Storytelling is an effective marketing strategy for brands seeking to establish an emotional connection with their target audience. On social networks, storytelling can be particularly powerful, as it allows brands to tell their story in a visual and engaging way. In this article, we’ll discuss three ways you can use storytelling on social networks to build brand awareness.
Creating authentic content
Storytelling on social networks must be authentic to be effective. Today’s consumers are highly aware of advertising, and can quickly spot content that isn’t sincere. Brands can use storytelling to tell authentic stories about their company, culture and employees. By sharing this type of content, brands can humanize their brand image and build trust with their audience.
Using images and videos
Images and videos are powerful tools for telling a story on social networks. Brands can use images to tell visual stories that capture the essence of their business and culture. Videos can also be used to tell longer, more complex stories. Brands can use videos to tell stories about their products, history or mission. Videos can also be used to tell stories about the brand’s customers and their experience with products or services.
Sharing inspiring stories
Inspirational stories are a great way to capture your audience’s attention on social networks. Brands can share inspiring stories about people or organizations who have been positively affected by their product or service. Brands can also share inspiring stories about their employees and their community involvement. By sharing inspiring stories, brands can reinforce their credibility and reputation with their audience.
Conclusion
Storytelling is a key element of any successful social network marketing strategy. Brands that use storytelling can strengthen the emotional connection with their audience and boost their brand awareness and credibility. Using these methods, brands can create a strong, lasting brand image that resonates with their audience.
In the world of strategic marketing, we use a lot of technical terms, and sometimes it’s hard to get your head around them when you’re just starting out. So what is “evergreen” content? And why is it important to create this type of content as part of your digital strategy?
What is evergreen content?
Evergreen content is a type of content that is not dependent on current events and remains relevant over time: it is timeless. The audience will always be able to find information in it that is interesting, regardless of whether they view it when it comes out, or 5 years later.
Why should you create evergreen content?
Evergreen content is a real tool for your brand, your marketing strategy and your digital strategy. It brings many benefits, and should be the foundation of your content marketing strategy.
Here are the major benefits of evergreen content in your strategy:
Assert your expertise: offering high value-added and timeless content will allow you to have an expert image with your customers and prospects.
Improve your SEO: your cold content is more efficient to improve your SEO, because it will still attract readers, even after months of online publishing, and is generally more qualitative and longer than hot content.
Optimize content creation: on the one hand, you will need less time to make sure your content is updated, and on the other hand it will also allow you to recycle it several times and in various formats.
Attract a qualified audience: your cold content will ensure you a qualified audience, because it is typically informative content, with high added value and which gives confidence in your brand.
As you can see, these are very important benefits. You should definitely include evergreen content in your content marketing strategy to optimize it.
Examples of evergreen content for your brand
Since it is now clear that evergreen content is very important for your brand, here are some examples of content to create:
FAQs: answer the questions most frequently asked by your customers and prospects.
Tutorials: explain how to use your product.
White papers: show your expertise on a specific topic.
Case studies: demonstrate the usefulness of your product from your customers’ perspective
Infographics: Put useful information in an easily shareable and saveable format.
“How-to” blog posts: Inform your audience about best practices and key topics in your industry.
You can adapt this list as you wish: make tutorials in the form of videos or guides, for example. Offer a live Q&A and repost the replay so it’s always available. And much more! Just make sure your content is useful and will remain timeless by sticking to your brand and its identity as much as possible.
In conclusion, it’s important for your brand to create evergreen content, whether it’s to fortify your brand image, establish your expertise or improve your SEO.
However, content discussing hot topics should not be totally eliminated from your content marketing strategy. Company news, such as the arrival of a new product on the market, or the organization of an event, is an opportunity to create content that helps connect your audience to your brand.
In this idea, Calameo is your best asset for the online publishing, distribution and statistical follow-up of all your contents. Test the extent of our professional and innovative digital publishing offer now with our 15-day free trial. Request your free trial of Calaméo PLATINUM by clicking here.
You can’t have missed it: in graphic design, the color blue is everywhere. It’s even the most popular color for logos! So, from turquoise to sapphire, cobalt to azure, let’s investigate why blue is so ubiquitous.
