Harnessing the Swiftie Effect: Elevate Your Brand Storytelling

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As of December 2023, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour is reported to be the highest-grossing tour ever and is the first to crack $1 billion, with an estimated $1.04 billion in total ticket gross. One of the myriad reasons Taylor Swift is so successful is her ability to touch people with story. Her writing is vulnerable, honest, and universal in its storytelling. Brands can learn from Taylor by learning how to weave storytelling into their marketing. Here are six communications lessons that businesses can learn from Taylor Swift’s songwriting and apply to their marketing strategies to enhance efficacy.

1. Authenticity Connects

Swift’s songwriting resonates because it comes from a place of genuine emotion and experience. Her willingness to share personal stories, whether they are of heartbreak, joy, or self-discovery, invites her audience to connect on a deeper level. Business Lesson: Brands should strive for authenticity in their communications. Share your brand’s journey, the challenges you’ve overcome, and what you stand for. Authentic storytelling can forge a stronger bond with your audience.

2. Know Your Audience

Swift has an uncanny ability to speak directly to the hearts of her listeners. Each song is a communications masterpiece. She understands her audience’s hopes, fears, and dreams. This deep understanding enables her to write songs that feel personal to millions. Business Lesson: Thoroughly understanding your target audience is crucial. Conduct market research to know their needs, wants, and pain points. Tailored messaging that resonates with your audience’s experiences will likely be more effective.

3. Evolve With Your Audience

Over the years, Swift has transitioned across several music genres, from country to pop to indie folk, demonstrating her versatility and willingness to grow with her audience. Business Lesson: The market is constantly changing, and so are your customers’ needs and preferences. Brands must be adaptable, willing to listen to their audience, and evolve their offerings and messaging to stay relevant.

4. Engage Through Multiple Channels

Swift uses a variety of platforms to engage with her fans, from social media to surprise album drops, and interactive music videos. She creates a multi-channel experience that keeps fans engaged and invested in her storytelling. Business Lesson: Utilize multiple platforms to engage with your audience. Whether it’s through social media, blogs, email newsletters, or events, diversifying your communication channels can help reach your audience wherever they are.

5. Create a Community

Swift has mastered the art of community building, creating a loyal fan base that feels connected not just to her, but to each other. Business Lesson: Creating a sense of community around your brand can turn customers into brand advocates. Encourage user-generated content, create online forums or groups, and engage in conversations that build a shared sense of identity and belonging.

6. Consistency Is Key

While Swift has evolved musically, her core narrative of storytelling through song has remained constant. This consistency helps fans know what to expect from her, even as she experiments with new sounds and genres. Business Lesson: Consistency in brand messaging and values reassures customers and builds trust over time. While it’s important to adapt and innovate, maintaining a consistent core message is crucial.

Final Thoughts for Brands

Taylor Swift’s unparalleled success as a songwriter and performer offers valuable communications lessons for businesses in any industry. By embracing authenticity, understanding and evolving with your audience, leveraging multiple communication channels, fostering community, and maintaining consistency, brands can create more meaningful, lasting connections with their customers. Mindfull Marketing + PR believes in the power of storytelling, and we see Swift’s approach as a beacon for brands aiming to engage their audience in a profound and impactful way. We take these lessons to heart and craft marketing strategies that resonate, inspire, and endure for our clients.

Develop A Golden Image Standard For Remote Workers

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As the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) shuts down much of the world’s regular operations, more companies than ever are suddenly managing a remote workforce. I founded a virtual organization in 1998 and have since been managing a remote workforce around the world. Forrester Research studied our processes and named us a “Golden Image Standard” for other companies to follow, so I thought I would share some insights on how to best manage this new reality.

