storytelling content marketing

I’d say it’s safe to say that we all know the power of stories. Each one of us has experienced it in our lives at some point or another. Whether you grew up listening to your parents read bedtime fairy tales… Whether you voraciously adventure books under the covers with a flashlight long past your bedtime (*raises hand*)… Whether you have enthralling conversations with your friends for hours about incidents and stories in your lives over food and drinks… Or you spend hours sitting in movie theaters watching a fantastic tale play out onscreen… Or you binge-watch an entire season of shows in a weekend on Netflix… Stories are essential in adding color, humanity, life, and meaning to our communications.  Source: HarperCollins Now, imagine blending a beautiful dose of storytelling into an otherwise bland content marketing campaign. Tapping into the undeniable power of stories gives your marketing an ability to draw an audience like moths to a glowing streetlight. You give your content color and life. You make it relatable, understandable, and personal. Understandably, storytelling is a big topic for marketers. Stories keep people reading, but what’s truly interesting is people remember stories (incidents, happenings) more than almost anything else. That’s because stories and narratives help construct memories and keep them intact in our minds, according to Jason Gots for Brain Think: “Cognitive science has long recognized narrative as a basic organizing principle of memory. From early childhood, we tell ourselves stories about our actions and experiences. Accuracy is not the main objective – coherence is. If necessary, our minds will invent things that never happened, people who don’t exist, simply to hold the narrative together.” A great example: This article from the Guardian is all about how constructing a story helps with memory. First, they give you a story to read, a strange one about a man named Nigel and his pet squid: Once you read this tale, the article asks you to close your eyes and recall as much of the story as you can from memory. Then, you’re supposed to write down all of the items/details of the story you specifically remember. Ready for the clincher? This isn’t an ordinary story – encoded within it is a recipe for a stir-fry with squid and peppers from Nigel Slater: If you compare the two, it’s easy to see the recipe emerge in the details of the story. 300lb squid = 300g of squid. Lime-green limo = juice of one lime. Sesame Street = sesame oil. Chances are, if you were asked to remember this list of ingredients on its own, you’d have some trouble. You’d have to read the list a few times, repeat it to yourself, and recite it in a specific order. When you add the story element, suddenly, the ingredients are much easier to remember. The memory comes together and is held together by the addition of a narrative. This is just one example of how stories impact memory. Now think about that in terms of storytelling in content marketing. The possibilities are incredible! If you tell stories in your content, your content (and YOU!) will remain in your audience’s mind much longer, than if you built a content marketing campaign minus stories. You’ll have a better chance of resonating, of making an emotional impact, and building a connection with your humans. Which means a true (and loyal) brand audience, growth, and ROI! Sound good? Let’s look at how to do it, including examples of storytelling in content marketing we can take inspiration from. [bctt tweet=”If you tell stories in your content, your content (and YOU!) will remain in your audience’s mind much longer. Learn how to build your next content marketing campaign with an authentic tale. #storytelling @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”] How to Use Storytelling Content Marketing to Tell Powerful Brand Tales: 4 Methods Tie in Emotion Tell True, Authentic Stories Try Storytelling Content Marketing That Maps to Your Goals Don’t Be Bland – Get Personal Let’s get into it! 4 Ways to Use Storytelling Content Marketing, Plus Inspiration 1. Tie in Emotion One of the simplest ways to implement storytelling content marketing is to add emotional details to your content. If you write with feeling, your audience will have a better chance of connecting with it (and your brand) on a deeper level. Prime example: The Significant Objects experiment, which looked at how adding story details alongside insignificant objects (junk, in other words) actually made them valuable. For the experiment, Joshua Glen and Rob Walker bought cheap knick-knacks from thrift stores. They wanted to see if they could resell each item on eBay for a profit by including personal stories in each item’s description. This creamer cow, in particular, originally retailed for $1. Here’s the item description/story that appeared on its eBay listing: The creamer, previously worthless, ended up selling for $26. THAT is the power of story, right there. The emotional details (the creamer may have belonged to Norman Rockwell, the grandmother named it “Norman”, and it was a regular part of family tea rituals) are what made it special and unique, thus giving it value. In the same way, you can add relevant anecdotes and stories from your experience to your content. Share your failures and successes alike, and share some personal, emotional details that people can relate to. 2. Tell True, Authentic Stories Remember, never make up stories just to add “buzz” to your content. Nobody likes inauthenticity, and that kind of approach WILL end up biting you in the end. [bctt tweet=”Never make up stories just to add ‘buzz’ to your content. Nobody likes inauthenticity, and that kind of approach WILL end up biting you in the end. @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”] Look at Samsung – they made up stories about the kind of photos their phones were capable of taking. They posted pictures they claimed were taken with the front-facing camera on one of their phone models. However, soon, users discovered that these photos were, in fact, purchased from a stock photo provider and taken with … Read more