To tell a multifaceted story, it makes sense to use multiple platforms. But the more different media and platforms you use, the harder it can be to measure what effect your story had on your intended audience.

Jessica Clark, media strategist with the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR), has learned to measure story impact through her work on interactive projects like Localore, which blends on-air, screen and street media stories.

Clark offered advice for measuring impact atStoriesLab, a recent event in Washington dedicated to innovative storytelling organized by Pride Collaborative and the Center for Social Media. IJNet attended and had these takeaways:

• Find the “beating heart of your project.” What makes people excited about your topic and what inspires people to interact? Ask yourself, “So what?” or “Why does this story matter?”

• Think about impact and set specific goals from the beginning. Think strategically and in concrete terms about your design. What platforms will you use to carry this out, and who is your audience? “How are you going to engage your audiences early and often?” Clark asked. You can reflect on these goals during the evaluation phase at the end of your project.

• Impact isn’t always measured in numbers. The type of impact you seek will differ depending on the project. While you may need to draw a certain number of website visitors with certain stories, other projects may have audience engagement as their primary goal. Clark suggests keeping “what constitutes success and how you’re going to tell that story over time” at the forefront.

• Prototype your project. Prototyping means creating a rough draft of what your project will look like, before you get started. It often only takes a pen and paper. “If you’re not prototyping, you’re not learning,” Clark said. Once you create the project and start evaluating its effectiveness, don’t hesitate to make changes to your original concept based on what works — and what doesn’t.

Check out Pride Collaborative’s Storify rundown of the event. You can also read Clark’s report “Designing for Impact,” available here.

*This story was originally published at: http://ijnet.org/blog/measuring-storys-impact-across-multiple-platforms

“Go where your audience is and fashion a story you believe will engage them.”

Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking at the first StoriesLab conference at Center for Social Media at American University in Washington D.C. StoriesLab is a project of StoriesLead and co-presented by Pride Collaborative. The focus of the day was the evolution of storytelling across multiple media platforms. And it was one of the most energetic conferences I’ve attended in a while.

Often, I find myself at conventions or conferences, and I rarely get an opportunity to meet other participants or engage in the work, itself. StoriesLab shattered that paradigm by offering not one, not two, but three interactive working sessions to help its attendees understand this unwieldy notion of multi-platform storytelling.

Dan Sonnett, owner of Sonnett Media Group, LLC, kicked off the day talking about the evolution of story. Starting at the very beginning with cave paintings and ending with his own work, including Half the Sky, the online extension of journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s book of the same name Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, Dan chronicled how stories have changed over time. His work was a solid introduction on how to spread a narrative that started in a book into other forms like games and interactive websites.

I spoke next about transmedia and audience engagement. After sharing my project,NY_Hearts, to offer context for how one might create a multi-platform story, I joked that we would be tackling the hundreds of social media networks that exist, starting with the yellow (on the color wheel at left) and working our way all the way around.

Attendees looked at me like the man in the middle of the color wheel, and I reassured them, “No, that’s not what we were going to do.”

Instead, I gave a brief overview of Holistic Storytelling, creating narratives that include only the social platforms their organization uses, and maximizing their potential by using each for its unique voice instead of broadcasting the same message over all their platforms:

“Buy your tix here! Only $25!”
“Buy your tix here! Only $25!”
“Buy your tix here! Only $25!”

It’s repetitive. And boring.

To energize and engage the attendees, we went into a working session where I put four giant white sticky pages up to represent our story, and each platform: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and live events. We chose a company with which we were all familiar, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. After brainstorming story ideas, we picked an obvious but easy-to-work-with theme: Join us on our circus adventure! Twitter became a “Ringmaster” who shared exciting deals and served as an information hub. We imagined a Facebook app that allows people to transform photos of friends and family into circus performers. YouTube became a place for “how-to” videos for making towel animals (led by a clown, no less). The videos would encourage its audience to go Vine, Twitter’s new six second video app, and share their own inventive towel animals. Finally, there was a beach ball scavenger hunt in which beach balls would be placed around Miami for people to find clues to the next, fun location. It all ended with a live circus on the docks in front of a Royal Caribbean Cruise ship.

All that in 20 minutes.

