Give Them the Feels: Creating Content with a Human Connection
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Presented at Social Media Week Austin 2020 Over the last decade, brands have perfected the art of tapping into the tremendous reach and valuable data that social media affords. It’s provided a direct line to consumers and helped solidify voice and tone as key brand drivers. As we enter a new phase of social media, consumers want a more personal, authentic connection from the brands they patronize. Join Corrin Foster, Kristin Sheppard, and Angèle Davidson to learn about developing original content that keeps an audience invested and engages on a human level through storytelling and enhanced visual touchpoints. Learn how to break through the mundane messaging by filming your own GIFs (yes, really!) and what it means to demonstrate human qualities on digital platforms.
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Give Them the Feels: Creating Content with a Human Connection
- 1. Give Them the Feels Creating Content with a Human Connection
- 2. Social media is an essential part of your business strategy. Human conversations between brand and audience encourages users to trust your brand, encourage brand advocacy, and ultimately elevate your business.
- 4. Humanizing Your Brand ● Know your audience and use personas ● Develop a unique voice ● Use everyday language ● Avoid jargon and marketing-speak ● Automation in moderation (and personalize when you can!) ● Use post timing to relate ● Acknowledge mistakes ● Strategically integrate visuals
- 5. Humanizing Your Brand - Examples
- 7. Why create personas? For more authentic and rewarding connections, think of your audience as human
- 8. Research - Demographics - Site Analytics (you have more data than you think!) - Industry - Pew - Psychographics - likes/dislikes - goals/challenges - values/fears - Ask questions/talk to people How should you create personas?
- 9. Make them real + Ask for - Name - Photo - Location - Job title - Education - Family situation - Hobbies - What do they read/watch How should you create personas?
- 10. Create more! - Primary - Secondary - Tertiary - Negative How should you create personas?
- 12. Devices Used to Relate ● Empathy ● Human interest ● Engagement ● Responsiveness ● GIFS and emojis ● Humor
- 13. Devices Used to Relate - Empathy
- 15. Devices Used to Relate - Human Interest
- 16. Devices Used to Relate - Engagement
- 17. Devices Used to Relate - Engagement
- 18. Devices Used to Relate - Humor
- 21. Devices Used to Relate - Responsiveness
- 22. Devices Used to Relate - GIFs and Emojis *When posting this many emojis, please be kind to those who use screen readers and post them as a single image instead.
- 23. Pitfalls ● Politics ● Religion ● Complaints ● Apathy ● Sarcasm ● Rivalry ● Breaking news ● Performative updates ● Brands can maintain integrity while still having a personality
- 24. GIFs
- 26. Equipment & Methods Capturing Texture Adding Texture After Lighting Considerations Speed/Motion Considerations Video VS Stills
- 27. Choosing Props
- 28. Applications
- 29. Putting It All Together
- 30. questions
- 31. Thank you! Angèle Davidson @AngeleDDavidson Corrin Foster @CorrinRenee Kristin Sheppard @madbettyatx
Editor's Notes
- Introductions
- Kristin The why.
- Kristin Why does brand “personality” matter? Consumers said they were prompted to purchase based on the following social media actions. Brand Actions Chart: https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/best-brands-social-media/
- Corrin So, what are some things a brand can do to seem more human? Let’s start with some tips that apply to most, if not all brands. Do the research to know your audience. So important we’re going to talk about personas later in the presentation Beyond how they relate to your brand/product, what are some of their characteristics? Develop a unique voice This goes back to your overall brand strategy What is your brand’s persona? Stay true to the brand mission and vision What is the change does the brand want to see in the world? How does it help make that change happen? Should also include editorial standards Types of content Style - Oxford comma Tone - formal, informal, you vs we Avoid jargon or too much marketing-speak Adults read at an 8th grade level Most bestselling novels are written at a 7th grade level Automation in moderation Be present Personalize when automation is necessary - ecommerce Use your post timing to relate. Fun to play with when creating your content calendar. Morning at work, even wind-down time. Let content relate to how they are feeling at that time. Acknowledge mistakes Mistakes happen Acknowledge, correct, and learn Visually, show people We’re going to show you a lot of great examples and focus on this more in the second half of the presentation Take complex concepts and make them more approachable Visuals are known to improve learning and retention by 400% Going back to editorial standards, decide when and how your brand is going to use graphics, photos, gifs, and emojis
- Kristin Show good and bad examples of points on previous slide. Use brands people know.
- Kristin
- Corrin Why create personas Want to be perceived as human? Think of your audience as human Visualize audience - know their likes/dislikes, goals/challenges, values/fears
- Corrin How to create personas Research Demographics Statistical data Site/actual analytics. You have more data than you think! Twitter, FB, Instagram, website Pew research Psychographics Attitudes and aspirations likes/dislikes, goals/challenges, values/fears Ask questions/talk to people
- Corrin Make them real Pull this info from industry research, customer feedback, and visualizing your audience Name, photo, location, job title, education Family situation, hobbies, what do they read/watch
- Corrin Create primary, secondary, and tertiary Consider “negative” personas It can be good to visualize who your audience ISN’T I find this helpful during brainstorms Content idea that’s new, exciting, flashy...but does it attract the “wrong” audience Wrong as in an audience that isn’t going to take action or take an action that isn’t beneficial to your brand or bottom line
- Corrin Historical fiction with a female protagonist Book buyers = 60% Female, 60% degree-educated, 51% married, 26% of 30-44 (#1) Washington DC = #1 most purchases of print books
- Angèle Empathy Accessibility (audiovisual translations, captions, etc.) Inclusivity (pronoun usage) People-first language Human interest stories/heart-warming case studies Share customer stories Solicit real opinions and engagement (respond to that engagement!) Responsiveness Different from engagement as it addresses a customer question, problem, or concern GIFS and emojis Convey tone and emotion Social shares with images receive 150% more retweets and 2.3x more Facebook engagement than those without images Experian found that, compared to text only subject lines, using emojis in email subject lines increased their open rates by 56%.
