You might have heard people say that no story is truly new and they’re right. Just think about the movies we watch — if you take away the robots, dinosaurs, Victorian garb, or magical powers, certain flicks have near enough the same basic plot. As Business Insider hilariously put it, the movies Apollo 13, Castaway, Terminal, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close are all basically about how Tom Hanks’ flight not going well.
And yet, we keep going to the movies to be moved by human stories. Why? Perspective.
Different perspectives are what really keeps content interesting, whether it’s a movie, commercial, or a company blog. No matter what your content goals are, you want to engage people with a compelling story. Given that no stories are new stories, this must be done by giving your audience a different lens to look through.
Here are a few ways to do that:
Be Timely
When you create content, bear in mind that your audience will be searching for stories based on the time of year. For example, Super Bowl was last Sunday and everyone was looking for new ideas for their party spread. Taquito brand, José Olé, was very aware of this and created a successful content campaign based on the time of year.
While the brand has been making taquitos for decades, they gave their audience a fresh new perspective on the product by producing recipe videos based around the Super Bowl. These cute, visual pieces showed how to make fun game-day recipes using José Olé products, such as José Olé Touchdown Taquito Casserole.
Same product. Different perspective. Timely execution.
Hook Your Story to Pop Culture
You can tell an age-old story if you frame it in a way that gets people’s attention. One of the best ways to do this is to use pop culture.
For example, Jia Wertz, CEO of Studio 15, recently wrote an article on The Huffington Post about how women bully one another based on physical appearance. If you think about it the way I just described, it’s not a new story. But Wertz made it special by hooking it to the comments made on Twitter after the VMAs that bashed Beyonce’s 4-year-old daughter for being “unattractive.” The piece went viral.
Using pop culture to give a new perspective is powerful, indeed. If you want to try this tactic, keep up with current events and think about how you can tell your own story by hooking it to a popular person or trend.
Get Personal
While there is an endless well of content on the internet, you never have to fear your inability to stand out so long as you have your own perspective. Think of how many movies have been made about World War II, and yet each one makes us cry because it make us feel the specific impact of a different individual. Think about how many comedians wrote about their take on the Presidential election and we laughed at every single one. Same event, different perspective.
As you approach your content, always remember to look at your story from all sides and tell the story that is most interesting to you. When you can learn how to be unabashedly yourself and produce your own special take on a story — that is when you will have nailed the content game.
Originally published at www.huffingtonpost.com on February 9, 2017.
Originally published at medium.com