Writing For Influencer Marketing

Demand gen is utterly broken. It's overly complicated & lacks the soul and creativity that consumers deserve. I promise there's a better way. Here's the 3-pronged content engine we're building for companies at storyarb: Principles: - Treat your content as the product, not as marketing for another product - Unique insights + Unique voice + Unique packaging = Unique content - Pick topics that make your Market of 1 better at their job Channels: 1) Deeply researched long-form content Purpose: create data-driven OR interview-based website content that is deep enough & insightful enough such that a reader feels the need to bookmark & reference later. Good examples: Lenny Rachitsky: "How the biggest consumer apps got first 1,000 users" - Lenny interviewed hundreds of founders, identified patterns, and broke down the seven strategies consumer apps used to grow. Carta: "State of Private Markets: Q3 2024" Report - Using tons of internal funding data by Carta customers to pull together trends in startup funding for the quarter. HubSpot: "My First Million's Business Idea Database" - Aggregating & organizing 57 startup ideas shared by past MFM podcast guests into an e-mail gated database 2) Editorial email newsletter Purpose: create the best industry read for your market of 1 that allows you to build an owned audience of current/future customers. Good examples: - Content Examined by Alex Garcia: the best read for consumer content marketers, which acts as a perfect nurturing tool for his community, course, and agency - Big Desk Energy by Tyler Denk 🐝: a window into building a high-growth startup as it's happening by the founder of beehiiv - Exploding Topics: a snapshot of 4 emerging trends (based on google search data) that founders & investors should be aware of. 3) Personal brand social content Purpose: allow your market of 1 to build a parasocial relationship with your company through 1-4 personalities (execs, founders, etc) who enable connection with your faceless brand. Good examples: - Adam Robinson: fully transparent monthly breakdowns of his companies' (Retention.com & RB2B) performance with lessons learned & plans to fix key issues - Peter Walker: Head of Insights at Carta uses first party data from the company to share unique startup ecosystem trends + his own POV - Kieran Flanagan: AI & GTM expert who shares deep marketing insights, playbooks, and predictions that help build his & HubSpot's brand If you want help building this 3-pronged engine at your company, shoot me a DM or email at alex@storyarb[.]com.

My team at IMPACT has dissected over 20,000 blog articles from our clients across the past decade, and this year, we've drawn a line in the sand: 👉 In 2025, every single piece of content MUST include a personal or company story. No exceptions. B2B, B2C, technical documentation—I don't care what you're writing. Your content needs a story that screams, 'Real humans work here. Real experiences shape our understanding. We're not just another faceless corporation with AI churning out content.' You might wonder why we're doubling down on storytelling now. The answer is threefold: 👉 1. Google has made it crystal clear: personal experiences and stories directly impact search rankings. They're not just hunting for keywords anymore—they're searching for authenticity. Stories are a major authenticity signal. 👉 2. Your readers are hungry for connection. Consumers today are drowning in generic, soulless content, and they're desperate to see the humans behind the brand. Great storytelling achieves this goal. 👉 3. It's simply more effective communication. Our brains are wired for narratives, not bullet points. Here's the bottom line: If storytelling isn't baked into every piece of content you produce in 2025, you won't get the results you want. You won't connect at the level you need. And you won't create a brand that is built to last. So tell more stories. Tell better stories. And make story your brand advantage.

In e-com, attention is currency. Every section is either creating desire, or killing it. Note that, your PDP isn’t just a place to drop specs and photos. It’s a narrative. It’s your silent salesperson. And it has one job: Guide the user to “Add to Cart”. With zero confusion or friction. But most pages aren’t built with that level of intention. To convert, you need structure: A flow that builds trust, stacks value, and removes hesitation. Here are 7 things every product page should include to do exactly that: 1. Product badges. Quick-hit benefits that set your product apart from alternatives. Instant differentiation. 2. Short description under the title. A simple line that connects emotionally while clearly stating the product’s value. 3. Badge on the product image. A visual trust-builder — signals confidence, popularity, or social proof at a glance. 4. Bullet-point benefits below the image. Short. Clear. Relatable. Show how the product fits into their life and improves it. 5. Upsell section. Encourage multi-buy with a clear value incentive. Especially powerful in food & beverage. 6. Accordions for deeper info. Some scan. Some dive deep. Accordions serve both. Use them to reduce overwhelm. 7. How-to-use video or visuals. Help them visualize usage and how the product fits into their life. When you get this right: → Users scroll with curiosity, not hesitation → The value builds as they move down the page → And when they see the CTA, it feels like a no-brainer Clean is good. Clean and strategic is better. Because the best product pages don’t just look good, they convert. Which one are you building for? Found this helpful? Let me know in the comments.

