movie and how much an audience likes it. Instead of just presenting one side, Rotten Tomatoes gives people both the critics’ score and the audience score. This allows prospective movie-watchers to compare and contrast. Cinemagoers are more educated thanks to Rotten Tomatoes, not less. Rotten Tomatoes has actually made movie-watching better and more enjoyable.

We are currently in the middle of a shift – spurred by the proliferation of content – away from the clickbait Internet of 2016. It turns out, when quantity of content becomes overwhelming, quality is what stands out. Just as Rotten Tomatoes allows people to compare highbrow and lowbrow movie reviews, the democratization of content allows people to compare all kinds of information sources.

Clickbait is a race to the bottom. And audiences are reacting negatively. The future will be – at least to some extent – defined by a content meritocracy. What is good can beat out what is sensational.

Evidence for this comes in the success of new, fact-based journalism outlets like The Dispatch, which place a premium on institutional integrity and purposefully eschew fishing for clicks.

The rise of independent voices and new institutions helps hold the old institutions to account. One reason consumers have lost trust in the traditional gatekeepers is that they weren’t doing a good job policing themselves. Mainstream sources and Big-5 publishing firms still consider themselves the guardians of truth and taste. But in a world in which content is controlled by the few, who guards the guards?

How to Really Fight Misinformation in an Age of Abundant Content

Conspiracies have existed throughout history. Our new information environment isn’t “uniquely dangerous.” If anything, it’s easier than ever to debunk falsehood and obtain true information. In the 1890s, rumors spread faster than real news. Most people didn’t graduate high school, let alone college. The abundance of content on the Internet today makes it easier than ever to educate oneself.

There have always been lies and misinformation. Let’s stop pretending that having a couple of institutional gatekeepers regulating information can change that fact.

Instead of worrying about controlling what people read and watch, let’s start thinking about how to educate people to operate in an information environment that includes (gasp) lies and misinformation.

Don’t get me wrong. There is still a role for traditional gatekeeping voices. They will just have to stand alongside all the new outside voices, which means they’ll have to work harder to differentiate themselves, improving the quality of their work at the same time. And it will be easier to hold them to account (while they can hold nontraditional voices to account).

Democratization of content is a good trend because it means we can stop pretending our old solutions worked at preventing misinformation from leading to conspiracy theories. We can’t put the cat back into the bag. Instead, we can start working on what does work.

Rotten Tomatoes didn’t destroy the role of critics in judging films. It didn’t lead to genuinely terrible movies becoming massive box office blowouts, nor did it cause good movies to stop performing well. Instead, it allowed audiences to educate themselves better than they could have done pre-Internet. Which allows them to make better decisions.

The democratization of content has allowed conspiracies to proliferate. But it’s also allowed people to educate themselves, and come to their own decisions. That may not always result in smart choices in every individual case. But what ever has?