Tech Priorities – Remote work is first and foremost about good tech. It’s not as simple as assigning employees a laptop and sending them on their merry way. Forrester applauded our remote support technologies, robust storage capabilities, collaboration tools, and proactive approach to green IT, calling our remote workers more productive and greener when compared with their previous office-based environments. We’re proud of that but truth be told, smart IT is even easier these days. Companies like Zoom, Skype, and Google make it easy to teleconference and hold meetings (although, as you always should, consider which meetings are truly vital). Slack is a great way to keep communications constant and within different working groups. Microsoft Sharepoint and Google make it easy to share, store, and manage versions of documents. And most everyone now has a mobile phone, which allows them to work within and manage these applications from anywhere. Also, think of equipment in an employee’s office – besides a laptop, what should you invest in to ensure they are comfortable, productive, and happy?

Security Policies and Procedures are also vital. IT will need to prep laptops before being assigned to employees. Quickly assemble a “must have list” of apps for all employees as well as a list of things not to download, depending on your type of business. Ensure that you have policies in place for using public WiFi, choosing intelligent passwords, and using two-step authentication, as well as using the laptop for any personal needs. Consider whether you will use 24/7 remote monitoring to help ensure a secure virtual work environment.

General working policies must quickly be written and communicated. Should employees have video on for remote meetings? What is the expectation around working hours? Are you going to allow flexibility for working parents who also have young children at home because schools are closed? What is different now vs when they were working from a physical office? Be sure you also provide suggestions on how to stay productive and focused as a remote worker. Not everyone has the self discipline it takes but with many companies requiring all employees to work from home for a while, it’s vital to provide as much guidance and support as possible. When, where, and how will they (or should they) track hours and projects? How often are they expected to check in with managers?

Support Leadership – Perhaps your managers have never led a remote team before. Don’t forget to provide them with training and guidance as well. Jumping into constant meetings in order to ensure people are working will not be efficient or productive. You have to give them support on how to manage remotely and recognize signs of lackadaisical employees. How should they handle such situations? What should they look for and expect? How can they keep employees engaged?

Communicate – The most obvious tip but one that is often overlooked or misunderstood. Communication is key and should be consistent in such uncertain times. THIS DOES NOT MEAN MORE MEETINGS. If you’re a smaller company, a daily email from management or the CEO can go a long way in keeping a cohesive and connected work environment. Check in and let them know developments of the day or week, recognize workers who have done a great job (this may be even more important than ever now), and ask questions. Ensure you are giving them a platform to share how they are getting along virtually, any concerns or questions they have, and ideas they may want to share to keep your culture positive and connected.

If you need help developing IT or HR policies for a remote workforce, reach out. After 20+ years managing employees from coast to coast, we can help. In the meantime, be safe and be well.

Happy Chinese New Year

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Chinese New Year started today and continues through February 19. Wishing all of our friends around the Globe a prosperous and fortunate “Year of the Pig.” Learn more, here.

Join Us: Digital Marketing & Tech Summit

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On March 28, our CEO, Christine Perkett, will be speaking at the Cape & Plymouth Business Digital Marketing & Tech Summit – a great event on Cape Cod focused on helping businesses run more efficiently and reach new customers across different marketing channels. Get the solutions and real-world strategies you need to choose the right technology platforms and control what digital platforms make the most sense for your digital marketing programs.

This is the event’s fourth year and is sure to be another great one, sending attendees away with actionable tips for improving digital marketing strategy and execution. What would you like to learn?

We hope to see you there!

Persuasive Picks – Week of November 16, 2015

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Ever wish PR stereotypes would vanish? Ned Ellison does in his PRWeek article called “Death to the PR stereotype“. His article talks about how gaining trust with your clients should help diminish the current stereotype.

“The Five Marketing Trends CMOs Can No Longer Ignore In 2016” is another insightful piece by Jennifer Rooney, Staff Writer at Forbes. This piece includes a list of the five top trends that will strengthen next year and beyond.

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Image credit: NASA on The Commons

Entrepreneur published an intriguing article authored by Rebecca Hasulak.  This article called “It’s Not Rocket Science: 4 Secrets Behind Good PR for Startups” focuses on goals and how you should commit your time, not your money behind a strategy. It also includes tips on pitching and how to keep things simple.

 

Persuasive Picks – Week of August 10, 2015

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“7 Social Media Platforms That Could Explode Before 2016”, authored by Forbes contributor, Jayson DeMers, offers insight on the upcoming platforms that social media professionals should expect this year. SlideShare and Shots are on the list as well as social shopping app, Wanelo.

