A Storyteller’s Guide To Social Media

Don’t leave the engaging stories just to movies, books and tv shows – bring storytelling into your social media marketing strategy. Humans connect with stories-it’s in our DNA and it’s the way we’ve communicated with each other since time immemorial. Similarly, creating a narrative and unique voice for your brand on social will captivate your audience and leave them wanting more.

You can think of storytelling as a marketing technique that is something of the opposite of direct selling or “pushy” advertising. Rather, storytelling is about building connections with audience members to humanize your brand, enhance customer loyalty, and secure long-term growth. Here, we will layout techniques in bringing your brand’s story to social media.

Know Your Brand

To create a trusting audience that returns to your social media presence time and again, you must be open and honest and have a deep understanding of your brand. Think about your ‘personal why’ through the answers to the following questions:

  • Why was your business started?
  • What is your company’s objective?
  • Who owns the business?
  • What are you company values, and, more importantly, how does your company live up to these values?
  • What makes your brand and company different than anything and anybody else out there?

By answering these kinds of questions, you are creating the framework for your unique story that will be showcased on your social channels.

A good example of a brand answering the question of ‘what is your company objective?’ on social media is Apple’s #ShotoniPhone hashtag campaign. Through sourcing of user-generated content, Apple posts photos taken by iPhone users onto its Instagram page, showing what their followers are doing and experiencing. Through this campaign Apple is showing their objective; that is, giving their customers the best personal technology, through a creative an aesthetic approach.

Be Memorable by Sharing Memorable Moments

To stick out on social media and have a lasting impression with your audience, you need to inspire true emotion. To do so, identify memorable moments for your company that could be turned into stories shared on social media. One way of accomplishing this is to answer some of the following questions:

  • Did you celebrate an employee’s big work-anniversary?
  • Who was your first customer?
  • Has there been a big challenge that your company has faced?
  • Has your organization ever supported a charity or cause?

Once you have identified the memorable moments, create impressionable content by video interviewing your CEO or employees talking about their memories or include lots of pictures of the event or period of time.

A great example is this post from Chewy. In the post they are celebrating a big moment in their company while also letting their audience know that they are now in Seattle, donating to a cause that is inline with their company objective, and staying true to their brand by including animals.

Put a Face to the Brand

Social media consumers resonate more with stories of people that they can relate to. Humanizing your brand is an important part of storytelling on social media. To do so, feature great stories about employees or loyal customers.

If you’re able to, sharing user-generated content about your company on all social platforms is a great a way to not only humanize but to also create trust with your audience.

There are numerous ways to feature employees and customers, including a video like this one created by UPS of their youngest employee. While not every brand is going to have a loyal 6-year-old fan who is able to spend a day in a UPS truck shadowing an employee, Parson’s story can be created in smaller, meaningful ways for any brand. You just need get a little creative.

Mandel Marketing Knows Social Media

If you want to start creating meaningful brand storytelling in social media, or you’d like to set up a free consultation about your current social media activity, your digital marketing plan, or any other marketing strategy you have going on right now, give Mandel Marketing a call at (512) 655-9179 or contact us here.

About The Author

Sophia Fox is a public relations and marketing professional who specializes in content writing and social media. She is passionate about creating great, engaging social content for any organization in any industry.