Week 6 lectureNotes_COM370

1. Week 6 Lecture Notes
COM 370
From chapters 1 4 & 15 of Content Rules
Success Stories, FAQ MakeOver

2. Learning
Outcomes
 Design effective content for social media user consumption
 Recognize and assess key effects of social media on users’
communication behaviors
 Apply strategies for effective social media use in both personal
and professional settings

3. Creating a
Compelling
Customer
SuccessStory
What is the single biggest secret to creating a compelling customer success story (case
study)?
Tell the story your intended audience want to hear.
Focus the story on a person or client your products or services helped and cast your
company as the hero!
How to tell memorable customer storiesYouTube how-to. How to tell memorable
customer success stories
Focus on the human benefit—and it needs to benefit a bunch of people beyond the main
character and the main character’s problem. Other people struggle with this, too.
Find the facts (avoid fables!)
Feature the problem and how you solved it.
Get written permission from the person or company you will feature. DO NOT surprise
this person or company with what you expect to be “good publicity.” Hello, lawsuit.

4. Five steps for
setting up a
case study to be
a compelling
story.
 Step one: Introduce the customer or company profiled by the story. Introductions
need names, a contact person, a city and state, and the industry, annual revenue,
number of employees.
 Where do you find that info? At a company website you should be able to find the
annual report or else some of the info in the “about this company” section.
 Step two:Tell the story as the main character saw it.Tell the problem and why it was
a problem (stress, worry, costs, failures?). See example on page 185.This needs to be a
real story. We need to care about this person.What can you tell us to make us care?
Give us the juicy details. Push some emotional buttons.
 Step three:The solution! Enter the hero. But wait! First tell what did not work.
 Then, show your expertise in the best possible light. Let us see the solution coming
into focus. But do not stop here……
 Step four: Show the main character HAPPY because the problem is solved.
Emphasize key points. Mention benefits for the reader who now knows how this
problem can be solved. As the text says, if you have done this step right, the response
of the reader/viewer/audience is, “I’ve got to get me some of that.”
 Step five: Go beyond a text-based story. Create a video of this story. See page 187 for
examples.

5. What is a story
and how do
you tell one?
 What are the characteristics—the
elements of a story?
 Plot: a creature has a crisis
 Characterization: all about that
creature: who is this and why should
we care?
 Action and Drama (plot, dialog,
crisis, climax, resolution): a
moment of decision that changes
life in a significant way—but at
some point CHANGE happens and
there are consequences.
 Setting: where does this story take
place—and is that part of the
story—did that cause the story?
 Tie your idea to powerful existing
ideas that people have accepted.

6. Touching the
Universal
 Example: The idea of a country where
everyone is free to chase his or her
dream is a powerful idea that most
Americans embraced. So, when
Martin Luther King tied his dream to
that dream he touched deep emotions
in people. In literature we call this
“touching the universal” and it works
as a persuasive device.
 When you write, you want to touch
universal ideas in people---and by the
way, that’s why you study these basic
universal ideas in literature classes.
 The experts tell us there are six basic
universal themes and that all stories,
speeches, and movies use at lease one
of these.The Greek myths are
examples of all six themes. Can you
guess what they are?

7. Six Basic
Universal
Themes
 (“Man” means humankind.Women are
included!) Man against God (or the gods)
versions: search for god, search for
immortality, become god, deny god
 Every movie is one of these as the main
plot, and if it is a good movie, there is
another theme used as the subplot which
conflicts with or supports the main plot,
revealed in the denouement (noun ˌdā-ˌnü-
ˈmäⁿ,ˌ the final outcome of the main
dramatic complication in a literary work).
 To learn how to tell a story, read and
analyze good stories. Make yourself define
the story line of every movie you see, every
TV show, every book.
 Get fast at figuring this out!That way, you
will spot the natural story line in any
customer info you are trying to use.

8. Chapter 15:
An FAQs
Makeover
An FAQ page is a web
page or series of pages
of answers to questions
that visitors frequently
ask about your products
or services.
Benefits of
FAQs:
• Functions as an
online customer
service center
• Builds trust
• Educated customers
• Furthers a
relationship with
consumers

9. Tips for
Creating FAQs
Write answers not
description
Address and answer
tough questions
Avoid Franken-speak
(text that doesn’t sound
like it was written by
humans).
Answer with fact, not
opinion (facts build
trust)
Show some personality
Make the FAQs
searchable
Use graphics
Enable printing
Encourage sharing by
embedding direct links
in the FAQs page to
each question
Organize the FAQs into
sections
Link to customer service
Ask, “Do you have a
question not answered
here?
Treat the FAQs as a
doorway (link answers
to relevant content)
Monitor FAQs (which is
the most clicked?)
Ask the unasked
questions (that people
should ask, but don’t
know enough to ask)

10. References
 Handley, A., & Chapman,C. C. (2012). Content Rules. Hoboken, NJ: JohnWiley
and Sons.
 Cunningham, R. (2012). How to tell memorable customer stories. Marcom
Productions. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzaKDfrh6NQ