The Power of Authentic Storytelling in Leadership In a world where AI can generate content in seconds, authenticity has never been more valuable. People crave connection, and nothing fosters it more than real, lived experiences. This is why authentic storytelling is a critical skill for leaders—it builds trust, inspires action, and creates a culture of belonging. Why Does Authentic Storytelling Matter? ✔ People connect with stories, not just strategies. Facts inform, but stories transform. A leader who shares their journey—failures, lessons, and resilience—creates a powerful emotional connection. ✔ Authenticity fosters trust. In an era of skepticism, transparency is a differentiator. When leaders share genuine experiences, they invite others to do the same, strengthening workplace culture. ✔ It drives impact. Employees, customers, and stakeholders don’t just follow visions; they follow people. A compelling, authentic story can mobilize teams, influence decision-making, and fuel innovation. How Leaders Can Master Authentic Storytelling 🔹 Be real, not rehearsed. People resonate with imperfections and vulnerability, not a polished, corporate script. 🔹 Make it relatable. Your story should bridge the gap between your experience and the audience’s challenges. 🔹 Tie it to purpose. A great story isn’t just personal—it aligns with values, mission, and vision to inspire action. The best leaders don’t just communicate; they connect. They don’t just inform; they inspire. Authentic storytelling is a leadership superpower. How have you seen authentic storytelling impact leadership? Let’s discuss. 👇 #Leadership #Storytelling #Authenticity #Inspiration

Advertising must prioritise feelings over facts and messages New research: Emotion supercharges strategy About two years ago, I heard JCDecaux Australia had been collecting in-market brand and conversion data for hundreds of their outdoor campaigns. This is very rare data comparing the behaviour of those exposed and not exposed to out-of-home advertising. Over the past 6 months, we've tested all the campaigns with System1's Test Your Ad. Measuring the branded emotional response to the creative from tens of thousands of "normal consumers". I'll be sharing the full research (7 evidence-based creative principles for outdoor) soon but it struck me that one of the key findings reconfirms a truth about advertising. JCDecaux track the in-market lift for key brand associations. That's the stuff that will change brand image, salience and behaviour. Linking this to the System1 data shows something powerful about how advertising works. 1. In 2002, the peer-reviewed research 'The Power of Affect: Predicting Intention' showed that emotion explained brand purchase intent TWICE as effectively as rational facts and messages. A great start, but purchase intent is inherently flawed. 2. In 2012, Orlando Wood published 'How Emotional Tugs Trump Rational Pushes' in the Journal of Advertising Research. He brought more robustness to emotion in advertising, using the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) databank to show ads that elicited more positive emotion went on to produce more business effects. Unlike other rational types of ad testing. 3. In 2025, this new research helps explain it. Neutral and negative emotions have a negative relationship with in-market brand association lifts. Surprise and happiness have a positive relationship. This comes down to two simple facts. You remember more in a heightened emotional state. And the Affect Heuristic, something is more likely to be recalled and trusted if it feels good. Mental shortcuts we've developed as humans to not have to waste energy deciding if things are going to kill us. Does this mean strategy is useless? Let's put some smiley dogs in our ads and things are going to be ok? No. Strategy's role is working out which associations are going to change behaviour in the market (which will lead to profit), who the target is and how to leave them feeling great through which channels, and working out how to do this consistently over many years in a way that is disntinctly your brand to drive familarity and disntictiveness. I've linked the two journal articles in the comments, or comment below, and I'll make sure you get our new outdoor creative playbook first. I share #advertising and #marketing insights daily, follow for more.

