Storytelling has always played a part in successful marketing. Stories enable brands to build personality and create a connection with consumers. The wonderful thing for brands to remember is that a story isn’t just about words—a great story teaches us something about the world and ourselves.
Today, we’re seeing more and more innovative uses of storytelling incorporated into brand building. More and more, people want to get behind a brand that has a meaningful mission.
To discover how we can help you to tell great stories through social media, request a story consultation here.
Storytelling is everywhere and it’s the only format that has not been damaged by industry trends. Today, social networks understand that and they’re constantly adapting their platforms.
There are countless ways of telling stories on social media. It begins with knowing the profile of the users and how they interact and relate to different platforms, as each one requires different uses. It’s fundamental to have an understanding of the “culture” of each.
Develop a story arc
A story is essentially a sequence of events with some key elements. With social media, you have plenty of options to tell stories in new ways.
Every single clip, blog or image needs to be a mini-story in itself, but as a brand, you should take your audience on a journey. When you think about the fact that each piece of content contributes to your brand and business story, you have the potential to “hook” people over the long term.
To this end, you can think of the “story arc”—the beginning, middle and end—not only with regards to each piece of content but also in connection with the longer-term goals of your brand.
Show don’t tell
In the realm of social media, this might be as simple as creating a compelling video, infographic or even using a stunning visual in combination with a catchy title to really get your message (or at least the gist of it) across in a matter of seconds. After all, you only have a few seconds to get your message across, so why not make it as clear and visually inviting as possible?
Be creative
You don’t really need to be an expert in any genre to nail your storyline on social media. What will grab attention is creativity, boldness and the type of message that cuts to the chase—or at least gives a hint of the amazing things to come.
Connect with your current followers
Social media platforms offer plenty of built-in tools that allow you to understand the types of posts that invite the most engagement and to this end, the popularity of your brand story and other information you share on your pages should be quite obvious.
Simply refer to your insights and try that same thing over and over again. Was that one post, longer blog or photo something that resonated in the past? Or perhaps it was a humorous visual that got a lot of shares? You can go back into your insights to get a sense of what is hitting your audience and build a new story from there.
Consider using dynamic interfaces like live videos or even animated videos to help explain your mission and message in a fresh way. People who’ve followed you for a while are likely to get bored seeing the same old things in their social feeds, so it’s important that you spice it up.
You need to tailor your content not only for your audience but for the type of social media they use too. Experiment with creative ways to tell your brand story and find what works for your audience.
Whether it’s a picture, video or speech, the story should reveal something personal about the brand and connect the audience with a specific emotion.
From a photo spontaneously showing the dynamics behind closed doors of a business, a CEO preparing to play football with his colleagues on a day off, to even the President selecting the tie to be used to go give a speech that millions of people will hear—it’s all part of storytelling.
Don’t look at social media platforms as another distribution channel, look at them as a conversation. Have a conversation about your brands experiences, feelings, values, failures and successes.