Here is a quick summary of the themes that we will cover in this article:
Let’s start with an accurate definition of the color blue.
Blue: a simple primary color?
As we learned early on at school: blue is a primary color. However, it’s not quite that simple. In the additive color model (or RGB for Red, Green, Blue), which is used to define the colors diffused on our screens on websites and digital communications, blue is indeed a primary color. Yet for printed materials, the primary blue shade used is actually a cyan tint (blue-green). The printing industry uses the subtractive color model, or CMYK for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black.
The many hues of blue
Blue is a chromatic color, composed of hundreds of shades between green and violet.
Although blue is considered a cool color (as opposed to a warm red), shades of blue can be warmer or cooler depending on their undertones. The undertones are the secondary colors that are mixed with your blue: a little green will give you a peacock blue or teal, for example.
In addition, saturation also plays an important role: from a dull hue (blue-gray) to a vibrant hue (electric blue).
Finally, brightness will also determine your shade of blue: from a deep, dark shade like midnight blue, to a light shade like sky blue.
So, if you used to say that blue was your favorite color, you can now be more precise! As we have just seen, the range of blue is very wide. You probably have a preference between navy blue, pastel blue and electric blue!
💡TIP: The choice is yours! Be creative when choosing a shade of blue, don’t use a shade that is too close to your competitors’.
Blue and civilizations: history and perceptions
Now that we have defined the color blue, let’s begin to answer our question about the ubiquity of this color in graphic design by focusing on its history and its relationship to past and present civilizations.
A short history of the color blue
The birth of “blue”
This may surprise you, but blue was only born in the Middle Ages. Before that, neither its name nor its concept had been defined. In other words, blue was not a notion that existed at that time for human beings. However, this does not mean that there were no blue objects, just that blue was not considered a color in its own right. Anything blue was described with the colors that existed at the time. It’s very difficult to conceive of in this day and age!
A history of pigments
Blue is rarely found in nature, and natural blue pigments are therefore scarce. As a matter of fact, the only natural blue pigments come from indigo (a plant), pastel (a plant) and lapis lazuli (a mineral).
Civilizations quickly learned how to create synthetic blue pigments. The first of these was invented by the Egyptians in ancient times, called Egyptian blue. Prussian blue, Cobalt blue and Phthalocyanine blue are some other examples of synthetic blue pigments.
It is interesting to note that although blue did not yet have a name, human beings already seemed to be fascinated by this color to the point of trying to create pigments.
Blue and perceptions
Past perceptions
Today, blue is a color that is part of our daily lives, but this was not always the case. In ancient Rome, blue was despised: it was a symbol of ridicule and even associated with barbarians.
From the Middle Ages, the color took on a divine connotation and it started to appear on many religious works of art. It then became the color of the monarchy (of divine rights) a little later.
Finally, in the 20th century, all of humanity embraced the color blue when blue jeans came into fashion.
Current perceptions
As we have seen, depending on the era or culture, the feelings and connotations associated with certain colors can vary. Let’s take a look at current perceptions around the color blue.
In English, we say “feeling blue” to describe feelings of depression, but when we have “blue skies ahead” it means that we are optimistic about the future. In French, “être fleur bleue” means to be romantic or sentimental, and “avoir une peur bleue” means scared to death! So, blue can evoke several disparate images depending on the language.
Here are a few examples of different perceptions associated with the color blue:
Current universal perceptions
confidence
security
eternity
calm
peace
freedom
nostalgia
Specific cultural perceptions
nobility, royalty: royal blue, to have “blue blood”
workers: “blue collar” laborers, as opposed to “white collar” office workers
💡TIP: Although the feelings commonly associated with the color blue are calm and confidence, it is always a good idea to check the perception of each hue you plan to use in your communications against your target audience and their culture.
Blue in art
We couldn’t talk about blue in graphic design without also mentioning blue in art. Of course, graphic design draws inspiration from art! We can find blue in many works of art: from Van Gogh’s Starry Night to Hokusai’s The Great Wave to Andy Warhol’s Colored Mona Lisa.
So, while we will only cite a few interesting examples of the use of blue in art below, there are certainly many others.