It was fun, invigorating, and it gave attendees an opportunity to see how a mulit-platform story might work for their own projects. After the exercise, attendees asked great questions – the most prevalent was: How do we do this on our own for little or no money? My answer: Do what you can. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the massive mounds of media these days, and first and foremost, we must fish where there are fish. Go where your audience is and fashion a story you believe will engage them. And then break it up into parts that are manageable.

My work session served as a launch pad for the next presenters, Aina Abiodun and Mike Knowlton from StoryCode. In their workshop, Mike and Aina created a mini story hackathon. We had just brainstormed and talked about how to engage audience for a big company, like Royal Caribbean. This was an opportunity to create a native story for new platforms that were more unfamiliar, like Social Samba, which allows creators to write a story that plays out over social media over a period of time. Attendees were instructed to tell a love story, and the teams came up with some super ideas – frogs, dogs and senior citizens all have amazing love tales, and StoriesLab attendees pitched them all in two minute presentations. In the end, the dogs prevailed, and the winning team was the first to eat lunch.

After lunch, Jessica Clark, a media strategist at AIR, led a workshop about measuring the impact of cross media projects. Jessica used examples from Localore, an AIR project that birthed an inspiring array of “full spectrum” media formats and talked about measuring impact, from conception through evaluation, for cross-media projects. Things really got going when Jessica brought attendees with nascent projects – everything from concept ideas to projects with business plans – to the front of the room to elevator pitch their ideas and get feedback from the rest of the attendees. It was super helpful, and put the perfect period on a big day of work by redirecting the conversation back to the attendees’ own projects.

Felicia Pride, Pride Collaborative, and the Center for Social Media should be commended for offering a real workshop day that introduced multi-platform storytelling to a new swath of entrepreneurs and creators. The opportunity to play and teach (as well as learning some new tidbits, myself) warmed my heart and brought a smile to my face. I encouraged attendees to fearlessly make the work they want to make. The energy we generated at American University shouldn’t stay there. It should inspire us every day.

I’m tired of talking. Let’s learn while we make fun stories.

James Carter is a dramatist, experience designer and producer. He was a founding member of terraNOVA Collective and its associate artistic director for eight years. He also served as season producer for The Ensemble Studio Theatre. Recent transmedia plays include FEEDER: A Love Story (terraNOVA/HERE, NYC) and NY_Hearts: LES (One Muse Presents & The Brick Game Play Festival) a site-specific audio story that guides participants on a journey through New York neighborhoods. Follow him on Twitter @jdcarter.

*This story was originally published at: http://namac.org/idea-exchange/arts-engage-storieslab-digital-storytelling-media-platforms-impact-engagement

While we know that storytelling isn’t new, using it strategically isn’t necessarily something we consider in our engagement efforts.

Even if we’re not consciously telling a story—one that’s well-crafted and propels our mission forward—we’re still telling a story. And more often than not, because of the busy day-to-day that we encounter in today’s landscape, that story isn’t strategic, but rather, disjointed, confusing, and inconsistent.

But when we do consciously tell a well-crafted story, the benefits are immense: increased engagement with stakeholders, funders, supporters, and community members; increased publicity and visibility; increased exposure and connection with causes, and more.

This past Saturday, PC hit the road and trekked up to the Empire State to attend the day-long interactive event at The New School and, we have to say, from start to finish we were completely enthralled. Not only did we get a chance to experience the event first-hand, but we also were thrilled to document in a real-time Storify as editorial producers.

The event’s “learn. do. share.” motto truly reverberated throughout the entire day. After a quick registration, the kick-off was a dynamic series of keynote speakers who each spoke to attendees collectively about their awesome projects. Every presentation was uniquely punctuated by a brief open mic intermission where participants got the chance to address to the listening audience of creators what we were working on and what we needed.

Following an hour break for lunch at midday, the afternoon sessions gave attendees the opportunity to get our hands dirty. We were able to meander throughout the building to various workshops where we got to delve into a variety of undertakings that challenged our creativity and encouraged us to think outside the box. Activities were both clever and engaging, from a creative financing exercise centered around the concept of a “gift economy” with the Knowledge Network workshop led by Arin Crumley to a collaborative challenge to create a transmedia storytelling world in just 60 minutes with Ele Jansen’s StorySprint.