🌎 Designing Cross-Cultural and Multi-Lingual UX. Guidelines on how to stress test our designs, how to define a localization strategy and how to deal with currencies, dates, word order, pluralization, colors and gender pronouns. ⦿ Translation: “We adapt our message to resonate in other markets”. ⦿ Localization: “We adapt user experience to local expectations”. ⦿ Internationalization: “We adapt our codebase to work in other markets”. ✅ English-language users make up about 26% of users. ✅ Top written languages: Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese. ✅ Most users prefer content in their native language(s). ✅ French texts are on average 20% longer than English ones. ✅ Japanese texts are on average 30–60% shorter. 🚫 Flags aren’t languages: avoid them for language selection. 🚫 Language direction ≠ design direction (“F” vs. Zig-Zag pattern). 🚫 Not everybody has first/middle names: “Full name” is better. ✅ Always reserve at least 30% room for longer translations. ✅ Stress test your UI for translation with pseudolocalization. ✅ Plan for line wrap, truncation, very short and very long labels. ✅ Adjust numbers, dates, times, formats, units, addresses. ✅ Adjust currency, spelling, input masks, placeholders. When localizing an interface, we need to work beyond translation. We need to be respectful of cultural differences. E.g. in Arabic we would often need to increase the spacing between lines. For Chinese market, we need to increase the density of information. German sites require a vast amount of detail to communicate that a topic is well-thought-out. Stress test your design. Avoid assumptions. Work with local content designers. Spend time in the country to better understand the market. Have local help on the ground. And test repeatedly with local users as an ongoing part of the design process. You’ll be surprised by some findings, but you’ll also learn to adapt and scale to be effective — whatever market is going to come up next. Useful resources: A Complete Guide To UX Localization, by Michal Kessel Shitrit 🎗️ https://lnkd.in/eaQJt-bU Localization Playbook For Product Teams (PDF), by Phrase https://lnkd.in/egncG8ph UX Localization Handbook, by Phrase https://lnkd.in/eKN7usSA UX Design Across Different Cultures, by Jenny Shen https://lnkd.in/eNiyVqiH Internationalization 101: How To Take Your Product Global, by 🇺🇦 Galina Ryzhenko https://lnkd.in/eZ8G9JH4 IBM Globalization Checklists https://lnkd.in/e9jvCufY ✤ Books: ⦿ The Culture Map, by Erin Meyer ⦿ Cross-Cultural Design, by Senongo Akpem ⦿ The Language of Localization, by Kit Brown-Hoekstra ⦿ UX Writing & Microcopy, by Kinneret Yifrah #ux #design

Why narratives matter in policymaking - and what researchers can learn from them As a qualitative researcher, I’ve always believed in the power of storytelling to make sense of complexity. In Narratives as tools for influencing policy change, Crow and Jones offer a useful framework for understanding the power of narratives for policymaking. The article outlines two common traps in policy communication: 🔷  The knowledge fallacy – the assumption that facts alone persuade 🔷  The empathy fallacy – the belief that authentic stories naturally evoke universal empathy Both overlook a crucial truth: people interpret information through the lens of their values, beliefs, and emotions. The authors propose a practical alternative: the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF). Rather than relying on instinct or anecdote, the NPF offers a systematic approach to understanding and constructing policy narratives. It identifies the key ingredients that appear across effective storytelling: 👉 Setting: the policy environment, including the social, legal, and institutional context 👉 Characters: heroes, villains, and victims who give the narrative moral texture 👉 Plot: the sequence of events linking causes and consequences, explaining how problems emerged 👉 Moral: the point of the story, often conveyed as a policy recommendation or call to action The strength of this framework lies in its applicability. It can be used by: 🔶 Researchers aiming to study how narratives shape policy debates 🔶 Practitioners seeking to frame issues in a way that resonates with specific audiences Crow and Jones also highlight where narratives can be used to influence policy: from defining problems and engaging with media, to shaping policy briefings and public consultations. This piece is a useful reminder that effective communication isn’t just about evidence or emotion- it’s about how we tell the story. #Policy #Storytelling #PublicPolicy #ResearchImpact

