Most of us in our childhood loved listening to different stories. They often stared with an introduction, then main content, and finally an ending that contained a moral or tips. A similar mechanism is used in marketing. Storytelling in social media is also telling a story with a moral or a happy ending.
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What is storytelling
An important thing to keep in mind when telling a story is the narrative. However, it is not just about specific words. The narrative should teach us something new about the world around us or about ourselves.
Nowadays, we can observe the use of narration in marketing campaigns more and more. Good marketing is one that tells an interesting story. Storytelling is present in every marketing communication channel. This is especially true of social media.
How to start the storytelling in Social Media
Social media is a great place to tell a story. The creators of social networks understand the needs of their users very well and are able to satisfy them. With the right tools, we can create a narrative that goes far beyond the traditional understanding of storytelling.
We have various forms of content delivery at our disposal. Traditional stories were based only on the oral communication, and the rest was completed by the listener’s imagination. The invention of the illustrated books filled the story with visual content. On the other hand, modern storytelling can engage all the senses of the recipient, making the message much more interesting.
For your storytelling in social media to be effective, it must first be properly planned. When creating a story that is effective from the point of view of marketing, we start from the end, i.e. from defining the goal we want to achieve. Once we have a clearly defined goal, we work backwards and complete the various stages of the project.
The end goal may be, for example, reaching a specific group of people – the target market. It is also important to define a specific strategy to reach this audience, and then select the appropriate marketing communication channels, appropriate for a given group of people.
Now we can move on to creating a “story”, of course remembering about all previous mentioned elements. Our story should therefore be addressed to a specific group of recipients, and it must be conveyed through a communication channel appropriate for this group.
When creating a marketing campaign, remember the principles of copywriting, and make all parts of the story intertwine to form one whole. Each post, clip or report must be a mini-story, in order to participate of building the company brand, regardless of the whole.
Storytelling, or maybe story showing ?
The concept of storytelling can be a bit confusing as it doesn’t just apply to subject. In marketing, regardless of whether it is carried out on social media by another marketing communication channel, it is about the effective delivery of specific content. Sometimes a more effective form of communication than storytelling is presenting or revealing our narrative. What does it mean ?
On social media, we very often only have a few seconds to grab the user’s attention. Therefore, trying to convey the message in the form of a long story may fail. Internet users are very impatient these days and don’t want to waste time reading long posts or articles.
A better idea to get the attention of a social media user is to create a short video or eye-catching graphics. Combined with a catchy title, this form of communication can achieve the expected effect. The message should be delivered as clearly, legibly and comprehensively as possible.
Storytelling in social media and copywriting
If you already have some experience in writing texts, it will certainly be much easier for you. In storytelling, the skill to create fictional or non-fiction texts will be useful. However, you don’t really need to be an expert with any of these literary genres. Often it is enough to know the basics of copywriting.
Write about what attracts attention and appeals to your imagination. Keep the reader suspenseful and anticipating what will happen next. Depending on the audience, this may require more narration, use the tools used by fiction writers.
Read this article in Polish: Storytelling w mediach społecznościowych.