We have to say that hands-down one of our favorite workshop experiences that day had to be the remarkable rendering that was My Sky is Falling (MSiF). A project of Reboot Stories, the MSiF experience was a simulation that harnessed technology and story to create empathy for the challenges faced by foster care children. Guided by immersive performances and sensor technologies, participants took part in a dystopian sci-fi tale, but the ending revealed how MSiF was actually rooted in true life experiences of foster care.

The conference wrap-up gave attendees a real-time case study of that day’s MSiF experience. The Harmony Institute’s data researchers took a look at the balance between emotion, empathy, and data from MSiF participants from the day.

Project collaborators including filmmaker Lydia Joyner, upon which whose foster care experiences that day’s simulation was based, the foster care-geared NGO, Orange Duffel Bag and, diy days moderator Lance Weiler, among others, concluded the day posing a takeaway challenge to participants. They issued a call to action beseeching us to take part in a proposed solution that aids young adults in transitioning as they age out of the foster care system.

This final appeal was a truly ruminative way to end the jam-packed day of creative exploration. It surely left attendees in a reflective mode hopefully considering ways in which we could steer some of our own creative ventures toward causes that provide a positive societal impact. We know we’re bursting at the seams with all the creative inspiration that we took away from diy days and can’t wait to put all our thoughts into action!

-Jessica Fenney, content manager, pride collaborative

I started out in book publishing, pre-Kindle. My life’s dream: change the world one book at a time as an independent book publisher.

That aspiration shifted as things started to change in my beloved industry, including the nature of what a book could be. I realized that my ultimate attraction was story, not merely format. I began teaching around the same time and in recognizing the three dominant learning styles — visual, auditory, and kinesthetic — it became clear why some people wanted to consume stories on a big screen, some on a small screen. Some people wanted to hear their stories and others wanted to directly participate. I became open to the possibilities of story and how it can be used to reach people.

My agency Pride Collaborative focuses exactly on that — using strategic storytelling to help organizationsdeepen their relationships with communities and audiences. By using strategic storytelling as our foundation, we’re able to create campaigns and media projects that focus on genuine relationship building, achieve specific goals and that utilize a range of activities including narrative development, content creation, digital media making, and live experiences.

The image to the right is from the Me @ 30 campaign. In conjunction with NCNW, we co-created Me @ 30, to effectively engage Black college students around HIV/AIDS. Through a content-based, youth-centered hybrid campaign, we encourage college students to think about where they want to be at 30, and how their choices will influence their journey there. For this campaign, as for all of our campaigns, we combined digital media and traditional engagement strategies; we used video, social media, web, event programming, and a street team to engage our target audience.

Storytelling is getting a lot of attention these days and rightfully so. We are all storytellers. It is one of the most effective ways that we communicate with one another. Consider the past week alone: how many stories have you told friends, family, or coworkers?

In my young storytelling days, we didn’t have terms and tools like transmedia or Zeega. Technology has changed the way in which our stories are collected, shared, and measured.

But with great power, comes great responsibility.

The most innovative and effective storytelling adheres to traditional techniques; the core of what makes a good story is not sacrificed for the sake of technology or novelty.

On May 4 in Washington, DC, we’re hosting StoriesLab, a half-day exploration into the possibilities of story that’s co-presented with the Center for Social Media at American University. Our aim is to nurture community, and provide ideas, inspiration, resources and training, because when we consider the potential of storytelling to engage publics, it’s important to be strategic. (NOTE: NAMAC Members receive a 10% registration discount to StoriesLab with discount code NAMAC1)

So, before developing that digital story or transmedia campaign, ask the following:

What is your goal? 
Too often, storytelling and media projects are developed without a clear goal in mind beyond, “we have something to share.” Go deeper. Consider, what change do you want to make? This is also the why question. Why are we doing this? Don’t be afraid to change course if the answer isn’t sufficient.

What is the story?
What are the elements – message, plot, conflict, characters – of this story?

Who is your audience and what do you want them to do?
Specifically define your audience and consider what you want them to do after they engage with your story. Also define the role you want them to play in your story. Think: call to actions and participation.

