Creating a personal website can wind up being more trouble than its worth. And as for maintaining one? Well, things can get expensive. Even a basic set-up of a simple blog is likely to lack luster in the design department.
You could use WordPress or Blogger as a free alternative, sure. But Storyboard.me offers something much more stylish, chic and powerful for telling the world who you are.
The company aim their service as individuals and small business who want to portray who they are and what their brand stands for. It’s already becoming a hit with artists and writers, but would it work for you?
What’s the story?
The whole concept behind Storyboard was to create multimedia rich press kits for companies which, at a glance, will tell a journalist that company’s story. For years businesses have been uploading boring PDF press releases and documents in the hopes of encouraging press coverage, largely to little avail.
It also aims to improve customer relations by portraying the company in a positive light – cutting past all the white papers to reveal a brand that reaches out in a way customers can relate to.
Features
The first thing you need to do is to upload a logo for your company or personal brand. This mostly serves to give your page a better look, but it has a great functional purpose too. One the main issues I have with most company’s press packs is that they never include logos. At the top of every AppStorm is a logo the majority of which have to be photoshopped and resized for publication. Storyboard creates high quality images files of your logo for either print or digital publication. Not only do they have the company in mind – but they’re thinking of journalists who’ll be the ones really making use of the press pack.
A clean-cut, journalist-friendly press pack
Your profile is made up of various text, image or video ‘tiles’. These can all be moved around easily to prioritize the most important press releases or news coverage. The profile editor itself mirrors the the actual profile in terms of layout and design so you can see what how your profile will appear while editing.
‘Mention’ tiles are to be used when a news articles about your company is published. By simply pasting in the link Storyboard.me creates a nice tile featuring the title of the article and a teaser. Journalists can click in to view the whole article.
Add text, mentions, quotes, images and articles. Easily move tiles around.
Quotes are snippets of text about your company. They’re different to mentions in that readers cannot click through to view the whole article. I also find they’re good for publicizing a good tweet or Facebook update about your company without linking away from your page. They look great in the press pack and are a fast way to present a positive image of your brand.
Every Storyboard user will get their own specific Storyboard.me/username URL which they can link to on their website or social media accounts.
Design
The design of Storyboard is very professional and bespoke. The black on white minimalist approach enables the platform to appeal universally to all brands and is reminiscent of a newspaper. Every Storyboard renders great on mobile devices. The only customization possible is by editing what actually appears on your Storyboard. Using eye catching images, a good logo and well placed quotations can improve the look a great deal.
Share your page easily, but no HTML embed code just yet.
While I understand Storyboard are trying to make each profile more about the content rather than the looks, each Storyboard (particularly for smaller business who may not update regularly) can wind up looking very similar. Nevertheless, Storyboard isn’t a social network so it’s not as though companies will see each others pages. The most important part is that journalists see what’ going on in your company and for that reason Storyboard have included quite a few sharing options. Unfortunately the HTML embed isn’t working just yet – we’re told they’re “working on it”.
Cost
There are two different pricing levels you can choose from after the initial two week free trial of Storyboard.
The first is $9 per month, the most basic package. This allows you to edit your storyboard, share it and pretty much continue on from the trial version unchanged. It’s suitable t individuals and those on a tighter budget. Is it worth it though? Well, the cost of running a blog as a press pack is roughly $100 a year (Domain $10, Hosting $60 and a premium WordPress theme $30). This makes Storyboard just $8 more expensive – and for that you get a platform that looks better than most blogs and none of the technical hassle of running a website.
The premium package of $39 a month offer a little extra. At this level a Storyboard employee will manage your account for you – uploading press coverage and quotations, monitoring mentions of your company online and looking after the day-to-day managing of the profile.
Final Thoughts
As a writer, I’m much more inclined to cover a company that has a decent press package because it gives me access to a wealth of information, images and media. The old school uploading of press releases doesn’t cut it anymore and blogs are only slightly less tedious.
Storyboard.me, based out of Israel, are targeting start-ups and small business. These are the exact kind of companies that really need press coverage. I think Storyboard.me definitely offers an easy-to-use, well designed package that fits the needs of both company and journalist, and for that reason it’s a big thumbs up from me.
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