Today, every other brand is on social media and storytelling, and social media are two sides of one coin. There are two ways to build a brand, one is creating simple content and the other one is the use of storytelling to drive more traffic to your website through social media platforms. Rather than just churning out content, you can use visuals, emails, catchy captions, customer stories, etc to craft compelling stories that make your content more relatable. People will want to be part of your brand’s narrative. As a result, more conversions and traffic for your website.
Let’s take an example of Zomato. Without being boorish Zomato’s Instagram and Twitter handles are simply creative and they know how to attract people. Be it Mother’s day ad campaign or Father’s day email their social media game is always on point. That’s where storytelling helps businesses to grow using social media platforms.
- Know your audience
- Shift your brand’s perspective from a product-oriented approach to customer-centric approach.
- Stand up for something you believe in
- Use tools that allow you to get up close and personal – Instagram stories, Twitter tweets, Facebook posts, Emails, Newsletters, YouTube etc.
All I can say is it’s a win-win situation for any brand.
Existence and Future of Brand Storytelling
Stories are captivating for a reason. From childhood through adulthood, we are drawn to the lessons we learn, the exciting journeys we embark upon, the knowledge we gain and the opportunity to unleash our imaginations. I don’t believe that there will be an end of storytelling in fact, it’s the best time to experiment with new storytelling styles. It totally depends on how your brand narrative is and how you are marketing yourself.
Brand storytelling is no longer something that is nice to have in your content. It’s essential to the growth of your company. It can maximise your visibility, revenue, and reputation.
It not only increases your brand’s image in the eyes of the audience, it can also be more than just boring facts.
The art of storytelling is not for one kind of brand or one kind of industry. It’s for everyone and how you use that totally depends on your strategies.
In the future, what you need to learn is versatility and honesty with a touch of empathy.
As every other brand is working on their storytelling aspect that’s where the competition starts.
I would like to mention 3 points a brand can follow to stand out –
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Work on your Story
The world is full of brands, so in order for yours to stand out, people need to know how your brand got to where it is today and what is at the core of your business. Ensuring your brand communicates all of this can be tricky, so take your time and make sure your brand captures you, your business and its ethos especially the essence of your brand.
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Make It Memorable
Your brand needs to be meaningful and memorable. All the successful brands form a connection with their audience by tapping into different emotions. Regatherless it’s humour, joy, trust or nostalgia, striking the right chord with your customer is super important to make a lasting impression. Why limit your creativity in a box?
Keep experimenting and never underestimate the power of human emotion.
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Prioritise Your Brand’s Strengths
Distinguish your brand from the others by identifying what skills make you different.
Don’t be a jack of all trades and master of none. Don’t try to be everywhere rather than focus on your core strengths.
In return, this will ensure you to provide excellent service, deliver a memorable brand experience and ultimately ensure your brand stands above the rest.
Now, let’s talk about 5 things that brands are missing out while using the storytelling technique:
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Build a tribe with storytelling
A tribe is not just about followers, it’s about building a community who genuinely support your brand left to right. They not only enjoy participating with your brand also share their personal stories with you to create a lifelong bond. In short, makes them evangelists of the brand.
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The story should be simple
Simplicity is above everything. Adding too many techy terms and irrelevant content makes your story boring and complex for the audience. Simple stories are more trustworthy.
Opt for the simple method of curating stories for your brand. If I talk about the very basic layout it should have the following elements –
- Hero
- Perspective
- Plot
- Narrative style
- Purpose
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Why your story?
A story should be entertaining, educational, meaningful, universal, organised and memorable. The main problem is a flow so work on your basic layout. It should talk about the characters (protagonist, antagonist, skeptic, mentor, tempter, emotional or logical) could be anything – people, animal, being, creature or a thing. Don’t forget to add a conflict (elicits emotions and connects the audience through relatable experiences) In storytelling the power lies in what you are conveying or teaching. Last and most important thing is a resolution (always LEAVE your audience with a call to action).
4. Storytelling is not just about words, it’s an emotion.
Without an emotional connection, there is no story. It helps us to feel connected and builds trust. Humans are emotional beings so there should be an emotional transfer of information through characters, plot and a conclusion.
5. Basics of a story
Before working on any story, brands must ask certain questions to themselves:-
- Who’s in the story?
- What are their characteristics/ personality like?
- Where is this story happening?
- What’s the storyline? What happens?
- Why should the audience engage?
This gives brands clarity in their vision.
Till now, you have figured out the importance of brand storytelling. At the end of the day, you shouldn’t compromise your brand’s values. Highlight your brand’s personality through storytelling to help your audience learn more about you.
Time to up your brand storytelling game.
