Content is yesterday, storytelling is now

Content is fleeting. Storytelling is forever. Experiences of connecting with things made by humans for humans are the way forward.

Courtney Love said it best:

“What the hell is content? Nobody buys content.”

She was talking about music, but the same holds for the written word and visuals. Audiences want experiences: experiences they can feel, that they can reach out and touch. And when it comes to editorials, sponsored articles and online marketing, experiences are delivered through stories. Stories that inform audiences, that tickle them, that make them cry, that inspire them, that they want to share with friends, family, and colleagues.

Reading experiences can range from simple, informational text-on-a-page, to rich, immersive spectaculars. Each has a purpose, and caters to an audience with specific wants and needs. 

The critical thing to understand as a publisher is that — intentionally or not — you're providing a reading experience, and it's this overall experience that defines who you are to your audience. Loyal audiences engage with unique, compelling experiences, not with nondescript pieces of ‘content’.

Take stories built with Shorthand. When we call what our customers create ‘content’, we massively under-sell what they do. While Shorthand has simplified and expedited the creation of compelling reading experiences, the results are far removed from characterless commodity content. Our customers are first and foremost storytellers, and the product (and services) we provide are geared to that. 

Their stories may be debated, complimented or decried, but they never go unnoticed, even by their competition:

A Sunday Mirror deputy editor congratulates The Telegraph on a story it created with Shorthand.

Experiences in a changing world

There are those in the industry who hooked their future to the creation and sale of content; they are now realising that content is faceless, impersonal and commoditised, and that the way forward is creating rich experiences through storytelling.

A storytelling renaissance is being driven by changing news economics and audience reading habits, as well as the recognition that building and maintaining the trust of your audience has never been more important.

Much of the fast-paced media of the past decade has come unstuck. The priority to push shallow content over harder, deeper journalism has left entire nations uninformed, caught off guard and asking ‘what the hell just happened?’

A re-emergence of careful, in-depth storytelling is moving into the mainstream as audiences experience these rich stories. The proof is in the pudding: across many millions of page views, and dozens of use cases from editorials to online marketing, the average time-on-page for Shorthand stories is 17 minutes.

A redditor nails it: beautiful, thoughtful design creates an experience that leads to stories actually being read, shared and talked about. This was a comment in response to a Shorthand story that ‘went viral’ on Reddit.

Content is tired. Storytelling is awake and ready for the next adventure.

The original version of this article was published in 2016.