I tell my clients there are many ways to tell the stories of their work. Long form, short form, metrics, impact…a few examples. Gathering and collecting them is work, albeit joyful and rewarding. But you don’t need to tell them in only one way.

Here’s an example of a story told in multiple ways by Community Action: longer form narrative in a newsletter, highlight form in the annual report, and even short form in a heart-felt animation shared with donors as a thank you. Don’t be afraid to tell your stories multiple times in multiple formats to different segments of your audiences. While they’re stories you may know so well that you have them memorized, they’re most often new every time you share them differently. Fresh ways to use hard-earned content.

Short Form:

Longer form as a page in the Impact Report:

We recently produced a series of short social media video promotions for the Board on Children, Youth, and Families at the National Academies of Sciences, Health and Medicine. These videos are in support of the release of the study Birth Settings in America: Outcomes, Quality, Access, and Choice.

The delivery of high quality and equitable care for both mothers and newborns is complex and requires efforts across many sectors. The United States spends more on childbirth than any other country in the world, yet outcomes are worse than other high-resource countries, and even worse for Black and Native American women. There are a variety of factors that influence childbirth, including social determinants such as income, educational levels, access to care, financing, transportation, structural racism and geographic variability in birth settings. It is important to reevaluate the United States’ approach to maternal and newborn care through the lens of these factors across multiple disciplines.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine

Read more and see all four videos produced for this landmark study.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recently released a report on the application of the science of prenatal and early childhood development to policy, program and systems changes.

Vibrant and Healthy Kids: Aligning Science, Practice, and Policy to Advance Health Equity

Implementing programs aimed at people in crisis alone will not advance health equity—those programs are important for addressing immediate needs, but until the systemic roots of inequity are addressed, there will likely be another set of crises around the corner. Reducing health disparities by addressing their systemic root causes, including poverty and racism, is foundational to advance health equity. The science-driven recommendations provided in this report lay out practice, policy, and systems changes needed to close the health equity gap and nurture vibrant and healthy children.

The social video for the project was designed and produced by LeAnn Locher & Associates, and used across multiple social media platforms to communicate the top level findings and messages. We emphasized the positive outcomes and strategies, specifically the science-driven recommendations, with a call to action of downloading and reading the report on the National Academies website.

Social videos are highly effective in communicating across platforms for attracting and engaging readers. Social video generates 12 times more shares than text and images combined (via social media analytics: Simply Measured) and according to Buzzfeed, video creates 59% more engagement than any other type of post.