Digital World of Storytelling
Creating a good story is one thing that all successful content creators have in common. No matter what style or platform they use, no matter how many people are involved in that creation, the end goal is always to tell a story.
The social media revolution has not only changed the ways we communicate and interact with one another, but it is also changing how people think of storytelling. It is no longer just a communication tool - it is an integral part of any digital entity that relies on customer relationships for success.
Blogging/Vlogging is a way to provide you with an outlet for your creativity and grow your brand. It is not just about the number of followers you have or how many likes you get on social media. It is also about becoming a voice in your industry, sharing what you love with others, and helping people by being transparent in your journey.
Content Marketing is a way to promote you and your business to current or potential customers by sharing information about you, the company, products, or services with targeted audiences via various media channels (such as Social Media) on an ongoing basis for building brand awareness and driving traffic to your website.
But what can you do to make your social media presence a better place?
How can you stand above the rest and become the authority in your industry?
Why does production workflow matter when it comes to creating content?
Production workflow is a critical element of content creation. It helps you manage your work most efficiently and keeps you within your creative flow.Most content creators use those five parameters when it comes to creating new content:
- A platform for which the content is created
- Deadline till when this content should be published
- Tasklist of items to be done for the content to be finalized
- Owner of the task if working in teams
- A status which each new story has to go through
When one creator works across many platforms and creates a considerable amount of content daily, status plays a huge role in staying engaged in the production flow.
After extensive research on this subject, we concluded there are several steps that most content creators use within their creative process:
- Story Ideas - a collection of all your content creation ideas, research results, content gathering, etc
- To Do - stories in this state can get more detailed information about production planning, such as Start Date, End Date, deadline, platform for which story is created, owner and defined story tasks
- In Progress - stories that you have already started to work on
- In Review - if you would like to invite another person to do the review before publishing, share your story and let them leave their comments on your video or your story
- Completed - stories that are completed and ready to move to the next steps
- Ready for Publishing - all stories which are completed, plus have their video uploaded and ready, are considered to be prepared for publishing
- Published - stories published on their final destination
- Archived - stories which are moved to the archive
What is the best platform for content creators?
With so many tools needed to manage your social media presence, can you effectively track your visibility across many platforms and still create engaging content?
The best platform for content creators is the one they are the most comfortable with. But what brings comfort into their everyday work?
YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Linkedin - each platform has features you need to explore if you want good results - text posts, videos, or live streams.
Many people like using many sources because this increases their audience reach and provides them more opportunities for monetization by posting variations of their material across different channels. But, you realize fast how much effort goes into maintaining all those accounts and making sure you post something at the right time to get the greatest engagement.
The more you can automate and simplify your production workflow, the better you will focus on actual content creation.
Would it be nice to be able to manage all your social media accounts in one place - no more forgetting about what needs to be posted, where, at which time?
What about a task management platform but to be video-friendly? Let's say another way around. Video-oriented platform but manages tasks too? Which task management view would suit all content creators? Kanban, calendar, list view? The correct answer is: depends on their workflow and the way how they approach work. For example, some content creators prefer visual boards while others like data sorted in clean and simple tables.
What about having one tool instead of switching between different sites and interfaces? Not juggling multiple applications would remove any friction from your production workflow, so you'll be able to focus 100% on creative work! But most platforms that content creators use nowadays are not built to manage video files.
What do content creators do about the video reviewing process?
Many content creators who get sponsored by companies to create the content need to share the progress with the sponsors before videos are ready to be published.
But, instead of editing the content, many content creators let someone edit the video for them. Why? More content you produce, more videos get monetized. Plus, the money invested in freelance video editors usually gets returned as content edited by professional editors tends to be more pleasurable for the audience. So what does that potentially bring? Of course, more clicks, likes, and better engagement from the viewers.
Most content creators are glued to their screens for hours and handling a handful of applications for video sharing, chat, task management, and scrip writing on an average day. As well, a bunch of emails to communicate with external collaborators, sponsors, or freelancers. For example, a few iterations of video revision are done via email to explain what needs to be fixed before sending back different file versions across different transfer tools.