- Angèle Empathy example: Comcast highlighting a use of voice command that’s meaningful Dell Tech sharing the journey of Lily getting to see and experience the ballet like she never had before.
- Angèle Empathy example: Airbnb Citizen. A community of hosts, guests and other believers in the power of home sharing to help tackle economic, environmental and social challenges around the world.
- Corrin General human interest story Even better if it relates to your brand Whether a conscious decision on the part of Target or not, it’s damn cute and has almost 800,000 likes and 90,000 retweets
- Angèle
- Angèle
- Kristin Insert examples from: Moonpies Wendy’s Burger King PopTarts (Kelloggs) NJgov
- Kristin
- Kristin Facebook example: Innocent drinks uses humor in every post, prioritizing audience cultivation over product promotion.
- Corrin Responsiveness serves as customer service, while reaffirming brand reputation for onlookers. Any business that has a high volume of customer service. Most apparent of that is airlines NOTE This is a dedicated team They have access to the systems to get answers They provide a service they don’t just placate
- Kristin
- Corrin Unless relevant to your brand, tread lightly… Politics Religion Complaints about employees, clients, competitors Apathy - nobody wants to do business with a brand that can’t muster excitement for their own product/industry Sarcasm can be easily misinterpreted Rivalry that isn’t reciprocated in good spirits Not being aware of breaking news Don’t offer thoughts and prayers just to offer thoughts and prayers Brands can maintain integrity while still having a personality and backbone -- see brand strategy, editorial guidelines, personas...
- Angèle How many people have made their own GIFs? How many people have worked with stop-motion or know what it is?
- Angèle Tools + Methods: Because GIFs tend to stay on the smaller side, you can normally get away with using a smartphone camera Take advantage of burst modes Make sure you’re not moving too much or use a smartphone tripod You can also use a traditional camera for more complicated shots that require you to have more control over what the camera is capturing (low light situations or things moving at a fast speed - Light bulb and buy/sell slips) You can use either to capture video (if you camera has the capability) and freeze frames instead of taking a series of stills. I do this frequently when I’m trying to capture something that would require my own hands or body to be in the frame so I’m not having to worry about practicing yoga to press the camera button (I’ve pulled a lot of muscles this way - VR headset on) My style is very simplified. I like to put things in isolation, so if the subject isn’t filling the frame, I will put paper out on a table or wall so that I can control what the background is that I have to work with in post. I do this because I can then add more space to my frames as I build out the creative in different sizes. Make sure you tape your paper down tightly and try not to scruff or mark it otherwise it will take a lot of time to correct in post. If you want to shoot frames for a GIF over a surface that has a texture, you must make sure you’re not moving your camera at all - There are exceptions to this like the pea GIF. Otherwise, you won’t be able to have a smooth transition from frame to frame. You can also try faking it with adding texture after in post just to the background (GPS example) Leave your scene setup until you know you’ve captured a sequence of images that will work for what you need If you can have your phone of camera send images automatically without taking it off a tripod, do it so you don’t shift your shot Review your images in your preferred application and make sure you didn’t get a camera or prop bump that cause you to need to reshoot the sequence
- Angèle Prop choice tips: I frequently use items that I have in my own home. It’s one of the easiest ways to make your content more relatable. Even if you’re targeting a really specific group of people, most people on a basic level have a set of things they do or interact with on a daily basis (like tying their shoes, eating, or watching TV), so if you can figure out how to make your creative include those elements you’re one step closer to keeping them engaged. The other thing I’ve learned is that toys and models are an awesome tool to have in your prop closet. It’s much cheaper to buy a bunch of diecast cars than renting the full-size ones or even purchasing stock images or footage of them. Amazon prime is amazing, and I couldn’t do the creative I do without it because I typically on have a 1-2 week window to turn creative around. A nice budget helps too. If it makes sense for the assignment, include actual humans in your GIFs (show ag GIF) If you have a assignment that requires that you use a prop that you can’t get your hands on for whatever reason, look to see if you can get any stock images/footage to use (show old TV set)
- Angèle What applications to use to put frames together and export GIFs: I use photoshop and AfterEffects depending on the type of thing I’m trying to animate. There are other applications out there you can use though. Google it. Simple still frame stitching can be done in Photoshop If I want to freeze frames from a video, I use AfterEffects If I want to apply graphics or some special effect to the frames themself (like a timeline morph - show) I would use AfterEffects)
- Angèle After you capture + Tips (things like how many frames and lining stuff up etc): Bring your images into your preferred application and asset size (show them in photoshop) The amount of frames depends on what type of thing you’re trying to show. If you’re showing Austin traffic, maybe you only need like 3 frames? Or maybe you just have 1 ;) If it’s something faster or something you want to look more smooth as it goes through the frames, you’ll need more frames to work with to prevent that typical stop-motion look (and then you need to question why you aren’t using video for this creative because it’s going to allow you to have a smaller file size and better quality image) Create a timeline for your images and drag them to the length you want them to appear for If you need to reduce file weight, you can erase the background around the thing that moves in your frames or you can shoot it with nothing on the background and then with all there and erase for each frame (show pennies) Add any treatments - In my case, I turn everything black and white and throw a color overlay over it. This helps everything feel like it’s part of a set and it’s hard to get picky about props when you have short timelines. Export! If you’re in photoshop like we are, here’s how to do it. If you’re in AfterEffects, there are a couple of ways to do it, but I most often will export it as a video and bring it back into Photoshop and just export as a GIF from there.