Content is Yesterday,
Storytelling is Now

Courtney Love said it best:

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 editorial, sponsored articles and online marketing, experiences are delivered through stories. Stories that inform them, 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 is that, as a publisher, you're providing a reading experience, whether it's been designed purposefully or not, and it's this overall experience that defines you.

Take Shorthand stories, as an example. To call what our customers create "content" is to massively under-appreciate what they do. Our customers are first and foremost storytellers, and the product (and services) we provide are geared to that. While Shorthand has simplified and expedited the creation of compelling reading experiences, the results are far removed from characterless commodity content.

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

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

Here's a small selection of stories from 2016 that embraced visual storytelling. Click the links in the captions to visit each story on the publishers' respective websites.

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

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, is driving a storytelling renaissance.

2016 has been a year in which the fast media of the previous decade has come unstuck. Where 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?"

2017 will see a re-emergence of careful, in-depth storytelling, and the creation of rich experiences to convey those stories will become mainstream. It's what audiences want: right now the average time-on-page for Shorthand stories across many millions of pageviews, for editorial, sponsored stories and online marketing, 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.

If you're a storyteller and you're not already familiar with Shorthand, please visit our homepage; you won't be disappointed. I'm @rickyrobinson on Twitter or you can reach me by email at ricky@shorthand.com.