Master the art of storytelling with these tips

By Ryan Bradman

Arguably speaking, nothing sells better than a story.

Whether you run an NGO or want to sell your product you should need great storytelling skills to achieve your goals. However, storytelling is an art and in this post, we will mention some of the best ways to create compelling stories and how to sell them to your targeted groups: 

Think about what you want to achieve by storytelling

First things first! Identify your goals. You may have just started and sales revenue maybe your major concern. Or you after being shaken off from your original market position by your closest competitor want to bounce back. In that case, possibly you are looking to rebuild your brand. Perhaps, after making your mark in the offline market, you want to join the eCommerce bandwagon.  

Different goals demand different storytelling strategies- right from material to format and social media distribution. Keep your story relevant to your objective. It will develop the right image in customers’ minds and thus take you nearer to your business goals.  

Offer informative tidbits and impromptu media

The choice of digital consumers is fast evolving. Instead of brand-heavy commercially produced posts, they want a sneak-peek into your behind the scene moments. They are interested in knowing the people behind the brand. What is your daily routine? How do you manage the team and customers?  

Your stress-coping strategies, top employees, in-house activities, and fun outside the office- all such factors form interesting tidbits for audiences. It also helps to show the humane side of your brand.  

The best thing is that you can create such bite-sized stories in a jiffy. Just pick up your mobile, capture the key moments and share them on your social media. You may also create compact visual blog posts with lots of images. Consumption of video material is at an all-time high. So, you may also take advantage of that and share video stories on Facebook live.  

Give interesting and elaborate format to your story

The success of your storytelling depends upon how best it influences your targeted audiences. Do you remember how much you enjoyed bedtime stories as a child? It’s because of the presentation style- the dialogues, scene depiction, creating suspense, emotional connection, and voice intonation. Believe it, that “child” still lives on in all of us.  

Even if you examine the most successful drama series, daily soaps, or movies- they have one thing in common- a memorable story plot, and a stellar presentation with an interesting equation of incidents. Adopting these factors can help you create winning stories that impress your targeted group and turn them into customers and brand ambassadors.  

Start from scratch, tell about your hardships, how was your initial career journey, what kept you motivated, what was the turning point of your life, and what were the initial challenges when starting on your own….mentioning all these things will make your story so interesting that the readers are tempted to complete it in the one go. It keeps the readers engaged for long and buys you enough time to win their trust. It is the key to building sustainable relations with your targeted group which eventually helps in higher conversion and deeper commitment.  

Bond offline and online personalities 

If you are a socially active person in your real life too then it’s a good idea to bridge your physical and digital personality. Along with building consistency, it will also prompt your readers to relate your digital material to your real-life personality. It thus adds credibility to your story.  

Think about your minute personality traits and communication style. Do you love using many proverbs? Is there any phrase or one-liner that you habitually repeat? Are there any specific persons you love to quote often in your talks? Jot down all these communication traits and incorporate them into your stories.  

Follow this strategy across different formats of storytelling- blog posts, social media material, and guest posts. It will not only add a unique personality to the stories but will also allow readers to feel as if they are conversing with you one on one. Such things go a long way in building familiarity.  

Identify best social media to share stories

What makes a good story great is sharing. Never ignore the power of sharing. With so many digital mediums, it has become easier than ever to share their stories most impressively. Depending upon the tone of your story and your targeted group you can choose from a wide array of social media platforms.  

Corporate bigwigs prefer to share their stories on Linkedin while new-age fashion brands trust Instagram for such stories. The brands with a more intriguing story with lots of twists and turns prefer to share it on Facebook. So, you need to carefully identify the tone, brand, and right prospects for your story to find the best social media platforms for sharing it.  

It doesn’t mean that you should share your stories on a single platform only. Sharing it on multiple platforms can multiply its visibility and impact. Sharing stories won’t only help you to gain some social media traction but will also act as a conversation starter to spark talks that build relations. 

Conclusion

Whether you want to market your product or brand your company as a reliable name in the industry, you need to have excellent storytelling capabilities.

Storytelling allows a commercial brand to show its humane face to the world and help its targeted group to relate to the brand. It also helps companies to gain deeper traction in the market by achieving better brand recall value.

Storytelling is an art but you also need excellent strategy and understanding of different steps to create and spread your story. It will allow you to market your story to the right audiences, concentrate your efforts in the right direction and achieve your goals faster.