Drawing Room 2 – CCN16 Schedule

10:00 a.m.

The Power of Digital Storytelling
Wade Kwon
#CCN16StoryPower
Tracks: Blogging & Storytelling

Marketing has evolved rapidly with the rise of digital outlets. But what can cut through the din of commercials and crass come-ons? Stories. We are natural storytellers, but we must strive to improve our skills for our online audiences.

Wade Kwon, conference director for Y’all Connect Presented by Alabama Power, will guide you through the options and strategies behind compelling storytelling. His work as a writer, journalist and storyteller has helped companies reach audiences quickly and effectively. Learn the three questions that will transform your brand’s story into a saga worth sharing.

10:45 a.m.

How I Turned My Podcast Into a Published Book
Jeff Sanders
#CCN16PodcastBook
Tracks: Blogging & Storytelling, Podcasting

Have you ever wanted to be an author? In this session I will break down how I was able to leverage my podcast into a published book. We will briefly touch on the publishing process and then dive into how you can use your existing and future high-quality content to craft a well-written book. These methods work with either traditional or self-publishing and they apply to all content creators who want to call themselves authors!

11:30 a.m.

It’s All in the Ask: Getting Customers and Clients to Talk
Pamela Coyle
#CCN16Ask
Tracks: Blogging & Storytelling

Stories about real-world people who use your products or services (and, of course, are happy) are content marketing gold. Yet content creators and marketers struggle to get such folks to open up. Why? Because in asking they use the wrong language. Two decades as a hard news/investigative newspaper journalist taught me a bit about getting people to talk. This session will cover strategies to get you customer/client interviews that are the foundation of storytelling. And we’ll talk about what not to do. A small change in language makes a world of difference.

12:05 p.m. – 12:45 p.m. LUNCH BREAK

12:45 p.m.

Story is Content: How to Become a Story Architect
Karen Chronister
#CCN16StoryArchitect
Tracks: Blogging & Storytelling

What if you frame as many aspects of your message as a narrative? The most compelling speakers, writers, artists, and businesses are storytellers. We are wired to receive information best through this format. In fact, studies show that our brains formulate the information we receive into story form as much as possible. It’s satisfying. When we communicate this way, the veil drops and trust begins to develop. Trust helps the intended audience engage with you.

Whether I am writing a story or advising as a marketer, I look for the compelling human (story) elements first to communicate—things like character, setting, and conflict (overcoming an obstacle, filling a gap in the marketplace)—and weave them into the broad message.

How can you become a Story Architect? We’ll explore how to create “Un-Content” today for our platforms with story elements, word choice, format, and sensory elements to build better bridges.

1:30 p.m.

Create an Authentic Brand: How to Write Your Story and Tell It
Kirsty Hughan
#CCN16Authentic
Tracks: Branding, Marketing & Business

Marketing is hard. It’s nice to admit isn’t it? Creating a “brand” that identifies who you are and what you do is incredibly challenging, especially if your business is close to your heart, a manifestation of you. In this seminar, we’ll discuss the basics of creating an authentic brand: establishing (or refining) your authentic voice, mastering the art of the gut check and creating a brand strategy.

2:15 p.m.

Content Marketing Secrets Learned from Literary Giants
Erik Deckers
#CCN16Literary
Tracks: Blogging & Storytelling, Content Marketing

Content marketers can learn a lot from fiction writers, and not just how to tell interesting stories. Today’s content marketing writing is so jargon-filled and boring, it’s both painful and sleep-inducing. Good content marketing stands on the shoulders of giants of literature, and uses those techniques to make their work more interesting. This presentation shares lessons learned in the world of literature, including lessons from Ernest Hemingway, Kurt Vonnegut, P.D. James, and Agatha Christie, and other literary giants.

Attendees will learn:
1) how to humanize marketing copy that actually moves people,
2) how fiction writers focus on “moments,” and how marketers can do too, and
3) how to build suspense and create a payoff in marketing copy.

3:00 p.m.

Talk About Your Story: The Dos and Don’ts of Interviews
David Fox
#CCN16TalkAbout
Tracks: Blogging & Storytelling, Podcasting

Interviewing a subject or expert for content can be a daunting task, whether it’s for a podcast or for the written word. The interview is basis for great storytelling, whether we’re having a conversation with one subject for a long-form podcast or trying to construct a narrative from multiple sources.

The key to the successful interview is in preparation. What are the best strategies for conducting a kick-ass interview that will keep your audience engaged and your subject talking? How do we avoid the traps that result in canned responses? How do we recover from bad questions or bad interviews? How do we use an interview with one subject that builds the bigger, more profound story?

Let’s break down the basics of how to research in preparation for an interview, how to craft questions and how to adjust on the fly for unpredictable subjects.

3:45 p.m.

To Be Announced