What makes things even more difficult is that video revision workflow might differ when communicating with external users. This can be tedious work, but it is often necessary to produce engaging videos that keep people coming back for more!
It is not easy to produce professional-quality content without the right tools. However, the creative process can be made much easier, faster, and more efficient.
If creatives had a video management platform designed for them, it would save them time to create more and, as a result, earn more.
But how that one-stop app should look like, and what would the app have to offer to attract content creators?
Developing New Stories on the Digital Canvas
Those are the questions we have been asking ourselves for the past two years as well. And now, we believe that our team has come up with a solution that will cover all these questions and more in one seamless, holistic app.
StoryDeck is the canvas for your creativity. It's a dashboard of all your social platforms, simplified into one easy-to-navigate place. You can use it to develop stories and produce content by seamlessly connecting with contacts in and outside the office - all from a single platform.
We let you keep all your content in one place, without file upload limitations. Rather than relying on outside apps like Dropbox, Google Drive, or other storing online applications, StoryDeck allows you to stay organized and focus on your content by keeping all your projects, files, and interactions within one single platform.
Let's explore which StoryDeck feature to figure out how it would work.
With several features that make content creation easy and fun, StoryDeck intends to simplify every interaction and help you create a story you can be proud of.
Let us explain them in more detail.
#1 Plan Your Stories
All your ideas for blog posts, articles, video content, or social media updates are placed on the Storyboard. For each story, you can define a Social Media platform, deadline, select a label, and start gathering source material that you might need for production.
This means you can use StoryDeck as a task management platform, too. Check your projects and deadlines through the calendar view on the dashboard to ensure you stay all caught up with what's going on in your professional world. And leave comments for tasks you need help completing or mark them complete when you're finished.
The Kanban board is for everyone who needs flexibility but still wants some visual structure at work. A list view is for those who like checklists-style planning.
Notifications are there when you want them, or you can switch them off for more focus.
#2 Create the Content
In the creation process, you can define the workflow steps you would like to do within your story production: for example, calling someone, taking photos of an object, or researching specific topics. Some users might need to specify the actions they do not want to miss when creating a video. Associate any content such as images, text files, or video files by uploading assets without file limitation.
We also have a chat and task management system to collaborate with your team, make decisions quickly, stay updated on any project you are working on.
#3 - Invite to a Story
Connect with your team and external collaborators to brainstorm ideas you can execute from a single application. No more back-and-forth emails!
You can share and collaborate on content with other people, even if they don't have their StoryDeck accounts. By sending the unique link to the story, you invite them to add, review, or comment on the textual or video content you have created.
Once you have shared an idea with someone else, they can access it from their device and continue to contribute. This way, your vision can become a collaborative experience.
#4 - Collaborative Work
The built-in collaboration tools make it easier than ever to discuss your story and plot out the next phase or share all your video content with video editors. If working with sponsors, this is the perfect way to keep them engaged in the story development.
Storydeck offers multi-user script writing, video timecode review, and content sharing. Also, a real-time chat window will help you stay involved with external collaborators and speed up the reviewing process.
#5 - Get Social
You can upload to YouTube straight from your StoryDeck workplace, along with the video description, keywords, and thumbnail. In addition, all other metadata needed or recommended for YouTube can be added to, like YouTube chapters. This might help you get more engagement from the viewers.
#6 - Manage Media
Upload, download, store and archive all your content in one platform, independently of the size and type. Use StoryDeck search tools to find any specific video content or content within the video itself. Keeping the entire transcript of all your videos uploaded to YouTube can navigate you straight to the timecode. You can also catalog all your content and help the search engine find assets for you in the future.
Our platform is still in the beta stage, but we're working on a version that will launch later this year. And as soon as there's news, you'll be among the first to know!
If you have any questions about our platform or what you could use it for - don't hesitate and contact us at marketing@storydeck.email anytime.
We hope you will find The StoryDeck helpful when making your digital content production process more straightforward and better organized.
By creating more content, you will increase your chances of getting more subscribers.