Storytelling is the art of telling stories.
We could say that it has a lot to do with creative writing, the narrative techniques on which the novels and films in which we get lost at the end of the day are based and which have a common root within the Hero's Journey theorized by Joseph Campbell.
When we talk about storytelling in marketing and communication, we tend to believe that everything is storytelling. Just stuff a post with a little storytelling, with a touch of intimist storytelling and everything should work. Storytelling actually works when you use it at the right time, not when all your content becomes storytelling.
The reason storytelling is central to your strategy is that it connects people, brings you closer to your audience, makes them empathize with a situation . People remember a story 22 times more than an objective fact: this is why case studies and examples are so effective during a course. They are remembered.
According to neuroscience, storytelling induces the human body to produce oxytocin, the hormone of happiness. Could it be for this reason that we feel so good while we enjoy a new episode of our favorite TV series or dive into the pages of a new novel? I think so.
The advantages of storytelling in your communication strategy
Storytelling improves your communication. It makes it alive, empathic, emotional, transformative. The reason is that we are able to identify with stories, to find a solution to a problem, to feel understood, to see something of ourselves in what we are reading. This allows us to strengthen the bond between us and the public and between us, users, and other brands.
Storytelling prepares your audience to listen to you: it's as if with your stories people begin to trust you, your personality, the way you make them feel when you have something to tell each of them.
Storytelling helps your audience and gives them more than just a reason to trust you.
If you're an introvert and selling is your Achilles heel, remember that storytelling allows people to perceive advertising messages as less invasive. Practice writing the best story you have.
- Useful and inspirational information in the form of stories.
- What motivates your audience.
- What keeps your brand alive.
- It's about your customers (and their stories).
- Excite and push the audience to interact with you.
- It has a beginning, a conflict and a resolution. Always.
What storytelling is not
- Endless articles full of useless information. Storytelling consolidates abstract concepts and simplifies complex concepts.
- Your sales results.
- Your advertising messages.
- Boredom.
- It's not your brand.
- An invitation to sell.
- News related to your brand that highlights you.
The foundations of a storytelling that (still) knows how to excite
Online storytelling works because in a fragmented communication like the digital one , the story of your brand leads you to make the entire online communication cohesive.
Are you wondering what the narrative structure of good stories is?
- Identify a character and make them act within your story. Your character should be your ideal customer, but every now and then it could be you too. You need to be clear who your ideal client is , what background they have, what their desires, difficulties and dreams are. Utilize the Hero's Journey story arc to take him on his journey of transformation. Your character – your hero – has different types of obstacles that make him move and which, in fact, prevent him from achieving his goals. They can be external, physical, internal, psychological or relational obstacles. Have you ever wondered what are the obstacles that stand between your ideal client and his goals?
- The best stories start with a bang and never leave you. A lazy incipit loaded with descriptions immerses you in the atmosphere of the novel, but if that incipit leaves you with a juicy detail, you'll certainly be more inclined to continue reading. Apply this technique to your content as well. Put the best element of your story inside the incipit: you will entice your audience to continue reading.
- Create a conflict. The conflict moves the stories, allows them to progress at a rapid pace. What happens with conflicts? You must define a goal for your character to achieve and a motivation big enough to make him act. Conflict is what prevents your character from achieving their goal. I shouldn't tell you that the (more or less tacit) resolution of his conflict is you with your services, right?
- Place obstacles along the way . What are the hurdles your client has to overcome to achieve their goals? Obstacles can be internal and external, physical or psychological, real or perceived, and relational.
- Resolution . It is the result of conflict, for which Cathy Yardley in her GMCS Method ( Goal, Motivation, Conflict, Solution which is what you are reading) offers us three different possibilities. The character doesn't get what he wants. The character doesn't get what he wants and something worse happens. The character gets what he wants but something else goes wrong.
At the beginning of your story the character has already failed or must fail in order to embark on his journey of growth and transformation, passing from the ordinary world to the extraordinary (even metaphorical) world, passing the tests, conquering the elixir of life and returning into the ordinary world bringing with him the gifts of his own adventure.
How to use storytelling in your communication strategy
- Storytelling helps you increase trust and the perception that you are real, authentic in your communication. Make sure that storytelling is not artificial but natural.
- Tell your story, your clients' stories or interview other professionals. The stories of our life make us grow, stimulate us to reflect, help us feel part of a group.
- Connect with your audience even with personal content. Remember to keep your tone of voice consistent with the story you tell.
- People love to learn new things: let them learn from you too.
- Tell behind the scenes of your work , your creative and production process.
- It tells and evokes emotions.
- Always remember what message you want to bring to the end of the story you are telling. We can call it “the moral of the story” : you have to clearly lead your audience to that point. To the right conclusion.
- Use data and research to support your story , helping with content curation (we'll talk about it, promise)
- Educate people about your area of expertise or your product.
- Incentivize collaboration, create connections even among members of your community and show your values.
Storytelling's best weapon is to show, not tell, as Stephen King would say. So learn to show your story, don't be didactic but show a scene , a detail, a particular, a sensation. Your story will become immersive.
An example from Stephen King's On Writing .
Look: here is a table with a red tablecloth. On the table is a cage the size of a small aquarium. In the cage is a white rabbit with a pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes. In its front paws it has a carrot stub which it is munching happily. On the back, clearly marked in blue ink, is the number 8.
Do we see the same thing? We'd have to meet and compare notes to be mathematically sure, but I think so. There will be inevitable variations, of course: some recipients will see a madder-red tablecloth, someone will see it scarlet, others will see other shades. (For color-blind recipients, the red tablecloth is the dark gray of cigar ash.) Some will see laced edges, some smooth. The most decorative spirits will add a little lace… but please: my tablecloth is your tablecloth, go wild.
The cage also leaves plenty of room for individual interpretation. To begin with, it is described in terms of a rough comparison, useful only if you and I see the world and measure things with alike eyes. It's easy to be careless in making rough comparisons, but the alternative is a fussy attention to detail that takes all the pleasure out of writing. What am I supposed to say, "on the table is a cage three feet long, two feet wide, and a foot high"? This isn't prose, it's a manual. The paragraph doesn't even tell us what material the cage is made of (wire mesh? steel slats? glass?), but does it matter? We all understood that we can see into ourselves; other than that, we don't care. The most interesting element here isn't even the rabbit munching on the carrot inside the cage, but the number on its back. Not a six, not a four, not a nineteen point five. It's an eight. This is what we are looking at and we all see it. I didn't tell you. You didn't ask me. I have never opened my mouth and you have not opened yours. We're not even in the same year together, least of all in the same room… yet we are together. We are close.
Our minds have met.
I have sent you a table with a red tablecloth on it, a cage, a rabbit and the number eight in blue ink. You have received everything especially
that blue eight. We participate in an act of telepathy. Not mythical bullshit from another world: real telepathy. I won't insist on this point, but before we go any further it is important that you understand that mine is not coquetry; there is a point.
Your story can be told in many ways, with multiple languages. From infographic to photography, from caption to video, through a podcast or a Facebook ad.
Tell your story: today you can't do without it.