I think this is becoming like some sort of series - two weeks ago I talked about the power of storytelling and how brands can to harness it; a week after that I shared a piece focusing more on the art of storytelling, i.e. creating content and what the perfect social posts look like. Today we are going to tackle another important content creation element that you are required to consider too - length.

Great storytelling is not just about picking the right words, it's also about making the right choice regarding the number of words you use. When writing, be it for personal or professional reasons, there are people who tend to get carried away (I myself do so sometimes). Being able to send a message in a short, quick and up-to-the-point way is an art that can be learned by practice and with the help of some scientifically backed-up data such as this from Kevan Lee at Buffer.

Lee has gathered some serious research findings and developed a guide to the perfect length of every online content. Of course, that's not a one-size-fits-all solution, but those are some great points to consider whenever you're writing your next tweet, email, post or headline.

You can head over and read Kevan's extensive article, it's a great piece. I've gathered for you here the most important facts and what you need to know to create highly optimised content that allows your storytelling to stand out.

Thanks to the new media landscape forged by the Internet and social media a new era of two-way street conversations began. Everyone can now publish content and stories and reach a global audience in real time. This empowerment of individuals to have their demands heard has led to a fundamental shift in how brands are expected to behave and communicate.

More so than ever, businesses need to be innovative and clever with their communications approaches in order to really reach and deeply engage their audiences, because as Gary Vaynerchuk explains in his 99u keynote talk below, it's a noisy, fast-paced world out there.

Even a robot print newspaper that is generated almost entirely by algorithms based on social-sharing activity and other user behaviour by the paper’s readers is coming to market.

So, if this is the future of the media and considering that PR has always been about influencing organisational audiences and particularly the media, how can then PR influence robots?

Well, it can't.

But it can influence that social-sharing activity and behaviour of readers.

How?

By harnessing the power of storytelling.

Vaynerchuk says that the one thing that binds us together, regardless of our professions and backgrounds, are the stories we tell. That is never going to change because great storytelling is the way we make real money, real impact and real change. And there's a very simple reasoning behind this: we are all human beings.

What I found pretty funny is that according to Vaynerchuk the majority of organisations and professionals "are storytelling like it's 2007 in a 2014 world".