Tag: storytelling

What Old-School Journalism Still Teaches Modern Content Marketing

The principles of good journalism: they were developed to solve problems that have never gone away.

The fundamentals haven’t changed. They’ve just been forgotten.

By Linda Pophal, MA, SPHR · Strategic Communications, LLC 

Journalism principles in content marketing refers to the application of foundational reporting and editorial practices—including the inverted pyramid structure, the five W’s framework, source attribution, clarity-first writing, and the commitment to factual accuracy—to the creation of marketing content. These principles, developed over more than a century of professional journalism, produce content that is more credible, more readable, and more likely to be cited by both human editors and AI search systems than content that lacks them.

My background in journalism—the discipline of it, the habits it instilled, the standards it held me to—is probably the single most valuable thing I bring to content marketing work. And it’s something I find myself returning to constantly as I watch the content landscape evolve.

Because here’s the thing about the principles of good journalism:

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Why Storytelling Still Wins in the Age of AI

The brands that are succeeding in this new AI-fueled reality aren’t succeeding because they have better AI tools. They’re succeeding because they’re telling better stories.
The story you tell—your perspective, your experience, your voice—is something no AI can replicate.

The most powerful marketing tool you have hasn’t changed. Here’s how to use it.

By Linda Pophal, MA, SPHR – Strategic Communications, LLC

Storytelling in content marketing is the practice of structuring marketing content around narrative—a relatable situation, a turning point grounded in real experience, and a clear takeaway—rather than around information or promotion alone. Research consistently shows that narrative content is more memorable, more persuasive, and more likely to build the kind of audience trust that drives long-term brand authority than factual or list-based content.

Let’s address the elephant in the room right out of the gate: AI. In the age of AI content creators are feeling stressed, questioning their worth, even questioning the likelihood that they will be able to continue to practice their craft.

But here’s the thing.

The brands that are succeeding in this new AI-fueled reality aren’t succeeding because they have better AI tools.

They’re succeeding because they’re telling better stories.

Storytelling is not a soft skill. It’s not a nice-to-have. It’s the engine of every piece of content that has ever actually moved an audience. And in 2026—with AI capable of producing technically competent, grammatically correct, utterly forgettable content at scale—the ability to tell a real, human story has never been more valuable.

Why stories work when information doesn’t

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Why Your B2B Content Team Needs to Be Good at Storytelling

Using GenAI for content marketing - tips and best practicesPopular wisdom has it that people like to read stories and that storytelling is a very important skill for content marketers to have—even if they work in the B2B realm. But what if your content team is hesitant about storytelling? How can you convince them of its importance?

This is a question I responded to recently on LinkedIn.

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Podcasts Offer Potential for Advertisers

About 10 years ago, in June 2005, Apple began supporting podcasts through iTunes and the rest, as they say, is history. The popularity of podcasts has ebbed and flowed since then-most recently flowing as popular programs like Serial, NPRs Fresh Air and the TED Radio Hour attracting masses of listeners on a regular basis. Marketers haven’t been immune to the trend. Continue reading “Podcasts Offer Potential for Advertisers”