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ABOVE THE CODEStory Telling / Branded Content
Tel Aviv - 7 December, 2012
TODAY...
•Presentation online @ www.alanweinkrantz.com
•Sharing principles, methods, approaches... each company is different
•Practical tips, hints and actionable steps you can take
INTRO...
•Who’s in the room?
•Startups: Status / Funding / Distribution / Partnerships
•Companies: Technology / Product / Markets
INTRO
•Who’s on....
•G+
hello...
WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?
•What compelled you?
•Where did your passion come from about what you are doing?
•Are you given the opportunity to share this with your customers, partners, investors, distributors, partners?
•Why is what you are doing important?
•How are you contributing to the world in what you do?
I’M HERE....
•To help you....
• think about the importance and role of branded content and story telling...
• share your startup or company’s story
•connect in a whole new way that a few years ago was left to the marketing department or an external ad agency or PR firm
ABOUT
•30 years - yup, I am an old school PR guy :) -
•San Antonio & Tel Aviv
• Involved with Israel’s traditional tech sector for the last 18 years
WHAT I BELIEVE
•There’s a perfect storm in bio / health / medical and the world of startups or internal company startup opportunities
• It’s harder and harder to “get coverage” because of the volume of noise
•Every company is a media company
50 years
The Four Coders
Coders & Story Tellers
Music is the original code
Great songs have....
Great narratives
Great voice
Great stories
Great tone
Software eats the world.
google it...:)
“Six decades into the computer revolution, four decades since the invention of the microprocessor, and two decades into the rise of the modern Internet, all of the technology required to transform industries through software finally works and can be widely delivered at global scale.”
Mark Andressen
Everything is getting coded
“The Internet of things...”needs stories...
Music is in all of us
We learn to “write”
But we never learn the art of story telling, or how to write in simple “English” to explain what we are doing and what we feel
WE WRITE FOR...
•Marketing
•Business
•Technical
•Legal
•Medical
•Social
WRITE FOR STORY TELLING
•Why is what you are working on important?
•How are you improving lives?
•How are you helping people hack their own lives?
•What are you seeing in the way people are taking responsibility for their own health
LOOK WHAT YOU DID!
•Solved a problem
•Figured out a way to connect two or more things and do something special with it
•Codified a process, expertise, method or a discovery
GUIDES TO WRITING
•Write like you speak...record yourself and transcribe what you say
•Pretend you are speaking to an audience.... write in front of a mirror (seriously...)
•Think of how you felt when you were read stories as a child
WHY THIS MATTERS TODAY...
•Story telling, having a voice, and the on-going narrative is a reflection of your startup / company’s heart and soul
• It becomes the body of work that helps you recruit talent, attract investors, customers, build partnerships, and be discovered by the media
ALIGNING BUSINESS GOALS WITH COMMUNICATIONS
•Can be applied as an element of your R&D and development strategies
•Help you accelerate the potential for success
•Prepare your company for being discovered - journalists use search engines to find sources
•Be ready when you are found by the media
•Learn how to market to the media
THE MEDIA IS YOUR FIRST
MARKETto share and tell your story
you
bloggers
analysts
media
the consumer
The Media is Your Customer....
enterprise... institutions..
&
WHAT I BELIEVE
•12 Fundamental Belief Sets
•Not everything I do always works
• I do this for me... I do this for clients.
•There’s always exceptions to the rules
•Discussion is based on a combination of experience and principles
WHAT I BELIEVE
•Story is a defensible business strategy
•Narrative is the supporting infrastructure for your brand
•Tone is the voice of your brand
From >
Code
To > Above The
Code
Alan’s 12 Fundamental Belief Sets
#1 - STOP PITCHING
•Start story telling
•Your pitch helps clarify / define what you do, but really sucks as a way to get coverage
#2 - YOU’RE REALLY A MEDIA COMPANY THAT....
•Creates and makes media so you’ll be discovered, found and shared
•YouTube
•Blog
•Cinchcast
•SoundCloud
•Google Plus
#3 UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BEING...