The Jardin Majorelle
Have you heard of this villa and garden in Morocco, painted entirely in a special cobalt blue shade? It has become a very famous destination because it is so unique.
French painter Jacques Majorelle was inspired by Marrakesh and built a villa with its own botanical garden in the 1930s. But he did not stop there, he also created the “Majorelle blue” color and decided to paint the walls of his villa with it.
This garden has become a huge source of inspiration for artists and creatives, notably for French fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent.
💡 REMEMBER: Use blue in bold, new, unexpected, and inspiring ways.
Yves Klein: IKB blue
Let’s focus now on another inventor of blue: Yves Klein. He is the creator of IKB blue, or International Klein Blue, a shade close to ultramarine blue. He is a visual artist who used his invention, the IKB, in many works, including monochrome, meaning using only this color.
💡 REMEMBER: You can use blue as a trademark, a unique blue that makes you recognizable.
Picasso: the Blue Period
Our final example of the use of blue in art is Picasso’s Blue Period from 1901 to 1904. Deeply affected by the death of a loved one, the young painter began to paint in shades of blue to express his grief.
💡 REMEMBER: Colors can relay messages and express feelings.
Blue in graphic design and brand visual identity
After our extensive theoretical overview on the color blue, which we hope will have convinced you of its importance, let’s move on to a practical study: how do brands use blue? Plus, how to use it well in your brand identity and, by extension, in your digital publications on Calaméo.
Because blue is humankind’s favorite color, it seems obvious that using it in your designs is a good idea since it will appeal to a very large portion of your clients and prospects. In addition, there are many positive associations with this color: confidence, peace, calm. People will associate your brand with these qualities instantly.
So, just by using blue in your brand style guide, the public will have a positive perception of your brand.
For the user experience
In graphic design, it’s important to focus on the user experience and make it as pleasant as possible for everyone. Blue being the color least affected by color vision disorders, it is a good choice for your graphic design.
Examples of blue in brand style guides
To help you use blue in your visual identity and in your communications, here are some interesting examples of the use of blue in brand style guides and good ideas to inspire your creativity.
Ikea: unmistakable
How can we talk about blue in graphic design without talking about Ikea? Ikea uses two strong colors that stand out and give a unique and recognizable visual identity. It’s probably the only furniture store that you are able to recognize from afar, wherever you are in the world, thanks to its blue and yellow sign and blue exterior.
💡 REMEMBER: Partner two strong colors that contrast, such as complementary colors, for a big impact. For example: combine blue with orange or yellow tones.
These distinctive colors reflect those of the Swedish flag. This choice reinforces Ikea’s brand identity: from the names of the products to the types of dishes offered in their restaurants to their brand style guide…all of these elements emphasize the company’s origins.
💡REMEMBER: Use specific colors to reinforce your brand identity.
Major players on the web: all in shades of blue
Among the major Internet companies, almost all of their logos are blue. You can see some examples above. What at the beginning was perhaps a strategic choice seems to have turned into a trend. We can imagine that the choice of a blue logo of the first entities on the Internet reflects the desire to have an image of stability and confidence in this new virtual world that seemed ephemeral. As a result, blue logos are now associated with tech and web companies.
💡REMEMBER: Study your competitors and their brand style guides; if they all use the same codes, there may be a reason.
Calaméo: blue for emphasis
Finally, we wanted to tell you about our use of blue. Although blue is not our main color and does not appear in our logo, we do have a very specific use for it. We use blue to highlight and emphasize important messages. As you can see, on our blog the links are in blue and stand out.
💡REMEMBER: You can use a shade of blue in your graphic design without it being a main color. Do not hesitate to give it a specific function.
In this respect, many brands use blue in their visual identity, and the color performs different functions for each. From main color to accent color, it is a matter of finding the best way to incorporate this color in your style guide so that it completes your brand and identity.
Blue is a fascinating color: its history, its many uses in art, and all its different meanings and connotations. That’s why blue has become an essential color in graphic design.
Don’t hesitate to use it in your brand identity and in your digital publications. Blue used with ingenuity, in an original shade or in combination with unusual shades, will make you stand out and will make your content unforgettable.