The wider you cast, the thinner your messages reach. With multiple channels available today, the temptation to advertise everywhere is massive. But that’s a spreading thin strategy, and it rarely works. To make any media effective, there’s a minimum threshold of activity and spend required. If you spread yourself too thin, you might not meet this threshold, and your efforts won’t yield results. Secondly, focusing on select channels with specific messaging allows you to reach your audience efficiently. Today, digital media enables you to target diverse customer cohorts on the same platform while customizing creatives for each group. Let me share an example from nearly a decade ago when I was with Reliance Vision Express, and social media ads were relatively new. We ran a campaign to create awareness about potential vision issues, urging people to book eye tests. The creative approach was simple: two visuals of the same image—one blurred and one clear—showing the difference good vision can make. Our target audience was aged 28-40, and we divided them into interest-based cohorts: - Food lovers saw cupcakes and pizzas. - Travel enthusiasts saw beaches and mountains. And so on. Needless to say the campaign was succesful & effective. So, before planning your next campaign, ask yourself: 1️⃣ Who is your audience? 2️⃣ Where are they most active? 3️⃣ How can you craft tailored messaging to engage them? When it comes to advertising, focus always beats being everywhere. What campaigns have you run that focused on specific channels or target groups? Do share examples from your activities. #marketing #startup #targetaudience

📌 10 ways to add a unique angle to your blog post (so it ranks)—outside of SME inputs (All of these are derived from my real-life editing experience) 🌻 Data, but make sure to contextualize the heck out of it. For example, absolute industry size may be irrelevant to me, but the trends—whether it's growing or shrinking—may help me make a business decision 🌻 Examples that support your POV, when you have a dry, theoretical topic (like leadership theories). I may not understand what laissez-faire leadership is via its definition alone, but I may aspire to be a laissez-faire leader when you tell me Steve Jobs was one 🌻 Niche examples that resonate with your audience. If writing for developers, reference debugging rather than general problem-solving (ClickUp is great at this) 🌻 Personal storytelling that transforms abstract concepts into visceral, memorable narratives. Instead of just explaining the Pomodoro rule, share how it helped you overcome a seemingly insurmountable professional challenge (A lot of writers on Medium use this approach) 🌻 Counterintuitive insights that challenge conventional wisdom, making readers pause and reconsider their existing assumptions about a topic. The more you can surprise and provoke thoughtful reflection, the more likely your content will stick (Check out Y Combinator founder, Paul Graham's blog)) 🌻 Visual breakdowns for complex ideas. Create infographics or diagrams to simplify dense concepts into digestible visuals—even a TL;DR block or a comparison table for tools counts (Finshots does it well) 🌻 Humor or personality to make it fun. A touch of lightheartedness can make even technical topics more engaging (Looking at you, Buffer) 🌻 Historical comparisons to provide depth. Show how past events or trends relate to your topic today. Conversely, predictive analysis that doesn't just describe the current state, but offers sophisticated forecasting about where trends, technologies, or professional practices are heading 🌻 Case studies to demonstrate real-world applications. Walk readers through a specific example to ground your ideas in reality (ClickUp does this well too) 🌻 FAQs that provide extra nuggets of knowledge and more than satisfy the exact search intent What else would you add to this list? Did I miss something obvious? Let me know in the comments! #mishkawrites #writing #editing #writer #editor #blogwriting

The content that could change everything? It’s already in your head. When I started creating content on LinkedIn, I’d spend hours thinking: • What should I post today? • Is this idea good enough? • What if it doesn’t get engagement? The problem? I was looking everywhere except the most obvious place - my own experiences. Here’s how you can pull content ideas straight from your mind: 1: Ask yourself the right questions: • What helped my customers the most? • What mistakes have I learned from? • What frustrations do my clients face? • What skills can I showcase? 2: Pick one skill. Let’s say it’s copywriting. 3: Break it down into simple topics: • How to format text for easy reading • Writing content that actually converts • Mistakes I made when I started copywriting 4: Turn one topic into 3 content ideas: • A personal story → “In 2023, my copy converted TWO clients.” • A skill-based post → “How I write content that converts clients.” • A case study → “How my client signed 3 deals with my content strategy.” That’s just from ONE topic. Think about all the ideas you already have. You don’t need Google. You don’t need AI. You just need to trust your own experiences. So, what’s the ONE topic you’ve been overthinking? #ContentCreation #PersonalBranding #LinkedInGrowth #ContentStrategy