Design guidelines

Presented by Kai Turner – 08 January 2012

How to curate a brand community

Why Storify?

Own your brand conversationStorify makes it quick and easy to consolidate user generated content about your brand (across multiple channels) – and publish it centrally.

Discussions in contextWhereas discussion on Twitter and other social media forums can be fragmented and fleeting, Storify allows you to put everything in context.

Many media outlets already see the value in using Storify as a news channel.

We believe there is a great opportunity for brands to follow suit and begin using the service to curate their online community discussion.

Multiple channels, one conversation

Curation made easyStorify allows you to consolidate conversations across multiple channels and republish a single ‘story’ on the main website, as well as reposting to your company blog.

How?These design guidelines will walk you through a typical workflow.

Track notable conversations

Keep ‘favorites’As part of your social media engagement plan, keep track of important conversations – especially regarding topics that capture the attention and interest of your online community.

Tell a storyRather than just posting a collection of your favourite tweets– pay attention to themes which you can use to find an overarching narrative thread linking the various comments together.

This is where your insight and expertise as the brand curator can add value.

On YouTube

On Twitter

Build the story

First, choose a hero imageAvoid the generic default banner by choosing a lead image to represent your story.

Make sure you choose a larger image (at least 502px wide) so that when it fills the banners on the homepage or the listing page it will not be enlarged and blurred.

Use a variety of content

Make it visually richAlternate between tweets, videos and images to keep the story visually rich and interesting.

Provide more contextIn addition to quoting a selection of comments, search for and include additional content related to the discussion.

For example, did a fan comment about a recent advert? Add the comment from Twitter and then follow it with a YouTube video of the advert.

Share the story

Mention and give credit your fan community.Storify’s sharing feature give the option to mention the names of the contributors whose content was used in the creation of the story.

It’s an easy way to give fans of the brand an official endorsement and to encourage their continued participation.

Our summary

Get started todayWe think Storify is another useful and valuable tool in your social media arsenal.

It’s a low effort, high reward means of engaging your brand community.

We recommend that you incorporate it into your social media planning today.

Follow me on Twitter – @kaigani