2. Background
Brands are increasingly becoming content producers as the traditional model of content funder,
producer and broadcaster is broken down through the advance of direct to consumer broadcast
platforms. The race is on to engage audiences with a brand narrative across platforms in order to
foster an on-going relationship. In social channels, this is best achieved by letting audiences
participate in the story that is being told. Storify has emerged as an ideal platform for brands to
aggregate the social content created by their audiences, ‘spin’ it according to the story they wish to
tell, and amplify it back to their audiences. Storify is currently being best utilised by news
organizations and private users, but brands should take advantage of what it has to offer.
How it works
Storify allows you to curate content from various online sources into a single narrative. Content from
supported websites, such as Twitter tweets, Facebook posts, YouTube videos, website articles and
blog posts are saved, and then stitched together into a story. In Storify’s own words: Collect media
from across the web, publish on Storify, embed anywhere, share and notify sources, go viral. Not so
sure about the viral bit, but you get the picture. When the story is finished, it is published by the
brand’s twitter handle directly through Storify, which means it is published not only to the brand’s
followers but also to all the authors of the content that is being used in the story. This new brand
story becomes also available as an embed link for use on the brand’s other owned assets:
Facebook pages, brand websites, as well as in PDF format and every link and Twitter
handle/hashtag remains active within it.
What2
Description
3. Brands3
3
Implications
This aggregation of positive, handpicked social content from the brand’s audience
effectively creates new social content for the brand. By hosting the new story on its other
owned assets, and publishing it on Twitter and to its co-authors, the brand encourages
further shares of this content among its audience. If a top brand uses your tweet in its
story and lets you know about it, you’ll feel proud and you will want to share that with
your friends. If you are in the brand’s target audience, your friends are likely to also be,
delivering further positive exposure for the brand.
Moreover, there are positive search engine optimization (SEO) and social search
implications with the creation of new social content laden with links to the brand’s
website.
A Brand approach to utilizing Storify:
• Brand sends out a video post (on Facebook) and video tweet (on Twitter) inviting
people to produce and publish their own brand-related story including the hashtag
#MyStoryAboutThisBrand.
• Participants publish their stories with tweets, Facebook posts, videos, photos,
pictures, blog entries, news stories, etc.
• Brand collates and publishes the ‘storified’ content into a new story, then distributes it
on its other owned assets and benefits from the further dissemination of the content
across social media.
Brands currently using Storify
Storify and Brands
4. 4
Summary
Storify is a great way for brands to maximize the exposure of the marketing content they produce. Given that digital-savvy audiences tend to
trust their peers and impartial third parties much more than the brands themselves, Storify represents a good way to tap into this factor: let
these audiences amplify the positive brand story, maximizing earned media and fostering a positive perception of the brand.
6 words
UGC aggregator, content curator & amplifier
Fact
Media outlets are using Storify every day to
weave & enrich their stories. Why not brands
too?
Launch
Users
2011
1.8M
