No matter how much effort or money we invest in building our brand, there are two groups of people who ultimately decide how a brand story is shared. Employees and customers are the real brand storytellers. They define the value, reach, and impact of a brand. Success is achieved when we understand the role they play in our company narrative.
It wasn't really the internet, as a whole. It was web browsers -- namely Google, Bing, and Yahoo -- that were looking for real content on your website. As you know, these powerful search engines "crawl" your website on a regular basis. They are constantly indexing its content and structure. Since the end of 2013 search engines have learned something new, they want content that looks a lot more like a real conversation (its called "semantic search").
Digital storytelling reaches beyond the news and content that you post, to the web technology that delivers your brand. A web or social encounter is often the first experience your customer has with your business or nonprofit. Visitors to your digital properties are not just reading or seeing your story, they are experiencing it through the medium of your web properties.
You don't have to look far to see the shift toward story-based marketing. A quick glance through a magazine, prime-time television, even the latest Super Bowl ads makes it clear – stories are working as a way to tell brand stories. This is an important change in marketing trends, part of it due to the power of social marketing. Significant industry experts report that multiple corporate brands – ExxonMobil, Dow, Google, and IBM to name a few – have all upped the messaging related to their corporate story.
The average person will tell forty-two people about a great social media experience (1). Forty-two. And yet, only 36% of people report their problems being solved when they inquire via social media (2). Most marketing and sales specialists understand the power of a conversation. From the first time a customer encounters your brand -- maybe it's a billboard, an article in a magazine, or a post on Twitter -- your brand is beginning a conversation with that customer. So, where is the disconnect?
If you are a small business or a nonprofit, you may be aware of the changes that Facebook is making to the way it distributes posts into our follower's news feeds. If your posts have been promotional in nature, even those that were intentional and creative, Facebook changes will result in "organic distribution" that will "fall significantly over time," starting in mid-January. That means that business and nonprofit pages will reach fewer and fewer of those who follow us if we are using language that looks or smells like advertising. Facebook's solution for that is simple, if it is advertising, then they want you to pay them for it. Some painfully respond that they already "paid" with significant effort to build the "likes" on their pages, but those complaints aren't getting much response.
I recently watched the classic Dickens Christmas Carol, the one with George C. Scott. I feel moved every time I watch it-- it touches on something that is a deep part of our human story. The various characters speak to the hopes and struggles of our lives-- the desire for closeness, challenges with money, health issues and interactions with powerful people. A rich contrast plays out between someone who has everything but is miserable, and those who have little but who are generous and joyful. The core message of this story is timeless. It asks, can people change? Can they awaken from lives of cruelty and selfishness to care deeply about the welfare of others? Unlike Scrooge, I am afraid that we may not get the benefit of a visitation by ghosts, offering a more eternal perspective that allows us to see the world in a new light.
I grew up watching a local car dealer advertise with a big white cowboy hat and a parade of farm and zoo animals. He was giving us the gift of amusement. It was memorable, but I was dubious about the kind of car buying experience I might have on his lot, because the elephant wasn't telling a story that created confidence in his auto expertise. When we come to realize that we need to use a story-based approach for our organization, we can feel pressure to put ourselves in the movie business, or recruit a family member to become our amateur (and often ineffective) television spokesperson. Storytelling should be a priority for every business in the this era of social media, but it doesn't require filming your own reality TV show, because an army of storytellers are already available to you-- they are your customers.
Story-based marketing is a primary focus of the Story Collaborative. Story-based marketing includes skills, practices and technology, but more than anything else it moves us toward a new way of thinking. As we undergo a story paradigm shift, we can transition from antiquated and ineffective approaches of marketing, based in a rapidly expiring perspective about people and communication, toward a viral and powerful approach that places our goods, service-- our value-- into the lives of consumers directly through their story.
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