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Best online platforms for digital storytelling

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The oldest art form in history has long since had its 21st Century awakening, but that doesn’t mean we all know the right tools with which to etch our tales into the world wide cave. Here are six of the most effective, and how best to use them.

*Medium

Not just the daddy but the mummy of our list too, Medium has grown from a platform for spouting to one of the most vital homes of independent writing on the internet. Complete with free insights revealing important details about who is getting involved with your narrative, it’s basically the equivalent of editing your own section of a magazine, and having access to editors’ personal journals.

*Storify

Why treat your social media presence as a separate tale? Storify takes snippets from your various profiles and turns them into something much more coherent, linking in platforms from Snapchat to SoundCloud (while the latter lasts, anyway) to provide a comprehensive overview to of what you are up to and where in the digital world you’re doing it.
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*Maptia

Picture the world as a series of interlinked communities, each with its own cause, but all with the same agenda; improving this planet for everyone. Maptia focuses on local issues, but places them on a global scale, making it easy for brands to align themselves with the causes they believe in, irrespective of the neighbourhood each initiative is based.
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*Creatavist

In many ways, Creatavist is a magazine with an open contribution base. Each month a new collection of visually an literarily stunning works is showcased, which can incorporate text, video and imagery, making for an invaluable resource when it comes to discovery. Better yet, though, the associated development software, is open to all, meaning you— and your brand— are able to contribute, providing you proper produce the same quality content.
 
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*NewHive

Don’t have the budget to commission a visual artist? Fear not. NewHive places the power of animation and illustration at your fingertips, which, in an age where pictures speak 1,000 words and moving pictures beat the lot, is a definite advantage for your brand presence. Put some simply, create shareable clips in an instant, and then check out the best from the rest of the world.

*Shorthand

The world’s most successful storytelling teams use Shorthand; it’s a big claim for the homepage to make, so what exactly does it do? Signup does cost money- free trial aside- but you’ll be able to develop visually arresting feature articles that go well beyond what the likes of WordPress, or indeed most magazine CMS’ can do- which can khat the likes of WordPress, or indeed most magazine CMS’ can do- which can either be hosted on a customised domain through the platform, or placed on your own existing website.

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