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Kimberlee Morrison, contributor to AdWeek’s SocialTimes, pens an article on the value of social media presence for consumers. Her article called “Consumers Value Social Media Presence — But Some Small Businesses Aren’t Buying In” reports on data from Enplug that shows that small business owners don’t think social media is a good value for their business. The results show that small business owners aren’t quite aware of the weight consumers give to social media content. “How Do you Create a Strong Global Marketing Campaign?” covers the timely topic of personalizing your global campaign. This article, authored by Courtney Huber, recommends that companies customize each campaign based the country and language.

Persuasive Picks – Week of August 3, 2015

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“Less Than 10% Of Companies Are Using Marketing Automation, Here’s Why”, authored by Forbes contributor, Mike Templeman, discusses the important topic of marketing automation. This technology has been around for half a decade, but companies aren’t utilizing it due to an upfront time consuming implementation process.

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Entrepreneur contributor, Rocco Baldassarre, reports on 5 online marketing tips for entrepreneurs. These tips include social media, testing new advertising channels, upselling and more. The article called “5 Online Marketing Basics Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know” also recommends utilizing tools such as Google Analytics and Facebook advertising.

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Burson-Marsteller tops the list of PR firms in PRNewser’s “PR Agency Report Card (Part 1)”. This annual ranking of PR firms highlights the champions of communications in the PR world.

Persuasive Picks – Week of July 27, 2015

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Business2Community author, Anna Rodriguez pens an article called “The Good And The Devil Benefits of Virtual And Social Media Management”. The article focuses on the recent survey from WorldatWork that found found that the number of American employees who worked virtually at least one day a month reached 17.2 million in 2008. The article goes on to offer tips on managing a virtual workforce effectively. 6-ways-to-manage-a-virtual-work-force   ‘Why You Need To Diversify Your Marketing”, written by Forbes contributor, Mike Templeman, offers insight on why companies need to consider more than one channel in their marketing efforts. Once a company finds their marketing channel where they can achieve traction, it is incumbent upon that company to seek out and establish and second, third, or fourth effective marketing channel. Business2Community also covers the topic of storytelling in marketing in its article called “Using Storytelling in Your Software & Technology Marketing”.  Author Stephanie Kapera discusses how storytelling in campaigns and videos as well as blogs offers marketers a chance to have their customers understand them better. Kapera also offers tips on when storytelling is not appropriare.

Persuasive Picks – Week of July 20, 2015

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Business2Community author, Susan Gilbert discusses how positive vision in marketing will protect you from failure. “Positive Focus Creates Better Marketing Results” provides 4 easy steps for positive focus, including how to monitor your time on social media and being open to new marketing strategies.

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“7 of the Best Tools to Aid Your Content Marketing”, an insightful piece by Julia McCoy, covers some of the latest content marketing tools out there that can help you be smarter and more accurate in your content marketing strategy.

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Mike Templeman contributes an article called “How Facebook And Twitter Fit Into B2B Marketing”  which discusses two lesser-used social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter and how they can be a real value in B2B marketing.

Persuasive Picks – Week of July 13, 2015

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Forbes contributor, Theo Priestly pens a story discussing the challenges marketers face in these fast paced times. “Marketing: 3 Reasons To Tell A Story, Not Sell Technology” states that organizations need to turn their attention more towards storytelling and explains how to approach this task effectively. storytelling-18642-3-1940x1293   TheNextWeb’s article called “5 Social Media Fails and the Apps That Could Have Saved Them”, points out various social media mistakes by well known brands such as DiGiorno, New England Patriots and McDonalds. It offers insight on the apps that could have helped these brands when human error could not have been avoided. shutterstock_171257771 Justin Lafferty authors an article for AdWeek’s Social Times called “Was Amazon’s #PrimeDay a Social Media Failure?”, delving in to the success of this social media campaign. Though Amazon said that Prime Day sales surpassed Black Friday or 2014, a lot of the chatter around the sale event was negative or bland, according to Talkwalker.