Although I think there's plenty of good advice in there, this post has touched on something that's been bugging me for a while and I'm going to mini vent about it here (this isn't a criticism of the author, but the wider trend that's touch on), so here goes.

Personal anecdotes are boring. If I don't know you, I don't care about you and telling me what you've done in you spare time doesn't resonate with me emotionally, it just make me think "meh".

If you want to grab my interest let me know straightaway what I'm going to get out of the post and why I should keep reading (hey, I'm selfish).

I am interested in how you got 500,000 views for your blog post (or whatever) but it's the specific steps you took that I want to read about, not the fact you were out doing a gruelling swim when inspiration struck.

Anecdotes don't boost emotional engagement - they just make my finger glide over my mouse wheel so I can skip the boring bits and see if I'm actually going to get any value out of the post.

*Disclaimer* It could be that I'm some sort of Blade Runner style replicant incapable of empathy, in which case you can disregard everything I've just written.

I like anecdotes sometimes (I think reading a 'story' is better than a post), but only when it's important to the topic at hand... :-)

Yeah, that's fair. I guess what annoys me most is that increasingly people seem to feel like they should put an anecdote in everything, whether it needs to be there or not. Website for a "mom & pop" business? The story of how they started it is a big plus - it's part of what separates them from more "corporate" rivals.

A blog about some aspect of technical SEO? Please don't tell me what you had for breakfast that morning.

I'm gonna throw it out there - I completely disagree with everything you said haha! (no offense).

Personally, I really like personal anecdotes within posts. I find they give context to what can sometimes be a fairly generic theory (especially within marketing). With some of the stories, it keeps me a little more interested and helps me connect to the writer.

I read so many articles each week that I get fed up of just reading generic stuff - I want to know what inspired you to do something, why you did it and how it made you feel.

All depends on your individual taste I suppose, but I wouldn't just disregard it.

I'm getting very tired of the word 'story' that's banded about. It's constantly being abused by people who think of it as the holy grail of marketing people, and usually used by the people who don't know how to make them. When I'm writing a brief, pitch, whatever, 'telling a story' is utterly incongruous with branding, image, etc. 

Maybe I'm ranting too, but I always feel these sorts of posts are utterly condescending. The only way to write better is to write (is to write.) That, and read an abundance of GOOD things.

I very much agree that the word story is being misused and abused. The bottom line is - people are interested in what a company can do for them and not much else. Quite often, firms get things the wrong way round and think "how are we going to communicate our core values to customers" when what they should really be asking is "how can we show customers our core values and products/services/whatever resonate with their needs?".

The distinction is a subtle, but massively important one - in the former you're essentially trying to force your message on to people, in the latter you're listening to what people want, understanding what they need, and then using that as the basis of your marketing campaigns.

Sometimes you're going to do that through storytelling and sometimes it's just going to be a case of saying "hey everyone, our product is dirt cheap!".

Marketers have a habit of not just chasing fads, but fetishizing them and by doing so they often carve away the best bits of the original process and end up with an empty, useless husk.

I agree that companies aren't necessarily always interested in hearing your whole 'story', but to get their attention, stories can be a great vehicle. Just take a look at the recent viral post from Eat24 (http://blog.eat24hours.com/how-to-advertise-on-a-porn-website/) - this is a prime example of telling a great story, but also showcasing the business in the process.

I don't think story-telling makes you a good writer, but being able to give your information a narrative outside of just one audience can be huge for its online reach.

That was one of the "Awesome-Most" article from Think Traffic. I loved that post.