What’s the Best Idea Ever to Reach Your Audience?

I’m deviating a bit again from my website strategy series to bring you an expanded version of the post I wrote to the amazing people subscribed to my newsletter.

You can reach more people by narrowing your audience!

I’m about to share with you the best idea I have right now about being super connected with your audience.

I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and I can’t believe I haven’t shared it explicitly here. I’ve only mentioned it casually because I assumed everyone already knew. But lately, I’ve realized how important it is, and how some people don’t totally understand it. Why would they? Not everyone thinks about communication and audience all day, right?

(But for those of you who have thought about what I’m going to say, think deeper. Think, well yes, but am I really doing this?)

Anyway, this best idea revolves around narrowing your audience. Yep, that might sound a bit crazy.

But here’s what I mean.

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Crafting Sticky, Emotional Stories That Reach Your Audience

I’m taking a break from my website strategy series to bring you a blog on storytelling that was originally published on TechSoup. If you like this, don’t forget to check out my other posts on storytelling

Sitting around the campfire!

Imagine a story being told to children around a campfire. Now swap out the children with adults. It’s going to be a different story, right? The more you write directly for your audience, the more they will relate to your story. (Photo credit: Scott Kozinchik)

Remember the old woman who lived in a shoe? Or the man who stepped in a puddle up to his middle? Or Peter Peter, pumpkin-eater who had a wife but couldn’t keep her? Even if you don’t remember the full rhyme, one of them probably rings a faint bell. That’s because these aren’t just children’s nursery rhymes; they’re sticky stories, or stories that stick with you for decades.

When we were children, we all knew how important stories were. Many of us demanded them every night, sometimes over and over again. We like to be entertained, and we definitely like to hear about the impossible.

So, isn’t it obvious that’s how you should be reaching your audience? And I don’t mean rhymes, but really high-impact, emotional stories, true stories. Because there are many out there waiting to be told.

Now I know storytelling is a buzzword right now, and buzzwords come and go. Storytelling has been a buzzword before, and will be again. As a former journalist, I was passionate about it before, and I will continue to be long after people have moved onto the next buzzword. But even when storytelling is not a buzzword, your story needs to be told.

And these stories you want to tell need to stick, they need to entertain, and yes, sometimes they need to talk about the near impossible.

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So, How Do You Promote Content Internally? (Part 6)

Amnesty rally in 2014

Photos are content too — what they show and sometimes what they don’t show, where you place them, and what captions you write. I took this photo at an Amnesty rally I helped organize in 2014.

 

We’ve learned that the hard part of doing content strategy well is not content or strategy, but managing relationships. In case you missed it, here’s that post, The Hard Part of Web Content Strategy is Not What You Think.

While it’s the hard part, it can also be rewarding and fun. It gives you an excuse to get out of your comfort zone and meet people.

However, it can also be very difficult and time consuming for those of us introverts who like to just create content. Plus, I get it. Building relationships probably wasn’t or isn’t in your job description.

But it’s necessary in many jobs, so let’s just move on from that and not be concerned with whose job it is. It will definitely help you do your job, so since there’s no other way to say this, just go ahead and do it.

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