Community Discussion - Are data AND storytelling the missing ingredients for successful content marketing efforts?
-
Data is an important element of content marketing. Storytelling, too, gets readers' attention and has been shown to be instrumental in prospects and customers forming strong connections to brands. But using data and storytelling helps produce some of the strongest content there is to be shared, says Nichole Elizabeth DeMeré in her latest YouMoz article, Here’s How to Combine Storytelling and Data to Produce Persuasive Content.
What are your thoughts? Think data and storytelling work best separately? Read the post are share your thoughts below.
RS
-
Data is the cinnamon of content marketing. It enhances your dish with a nice cinnamon flavor, but you probably don't want a big heaping spoonful of uncut cinnamon or the next thing you know you've launched a viral video meme. Or something like that.
A story without data maybe is a nice story, but it's also toothless. The internet is littered with baseless opinions and we don't really need more of that. You can make an opinion insightful, however, when you back it up with facts, sources, numbers. Prove a product works laying out a success by the numbers. I want to see stories that know when to lean into the data, the kind of story that chews your face off and then drops the mic.
Make an assertion, express an opinion, back it up with facts, but never forget that the numbers are there to support the story, and not the other way around.
Cinnamon... face chewing... it must getting close to lunch time.
-
I am one of those who believe Data and Storytelling both have their own powers and if you are using both you should know how much will be too much for the audience.
I mean (let’s take the EGOL’s example here) if you are addressing to the donors obviously good storytelling will rock but data carefully included with storytelling will only help. Similarly, if you are talking to accountants the numbers and data will work more but if carefully crafted storytelling will attach to it, it will only offer benefits.
And obviously promotion. Without it you will be a loose no matter how great your story is or how good your numbers and data are.
Just a thought!
-
I think that the potential audience is also a factor.
If you are appealing to potential donors or advocates, then a story will be powerful call to action. On the other hand, if you are appealing to accountants or engineers, they will need data before taking action.
-
Excellent point, Donna. I do think data and storytelling form a formidable team, but their impact is certainly limited without the benefit of promotion.
RS
-
The missing ingredient is promotion.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Clarification on duplicate content
Hi, if I have a page that unintentionally ranks for a term that I want to create a page for - say "atlanta apartments" - should I still create a page specifically intended to rank for "atlanta apartments"? Will canonical tags be crucial in this case? Hoping to avoid creating duplicate content and instead create the correct content for a specific term.
Content Development | | smiller760 -
Simple Blog Content Question
Which is better? To write my own blog post or, (with permission) use other high DA content on my blog. I'll probably do both, but I'm very curious as to what the search engines prefer or which is better for seo. Thanks in advance!
Content Development | | MissThumann0 -
Removing old content
Ahoy! Variously I have heard the opinion that content which does not generate regular search traffic (let's ballpark it at >10 views in any given month) should be noindexed or even removed. Allegedly this would improve the overall quality of the site, rankings and traffic. I remain doubtful. What would you do if the interest in a given matter goes down over time for any (most) given topics of your content and is replaced by "newer" specific interest? Concrete example: I have a website about (book) reviews. Naturally, there will always be new books; old books are not in the media as much and "forgotten". Nevertheless, the reviews (all unique, based on really having read the books, no trace of the standard back cover copy) are obviously still there. Personally I feel that they do not really lose any value - they are still reviews of that one book, even though it is not the most recent one. So, what would you do: Deindex "older" book reviews after a certain time? Even remove them completely? Just let them run? I am looking forward to your opinions - and even your experience if you have done something like this! Nico
Content Development | | netzkern_AG0 -
How do you rank a site in a very competitive market?
Do you focus on article submission, social media backlinks or what?
Content Development | | shauna70840 -
Duplicate Content Discovery
I was hit with Penguin on April 24th like a ton of bricks. Luckily my cash cow keyword was kept safe and still is today with even an increase in traffic over the year. With some other main keywords I used to rank far I fell off the board on that day. Since then I have been slowly trying to clean things up as much as I know Today I was sitting down with my coffee and Penguin mindset and I decided to use copyscape again to review duplicate content issues and something I noticed which I either didn't before or didn't think was an issue was my footer. In my footer I used a blurb from some other site in my niche a long time ago. Which I discovered they used from one of the main sites in my niche. Anyways I noticed that my footer is what kept coming up as being duplicate content and was always at an overage of 28% according to copyscape. My question is should I be worried about the footer? Is 28% a lot?
Content Development | | cbielich0 -
Finding Good Content Writers
I have a small but growing SEO company. I don't have in house content writers...where is a good place to find good content writers? Please help! Thanks.
Content Development | | ClickIt0 -
Content
I'm curious what people are paying when they outsource content writing. I'm thinking about outsourcing some writing. I'm looking for the best quality content on the web, nothing medicore or average! What do you guys pay?
Content Development | | PeterM220 -
Duplicate content on the homepage
Hello SEOMOZ Is giving me an error on duplicated content on my site. When viewing the details it is showing the following as duplicated content domain.co.uk/ domain.co.uk domain.co.uk/index.html Obviously these are the same pages. Why is it seeing them as seperate. Does anyone know how I can resolve this issue? Many thanks
Content Development | | lcdesign0