How storytelling can inhibit good communications

Storytelling has become a buzzword in the communications industry, but sometimes it pays to be simple and direct. Consider these insights.

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Nothing ruins a good writing session like the Evil Story Whisperer who lives in the back of my brain, deriding my how-to B2B marketing posts because they aren’t epic narratives.

I defend myself, casting around my outline looking for a setting, plot, characters and conflict. The blog post is a sequence, I say. The hero is the reader; the journey is a series of steps.

The Evil Story Whisperer is not satisfied, but I’m learning to tune him out.

Readers are savvy. They know what they want, and it’s not always a story. (Special thanks to Andy Crestodina, who made a similar point, giving me the courage to write this.)

Why practical is better

Practical B2B content won the day in 2018, according to an analysis by BuzzSumo, which looked at the 50,000 most socially shared articles, videos and other content published on B2B sites last year.

The six most popular headline phrases were:

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