How will you tell the story? Which tools/platforms will you use?
There are so many ways to tell a story and platforms to use, including many emerging storytelling tools that are both creative and low cost. These considerations also impact the length of your story.

How will you share this story?
Often this question is considered too late in the process or is simply answered by, “we’ll upload it on YouTube.” Or, “We’ll tweet about it.” Not good enough. Instead, think through a distribution plan.

How will you measure impact?
Measuring impact is something that should be thought about at conception. And this is a concept that Jessica Clark, AIR media strategist and StoriesLab speaker focuses on in her work. Often, we think about impact too late or we use metrics and data that don’t align with our goals.

How will you continue the story?
If this is a discreet story project, how does it fit within your organization’s overall narrative? Connect the dots and look at the dots as ways to build, nurture and deepen relationships with stakeholders so that they are motivated to take the actions that will help your organization advance its goals.

Ever had a slight panic attack trying to figure out the best way to tell your organization’s story across multiple media platforms?

Well, experience designer playwright, transmedia producer & creator of NY_Hearts, James Carter, wants to demystify the often daunting task of online engagement.

At StoriesLab, he will share techniques you can employ that will make telling the story of your organization or project an undertaking that you won’t hyperventilate at the thought of. James will talk about his creative work and present case studies about how to adequately utilize transmedia storytelling as a tool for audience engagement.

Here’s part of an article that James recently wrote for ArtsFwd, where he serves as a fellow.

What’s the Value of Transmedia Storytelling for Organizations?

Transmedia is the art of sharing a narrative over multiple media platforms (print, online, stage, film, social networks), where unique content is delivered through each platform. For example, Fringe, the hit television show, used transmedia to expand its storyworld and reward its biggest fans. To learn more about how Fringe used transmedia, read my case study about the multiple platforms implemented over the show’s five seasons.

Though arts organizations are different than television programs, I believe it is increasingly imperative that arts organizations employ transmedia thinking as a way to expand a story over multiple media platforms. Almost every company has a Facebook page, a Twitter feed and a YouTube channel. What’s missing is cohesiveness and interconnections of story between each unique platform. Companies often post the same updates to all their social sites without considering that each platform offers a distinct voice and storytelling opportunities.

I’ve previously written about how I imagine theater artists embracing transmedia, but it’s my growing opinion that arts organizations should also integrate transmedia strategy with traditional marketing plans to tell their story because it has the power to create an identity that is more authentic and engaging (and fun!) for your community.

What story are you telling?

Organizations should begin each season asking: What story are we telling this year? Once you choose the story, look for ways each platform can feed the overarching narrative that celebrates your special season.

Read the entire article. 

Want more story goodness like this? Register for StoriesLab.

The Center showcases and analyzes media for public knowledge and action—media made by, for, and with publics to address the problems that they share. They pay particular attention to the evolution of documentary film and video in a digital era. With research, public events, and convenings, they explore the fast-changing environment for public media.

Look out for lots of great initiatives stemming from this partnership.

But up first: StoriesLab, our upcoming event on May 4 in Washington, DC is co-presented with the Center.

We’re looking forward to the future and all the goodness that’s in store.

You know that phrase, “all politics is local”? Well, while the sentiment can carry multiple interpretations, the overarching theme is that the most impact happens on the ground level.

AIR recently announced the results of a highly anticipated new initiative called Localore which echoes this very concept, applying it to public media innovation, and aligning with an overarching goal to reinvigorate local news. Jessica Clark, media strategist at AIR, and StoriesLab speaker helped to make the initiative a reality.

The recently launched Localore.net showcases the inventive projects that AIR producers have led at 10 stations across the country.

Each project takes a distinct approach to the challenge of rethinking local reporting and storytelling. From a participatory project on Bay-area making, to an immersive dive into North Dakota’s oil boom, to “authentic fiction” about dropping out in Minneapolis, to an Austin Music Map documenting hidden performance spaces, and beyond. But what unites all 10 projects is an open approach that involves communities in telling their own stories across broadcast, digital and street platforms.

If you’d like to hear about this incredible initiative directly from Jessica Clark, register for StoriesLab where she will share her expertise about measuring impact of creative, cross-platform projects.

Register for StoriesLab.