In today’s distracted and information-saturated society, communication professionals struggle to connect and unify their message across channels. For this reason, social storytelling is perhaps the most effective vehicle for making the connection between the story itself and your brand’s content.
Storytelling, in the social media marketing sense, is the use of social media to tell your brand’s story and convey its voice. People don’t buy into brands – they buy into the narrative behind brands. Now, more than ever, you must infuse social storytelling into your marketing strategy if you want to succeed in this global marketplace.
Here are six ways to jumpstart your social storytelling strategy:
#1 Be authentic, be human
At its heart, storytelling is about connecting people to each other – and it’s a central part of what it means to be human. With that in mind, brands need to put more energy into authentic storytelling. One way to accomplish this is to show the real people behind the brand. Invest in employees and empower them to share their own stories through photos, testimonials or behind the scenes footage.
#2 Curate content from your followers
What better way to tell the story of your brand on social media than by letting your loyal fans tell it for you. Find great content that others created and share it with your audience to promote engagement. Pay attention to trends and topics that interest your customers because this is the type of content they will interact with.
#3 Tell stories with your captions
While a high-quality image is important for a social media post, a captivating caption can help to complete the story by sharing a narrative. Captions provide context and have the potential to transform a simple image into a story. In addition, captions can drive engagement by incorporating elements such as location tags, hashtags and emojis.
#4 Use the stories feature
You can influence customers by grabbing their attention right away with social media stories. Stories allow you to live broadcast, create polls, tag mentions, add links, create stickers and the list goes on. Using the storytelling technique via the stories feature is a cost-effective way to not only gain access to editing tools, but also increase brand awareness and engagement.
#5 Go live
Another great way to connect directly with your audience is to stream live video content from your profile or organization’s page. Live stream footage is great for sharing news, building engagement and establishing your brand. This feature gives a face and voice to your brand and helps reach your audience in the most personable way possible.
#6 Collaborate with influencers
With the help of social media influencers you can bring an increased level of credibility and value to a brand. Social media influencers are authentic content creators and storytellers, that is their superpower. Influencers tell their personal stories so craftily and so emotionally that people react to these stories naturally.
Storytelling is the very core of good social and content strategy. It enables us to create a narrative and connect on a deeper level with friends, customers and connections.
Social storytelling is no longer nice to have. It is a need to have, and what will ultimately maximize your brand’s visibility, profit and impact. Treat it as a compass for your marketing strategy and the result will be a brand that is as profitable as it is captivating.
Emily Senski-Taylor 