Introducing Contently Multimedia

“There’s more than one way to tell a story.” Colleagues of mine at Contently hear me say this often. It’s an obvious declaration–a play off of that dreadful maxim about skinning cats.

When I say it, I’m getting at what Marshall McLuhan prophesied in 1964, when television was in its adolescence. He said, “The medium is the message,” and what he meant was how we say things is as important as what we say.

That’s why I’m excited to finally introduce multimedia storytelling to Contently’s mix of solutions. It’s something we’ve been talking about for the last two years—at least—and it’s going to meet the demand for rich storytelling that we see surging on the horizon among our clients and in our industry. In the coming brand publishing arms race, those who simply turn out cheap words or swipe other peoples’ links will be bringing Nerf guns to a cannon fight.

Here’s how Contently Multimedia works:

We’ve gathered 100 of the world’s most accomplished multimedia storytellers—from Emmy Award-winners and Oscar Nominees to infographic pioneers, whose work has been published by major digital magazines and aired on broadcast and cable television, in the following five categories to seed our Multimedia Talent Network:

• Videography
• Photography
• Information Graphics
• Animation
• Audio / Broadcast Production

And we’ve partnered with top-in-class organizations like Shutterstock, Getty Images, and VoiceBunny to provide quality stock imagery and expert voice-over talent to supplement those storytellers.

We’re accepting applications for more storytellers here and are continuing to actively recruit the best independent talent in the world.

For brands, this means Contently has now not only the world’s largest network of vetted, magazine-level journalism talent for hire, but also can pair that talent with multimedia creatives of nearly any variety to help tell the best stories in the best ways. As always, Contently helps you build remote teams, gives you the tools to work with them efficiently, and gets out of the way. Our multimedia talent is now your multimedia talent.

Storytelling is a historically powerful way to build relationships. It has been since Native Americans shared the proverb, “Those who tell the stories rule the world,” and it’s even more so in today’s era of social media, where brands speak directly at us as if they were people. We’re hoping to facilitate the telling of bigger and better stories through not only articulate prose and sharp reporting, but compelling video and photography, information graphics, and great editorial design as well.

Check out Contently Multimedia here, or tweet me to tell me what you think.

Contently arms brands with the tools and talent to become great content creators. Learn more.