pdf versionby Lois Kelly 2007

Whether you’re pitching your story to customers, employees, vendors, partners or investors, you need a story that gets people talking.

There are nine themes that people talk about the most, particularly in business. I arrived at them by tracking and categorizing business communications and business media feature stories over the past ten years. I looked at the types of stories that the media covers the most, aside from hard news and product introductions, the themes of speeches at conferences that generate the most discussion during breaks, the blog postings that catch and get linked from blog to blog, and meeting agendas that perk people up and get them involved.

The emerging patterns from this nonscientific research fall into nine areas:

1. Aspirations and beliefs

More than any other topic, people want to talk about aspirations and beliefs—and bounce ideas around about how those big ideas might be realized. (This may be why religion is the most popular word-of-mouth topic, ever.)

We want something to believe in that helps us see a company or an issue in a new way. In fact, my research has found that aspirations and beliefs are, hands down, the most “talkable” conversation topics.

Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard’s views about how companies could grow by reducing pollution and creating more sustainable business strategies are aspirational.

Aspirations are helpful because they engender feelings and help people engage with a company on more of an emotional level. They help us see into a company?s soul and understand its bigger cause.

2. David vs. Goliath

In the story of David and Goliath, the young Hebrew David took on the Philistine giant Goliath and beat him. It is the way Southwest Airlines conquered the big carriers, the way the once unknown Japanese car manufacturers took on Detroit, the way social media is taking on the media giants.

Sharing stories about how a small organization is taking on a big company is great business sport. Rooting for the underdog grabs our emotions, creates meaning and invokes passion.

3. Avalanche about to roll

The mountain is rumbling, the sun is getting stronger, but the rocks and snow are yet to fall. You want to tune in and listen to the avalanche about to roll topic because you know that there’s a chance that you will be killed if caught unaware. This theme taps into our desire to get the inside story before it?s widely known. It’s not only interesting to hear someone speak about these ideas, they have the ingredients for optimal viral and pass-along effect.

4. Anxieties

Anxiety is a cousin of the avalanche about to roll, but it is more about uncertainty than an emerging, disruptive trend.

Examples of anxiety themes abound: 1) Financial services companies urging baby boomers to hurry up and invest more for retirement; 2) Tutoring companies planting seeds of doubt about whether our children will score well enough on the SATs to get into a good college. Although anxiety themes grab attention, go easy. Overuse of the practice has exacerbated consumer skepticism. Use it wisely by backing up your views with facts to justify the threat and explain the possible ramifications.

5. Contrarian/counterintuitive/challenging assumptions

These three themes are like first cousins, similar in many ways but slightly different.

Contrarian perspectives defy conventional wisdom; they are positions that often are not in line with – or may even be directly opposite to – the wisdom of the crowd. The boldness of contrarian views grabs attention; the more original and less arrogant they are, the more useful they will be in provoking meaningful conversations.

Counterintuitive ideas fight with what our intuition (as opposed to a majority of the public) says is true. When you introduce counterintuitive ideas, it takes people a minute to reconcile the objective truth with their gut assumption about the topic.

Challenging widely held assumptions means, for instance, when everyone else says the reason for an event is X, you show that it’s actually Y. Challenging assumptions is good for debate and discussion, and especially important in protecting corporate reputation.

6. Personalities and personal stories

There’s nothing more interesting than a personal story with some life lessons to help us understand what makes executives tick and what they value the most. The points of these personal stories are remembered, retold, and instilled into company lore.

When Steve Jobs gave the commencement address to Stanford University in June 2005, he shared his personal story and life lessons. That commencement address,”Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish,” was talked about on thousands of blogs, and was published verbatim in Fortune magazine. It helped us see Jobs in a new light.

7. How-to stories and advice

Theoretical and thought-provoking ideas are nice, but people love pragmatic how-to anecdotes about how to solve problems, get ahead, make friends, and influence people. To be interesting, how-to themes need to be fresh and original, providing a new twist to what people already know.

8. Glitz and glam

Robert Palmer sang about being addicted to love. Our society is even more addicted to glamour and celebrity. Finding a way to link a point of view to something glitzy and glamorous is a surefire conversation starter.

For example, tagging on to the widespread interest in the Academy Awards, Randall Rothenberg, former director of intellectual property at consultancy Booz Allen-Hamilton, last year crafted a point of view about the similarity and challenges between creating new “star” brands and movie stars.

9. Seasonal/event-related

Tying into seasonal or major events is a well-used, proven strategy. Examples of this type of story include: industry predictions around the New Year, tax and financial advice in March and April, and all things related to kids in late August and September as parents are getting them back to school and planning for the new school year.

Get people excited about your company by using these themes to develop points of view, ideas for sound bites, press releases, speech topics, articles or website content. Craft the kind of message that will truly resonate and spark interest.

Lois Kelly is author of Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of World-of- Mouth Marketing, (AMACOM, Feb. 28, 2007), and a founding partner of Foghound.