•Discovered - random
•Found - search
being discovered and being found increases your chances
of sharing
#4 IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU
•How do you help others do something in a compelling way you could not do before
#5 BE HUMAN
•Get off your perch and write like you would speak
•Converse with your potential market wherever they are
#6 LIKE MINDED PEOPLE TEND TO FIND EACH OTHER
•Give them a place to connect and share their story
•Consider aligning with other startups like yours to create a multinational startup
#7 HAVE A MISSION
•We’re out to make __________ better
•We want to help _____ do _______
•We want to help others the opportunity to ________
•We’re connecting _______ with ______ so they can ________
•We make it easier to ____________
•Have your voice be heard about _________
#8 THINK LIKE A SOCIAL DEMOGRAPHER
•The potential to collect “Big Data” means you have something of incredible value to a potential partner, investor, or brand
•Gives you a better chance of a lift when an exit may present itself
•Big data lends itself to infographics, which contributes to your thought leadership and a great way to get media coverage
technology platform
spark - what if?
story...
BIG DATA
real value narrative to engagement
Lift towards an exit...(c) Alan Weinkrantz
“some funding.”..
#9 PUT IT OUT THERE
•You never know who is going to find your content and engage
• You don’t have to have high quality production values to do this
• Hardware is cheap. Tools are free. Tons of creatives to help you
#10 DRAW, PAINT, PHOTOGRAPH, ROCK OUT
•Do something or learn to do something creative other than working on your startup
• It will re-wire your brain in an unexpected way
my drums circa 1968
#11 IT’S NOT ALWAYS REPLICABLE
• Just because one strategy or tactic worked for one company does not mean it will work for another
#12 GET LUCKY
•Go wide
•Get lucky
•Run with it when you strike a chord
THE MIND OF A SCIENTIST, RESEARCHER, DEVELOPER
•Focus on...
• functionality
•application
•utilitarian value
HACK YOUR OWN COMMUNICATIONS
•Think of yourself as a reporter & story teller
•Much of this you can do yourself
• “Paper trails” on the Internet exist if you search correctly
PLAN....
•Post and write relevant content so you can be a source to media on your field of expertise
•Develop & publish infographics you can share
•Follow a wish list of 20 journalists you think should cover you
•Read and comment on relevant articles without being self promotional.
•Ask end user / beta customers if you can refer to them to media
•Follow editorial calendars
•Create your own editorial calender
F1
F2
F3
F4
Role. Tone. Voice.
CEO: Serious. Thought Leader.
CTO: Technical. Knowledge. What’s Next.
Biz Dev: Forward. Opportunity. Open.
Lead Dev: Innovator. Code. Team.
“F” = founder
January February March
F1
F2
F3
F4
90 Day Editorial Calendar Planner2x topics per month from each - 24 posts per quarter
NOW....
•Make a wish list of where you belong
•business / tech / bloggers
•media appropriate to your space
•analysts / influencers appropriate to your space
• track competitors or companies in your periphery on news.google.com to see who covers and writes about them
•track competitors on Angel.co
www.angel.co
PLAN FOR PR
• If you follow some of these basic principles, you’ll be further ahead.
•This process takes at least six months to one year to really get on a journalist’s radar and be sticky - sometimes you can get lucky
•Get everyone on your team to make this part of their regimen as it will make them aware of the opportunities that await you when you are ready.
•Bring up PR in your team meetings in a “what if...” scenario.
Be Ready For PR So You Can Succeed
RECOMMENDED
•The Pressures of Content Creation http://www.scottmonty.com/2012/11/the-pressures-of-content-creation.html
•Brands Will Become Media http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2012/11/brand_media.html
•The Internet of Things http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/The_Internet_of_Things_2538
please share:)
ABOVE THE CODE™
thank you
www.alanweinkrantz.com
Twitter. Facebook. LinkedIn. Instagram. all photos by me
© Alan Weinkrantz And Company 2012 Above The Code ™
