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Using Meta Ads for Digital Storytelling

Using Meta Ads for Digital Storytelling

Using Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram) for Digital Storytelling

Digital Storytelling in 2023

Storytelling has been an essential part of human communication since ancient times. It’s a way to convey ideas, emotions, and experiences through a narrative that captures the audience’s attention. With the rise of the internet and social media, storytelling has evolved into a digital medium, and it’s becoming more crucial for businesses to tell their stories in a captivating way.

In 2023, digital storytelling is more important than ever. With the pandemic still affecting how we interact with the world, people are spending more time online. As a result, businesses need to create content that stands out in the digital space, and digital storytelling can help achieve that.

Digital Storytelling

Are Meta Ads or Organic Positions best for Storytelling?

When it comes to digital storytelling, businesses have two options: organic positions or paid advertising, specifically, meta ads on Facebook and Instagram. Organic positions refer to the placement of content on a platform without paying for advertising. On the other hand, meta ads are sponsored posts that appear on users’ feeds.

While organic positions can be effective, meta ads offer several advantages for digital storytelling. First, meta ads allow businesses to target specific audiences based on demographics, interests, and behaviors. This targeting ensures that the content reaches the right people and maximizes engagement.

Additionally, meta ads provide businesses with more control over their content. Unlike organic positions, which can be buried in a user’s feed, meta ads are placed prominently on the screen. This visibility ensures that the content is seen by users, increasing brand awareness and engagement.

How to use Meta Ads for Brand Frequency

Brand frequency is the number of times a user sees a brand’s content over a given period. This metric is essential for businesses because it indicates how often users are engaging with their content. Meta ads can be an effective tool for increasing brand frequency, but it requires a strategic approach.

First, businesses need to create content that is engaging and resonates with their audience. This content should be consistent with the brand’s messaging and tone, ensuring that it’s recognizable to users.

Once the content is created, businesses need to set up a meta ad campaign that targets their desired audience. This campaign should have a specific budget and schedule to ensure that the content is being displayed at the right times and to the right people.

Beware of Ad Fatigue

Ad fatigue is a phenomenon where users become desensitized to ads after seeing them repeatedly. This phenomenon can be detrimental to businesses because it decreases engagement and can even lead to a negative perception of the brand.

To avoid ad fatigue, businesses need to create content that is diverse and engaging. This content should be relevant to the audience and provide value beyond just selling a product or service. Additionally, businesses should consider using different formats for their content, such as videos, images, and text.

Understanding How Your Messaging Fits into Your Audience’s Lives

To create engaging content, businesses need to understand how their messaging fits into their audience’s lives. This understanding requires businesses to research their audience’s interests, values, and behaviors. By understanding their audience, businesses can create content that resonates with them and provides value beyond just selling a product or service.

Tell An Engaging Story (Don’t sell)

Telling an engaging story is crucial for businesses that want to stand out in the digital space. Instead of using traditional sales tactics, businesses can create content that resonates with their audience and establishes an emotional connection. This emotional connection can lead to increased brand loyalty and long-term engagement.

To tell an engaging story, businesses should focus on creating content that tells a narrative. This narrative should be consistent with the brand’s messaging and tone, ensuring that it’s recognizable to users. The narrative should also provide value beyond just selling a product or service. For example, a company that sells outdoor gear could create content that tells the story of a hiker’s journey through a national park. This content would provide value by showcasing the beauty of the national park and inspiring users to explore the outdoors.

Additionally, businesses should consider the format of their content when telling an engaging story. Videos and images can be powerful tools for storytelling because they can evoke emotions and capture the audience’s attention. Text-based content can also be effective, but it should be written in a way that is engaging and easy to read.

Another important aspect of telling an engaging story is to make sure that it’s authentic. Users can quickly detect when a brand is trying to manipulate them with a fake or insincere narrative. To avoid this, businesses should be honest and transparent in their storytelling, and they should focus on creating content that aligns with their values and mission.

