Interview like a journalist, write like a marketer: Telling stories with heart… and accuracy

Date: Friday, July 14, 2017
Time: 4:15 - 5:00 pm (EDT) (UTC-04:00)
Location: Room 1004
Format: General Lecture Session

Session description

Storytelling is at the heart of what we marketers do. Often, the success of our stories depends on our success as interviewers. Creating compelling and interesting articles and anecdotes means we must get out our shovels and dig deep. But asking the right questions is only part of it—getting heartfelt answers often only comes when sources feel comfortable with us.

Marketers can borrow journalistic techniques to improve their storytelling. This session will cover everything from the setup to the follow-up; attendees will learn how to prepare for an interview, maximize time with sources, get subjects talking, organize notes and more. We live in a day where facts are scrutinized more than ever, so this session will also help combat misquotes and mistakes—we’ll cover fact-checking techniques to ensure the accuracy of your stories and prevent those post-publication “that’s not what I said” emails.

Writers of all backgrounds and skill levels will find actionable takeaways from this session. While geared toward written content, these techniques can be applied to audio and video storytelling, too.

Presenter

Donna Talarico

Headshot of Donna Talarico
Writer/Publisher, Donna Talarico: Stories & Such/Hippocampus Magazine

Donna Talarico is a writer, content marketing consultant and former director of communications in higher ed from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She's been published in CASE's Currents magazine, The Guardian Higher Ed and Wiley's Recruiting and Retaining Adults Learners newsletter. Talarico is founder and publisher of Hippocampus Magazine, an online literary journal with a small press division. She's had past lives in radio, print media and e-commerce.

Sessions

  • General Lecture Session: Interview like a journalist, write like a marketer: Telling stories with heart… and accuracy

Session video

Sessions were recorded and have been uploaded. View the schedule or visit our main videos page to view the videos.

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