Podcast

Ann Handley

#431: Everyone Is a Storyteller Including AI Bots. So Now What?

I was never a huge Star Trek fan but I can appreciate the impact it has had on science fiction, TV viewing and storytelling.

It might have been the corny visual effects. I swear I saw drywall fall from the ceiling of the bridge during a Klingon attack as Scotty pleaded, “I’m giving her all she’s got, captain.”

Or maybe it was the planetary sets that looked like something our high school theater troupe would create.

But one thing that always tickled my fancy was the left-brain/right-brain give-and-take of the calculated, logic-driven Spock communicating with the emotion-laden Captain Kirk.

Think about it, wasn’t Star Trek prescient on how we find ourselves communicating today: High-tech AI vs high-touch human-centric storytelling.

That’s why I’m so excited to have Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs, join us today to explore the collision of these two worlds and what it means to us as storytellers.

Ann recently published the second edition of Everybody Writes: Your New and Improved Go-To-Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content.

As the world’s first Chief Content Officer, Ann speaks and writes about how you can rethink the way your business markets.

Cited in Forbes as the most influential woman in Social Media and recognized by Forbes Woman as one of the top 20 women bloggers, Ann’s work at MarketingProfs empowers marketers internationally with the skills they need to drive success at their companies.

She is a speaker, author, and member of the LinkedIn Influencer program. Ann authored of the Wall Street Journal best-seller on business writing, “Everybody Writes,” and the co-author of the best-selling book on content marketing, “Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business.”

A pioneer in digital marketing, Ann is the co-founder of ClickZ.com, which was one of the first sources of digital marketing news and commentary. Ann is based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Discussed in this episode:

The evolution of content marketing (and evolution of Ann’s thinking about what works today)
Ann’s Step-by-step writing framework
The difference between storytelling essence versus narrative structure.
And how you can use AI to bring your storytelling to the real world.