Finally, businesses should ensure that their storytelling is consistent across all digital platforms. This consistency ensures that the brand’s messaging and tone are recognizable to users, regardless of where they encounter the content. This consistency also helps establish a sense of trust and reliability, which can lead to increased engagement and loyalty.

In conclusion, telling an engaging story is a powerful tool for businesses that want to establish a meaningful connection with their audience. By creating content that tells a narrative and provides value beyond just selling a product or service, businesses can establish emotional connections that lead to increased brand loyalty and engagement. When telling an engaging story, businesses should focus on authenticity, consistency, and creating content that resonates with their audience.

Organize Your Social Media Strategy with a Content Calendar

Organize Your Social Media Strategy with a Content Calendar

Organize Your Social Media Strategy with a Content Calendar

Written by Allison Cooper, Project Coordinator

Managing social media can be a little daunting at times. Algorithms seem to change as soon as you’ve mastered the previous one, best practices vary from platform to platform, and learning the types of content that your target audiences engage most with can take a while to nail down. 

There’s a lot to consider here and different accounts will be fueled by different strategies – but we all have one common goal – to create engaging content that pleases our target audiences and encourages them to take action – whether that be a like, a follow, purchasing your product, or giving your brand a shout-out.

After you set a few key goals that you want social media to accomplish for your brand, it’s time to put some strategy behind it, which is where content creation comes into play. It’s great if you have awesome ideas for content, but if you have no way to get organized enough to make it actionable, it’s likely that your efforts to wow your audience will fall flat. The key to getting an organized social media strategy is planning ahead with a content calendar.

So, What Can a Content Calendar Help You Accomplish?

Content calendars can make it easier for you to plan social media content in advance, whether that be on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Let’s take a look at three benefits of using a content calendar!

  1. Plan ahead. Using a content calendar can help your team start looking ahead at key dates such as holidays and events that will be important for your brand to capitalize on. This can make it easier to devise a strategic plan for social media campaigns.
  2. Post with consistency. By mapping out your posts ahead of time, you’ll never be without ideas. Putting a content calendar together will make it easier to avoid writer’s block and will encourage more consistent posting across platforms.
  3. Save time. Because you’ll be planning content in advance, it’ll save you a lot of time throughout the week. If you set a day each week or month to plan out content, you’ll be able to use your time more effectively. You’ll know in advance what content is being published and you won’t be drafting posts as you go, which will take a lot of pressure off you and your team. Better yet, you won’t be worrying about deadlines cause they’ll already be met!

Content calendars are also a great way to keep track of the types of content you post and posting frequency. By having access to a week or month’s worth of content in front of you, it’s easier to identify the types of content performing well or poorly. From here, you can see if you need to change up your content strategy, and plan out next week or next month’s content accordingly. Having a broader view of your social media posts allows you to more easily flag types of posts that you want to repeat, and if you set up your calendar efficiently, you have a platform to organize this into a content repository.

Make Your Content Calendar Work for You.

To create your calendar, there are a few different routes to go, and some companies have special applications to help you build your calendar and organize posts. For an accessible solution, Google Sheets or Excel are perfect tools to create a streamlined system that works for you. At Harris and Ward, we create monthly and weekly views in Google Sheets and separate these views into different tabs. We place broader content ideas in our monthly view and draft the actual posts in our weekly tab. If your content moves through a line of approval, Google Sheets is also a good system for sharing between team members.

While there are best practices for creating a content calendar – you can certainly customize it for what works best for your respective social accounts, posting frequency, business model, and much more. In a world where best practices change so frequently, it’s beneficial to have a system in place to plan ahead and make changes quickly. For the social media manager, a content calendar makes this possible. 

What If I Still Don’t Have Time for Social Media?

Social media offers an easy way for potential customers to express interest in your business and your products/services. But, there’s no question about the commitment for business owners — strategic social media takes dedicated time and effort. Unfortunately, that’s not a luxury most small business owners have. So, if you find yourself lacking the resources to develop your own content calendar or you just aren’t sure how to begin, contact us today to learn more!