Getting Your Story Picked Up By The Media

One of the best ways to communicate what you do and get attention is by telling powerful stories. It allows you to communicate on a deeper level with your customers and engage them.

Getting your stories featured by the media (either online or offline) is tough. One of the most important things is that you need to find an angle for your story. To do this you need to be very clear and focus about what is most important in your story. You need to simplify and avoid telling everything at once.

The more you simplify your story, the more clear it will be and your angle will become very sharp. This will give you a great advantage when it comes to getting your story picked. If you are launching a new productivity tool for example, saying what features it offers makes it one of the many tools available. Saying how your new software allowed a father of two to save 3 hours from his daily work life and spend more time with his family is a much sharper angle.

To get the media interested in your story you need to provide them with a good angle. The sharper and simpler it is, the more chances you have of it being picked up.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Live Your Brand

Yesterday and today, I've been attending The Inspire Conference. It's a great new conference with some amazing speakers.

One of the speakers yesterday was Peter Vesterbacka from Rovio (creators of Angry Birds). Three things were obvious from his talk that really show how they got their branding right:

1) Angry Birds has a story. It's not about a single game. They continuously update it and create new versions to keep the story going. By also telling parts of the story in the game they have the ability to expand what they do.

2) Angry Birds is a brand. It's not just an iPhone game. It's fun and they are always looking at ways to expand what they offer.

3) Last but definitely not least, they live the brand. Peter showed up on stage with a red Angry Birds hoody and red sneakers. If you have something in your brand that makes a statement you need to shout it all the time. Imagine Peter getting on stage yesterday with a blue suit and light blue shirt, it wouldn't have worked.

What I observed yesterday really goes with what we believe in. Your brand is one of your most important assets and you need to promote it at every opportunity. When you are out meeting people you represent your brand so you need to reflect the same values and image. Peter wears red snickers, what will you do?

Posted by Helen Amygdalaki // Lelou