Ed Carpenter shares three key elements of storytelling to help brand your company. How he successfully transitioned out of the newspaper business and into brand journalism.
Ed Carpenter has been a storyteller since he was a master at pencil break in middle school. He has worked in communications for 15 years, as an award-winner newspaper journalist, editor, recurring television news analyst, and digital marketing consultant for small businesses. ED is currently a multimedia content creator for the University of San Francisco.
Share This Show
Think Like A Journalist Quote
“The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing.” ~Tom Fishburne, Marketoonist. Tom creates content marketing campaigns with cartoons.
Success Tip
Inject your stories with emotion. This requires analyzing your story, your product or service, and identifying how it relates to people. Put people at the center of your stories. Your audience can relate to people: their problems, their perseverance, and their successes. How can your product or service help people?
Career Highlight
Ed transitioned into content creation and brand journalism from his newspaper career. In the early and mid-2000s, hundreds of reporters a month were being laid off in and around San Francisco. Newspapers and magazines were drastically downsizing and/or going out of business. Print ad revenue had slowed to a trickle. It was a bad time. The longterm career outlook was bad. Ed made a career transition from traditional journalism to brand journalism. This allowed him to use his storytelling background to help businesses. He landed a job with the University of San Francisco.
When It Didn’t Work
Ed has faced many challenging situations. He had has to learn a lot of resource, software, and marketing tools to develop his career. Ed shares challenges that he faced and how he is always trying to improve.
Brand Journalism Advice
Three Key Elements In Storytelling: IBV
- Your Identity
- Your Beliefs
- Your Values
Understanding and developing these key elements in each story are critical to storytelling success. Most companies skip this step and jump right in to the content creation phase, which can be a big mistake.
“The Apple’s of the world have this in their bones, from the employees who design the iPhones to those who package their computers in those oh-so-precise boxes that come shipped to your house.”
Multimedia Resource
Book, Documentary, Podcast, or Internet Channel
Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, Gary Vaynerchuck
Resource Links
Phoebe’s Three Part Series On Storytelling, View all three videos.
Contact
Ed’s Website: Web Content Insider
Share This Show
