We all know that our minds work by creating stories and learning about them. From the moment we start our lives, we are told many stories. From the first children’s picture book you grabbed to the stories the elders told while you drank hot cocoa, the history books you read or your regular hang out with your friends.
This stays engraved in our brain and we begin to understand the world around us the same way. We articulate all of the action that happens in our lives with a narrative form. We interpret the facts that we learn often with a story in our head in order to process them.
This is why storytelling in marketing is extremely important and has been used throughout the decades. The largest consumer oriented companies learned to tell stories that fit our daily lives and how to better them. Think about Superbowl ads!
Stories help to humanize a brand and allow them to become more relatable. People connect with stories in an emotional level and can earn brand loyalty from stories. Companies that use storytelling in the social media content allow the viewer to become a part of the story and the brand.
Let us show you or favorite tools to implement storytelling:
1. Set a goal for the story
You need to be clear about how the story will flow and what you will achieve at the end. Know your CTA and write the story around it.Do you want your audience to sign up for a service or do you want to educate them about a specific topic? You must know this in order to impact the viewer with your CTA.
Here are some examples of goals you might have:
Selling a product or service
Introducing yourself or your brand
Create conversation
Educate your audience
Engage your audience with an activity
2. Present a relatable main character
Your audience will only care about your story if its relatable or interesting to them. This is where the main character comes in place. Your audience needs to empathize to the character in order to relate to the character (make sure you have your customer personas in your branding kit).
Here are some things you need to know about your customer personas:
Age range
Likes and dislikes
What motivates their decisions
What do they aspire to achieve
What are their pain points and how can you help them
3. Use a variety of emotions to connect to the audience
Your content may be ineffective if it doesn’t raise the intended emotion to the audience. Emotions allow the story to fee humane and real and without these emotions you will just be another brand on the internet.
4. Measure whether the company message is resonating with the audience
Measuring whether the message is resonating with your audience is an important part of ensuring that your message is getting across in the right way. It's important to understand how your message is being received, so that you can make any necessary changes to improve it.
This can include gathering feedback from your target audience through polls or emails, looking at the analytics of your marketing campaigns, and gauging the response from your customers. By doing these things, you can ensure that your message is resonating with your audience and getting across the message that you want it to.
Here are some examples of Good storytelling through content in social media:
Reformation
Microsoft
Toyota
Telling an engaging, purposeful story is not easy. That being said, storytelling is not just a trick or method, its a form of art. Remember, noone can become a great storyteller overnight, it takes practice and dedication to be able to convey new ideas.
There is not a simple solution since each business is unique. Just make sure you tell a story that is true to you and it is clear to your audience.