Storytelling… Always Storytelling.
I recently met an acquaintance from college whom I hadn’t seen in more than 10 years. We weren’t that close in college, but kept up sporadically through email. In more recent years, we updated each other on our lives through Facebook and Twitter. So when we finally met in person, I didn’t need to ask him the usual “What have you been up to since college?” question. Through his Facebook and Twitter updates, I already knew that he had recently changed jobs and had just moved into a new house. I even knew about his struggles to get internet installed in his new home.
In fact, I felt like I knew so much about him that I was briefly at a loss for words when we finally met in person. “So, how are you?” I asked, after we re-introduced ourselves to each other.
From there, we immediately started telling each other stories and we dove straight into a deeper conversation.
After we parted, I marveled that we hadn’t made much small talk – that little warm-up exercise before the real conversation starts. We also didn’t trade many facts and figures about ourselves or about our mutual friends from college. Because we felt like we knew each other from our Facebook updates, we immediately started trading stories. The authenticity of the updates and stories I had been receiving from my old acquaintance made me feel like I was still connected to him in some strange way, despite the time and distance between us. So what is it about stories that makes making and maintaining connections between people look so easy?
Stories are basic to the human experience.
So basic, actually, that we even have evidence of storytelling from the Stone Age (some would argue that even Adam was a storyteller). Storytelling has been used to pass along knowledge and share values for thousands of years. We are still cavemen, all of us. Intelligent scientists argue that much of human behavior is explained by the fact that we are using prehistoric brains to navigate a modern world. Stories are our main navigating tools to develop trust and commitment and generate an emotional connection with others and our world.
There has never been so much writing and talk about storytelling for companies and brands as in the last year. More and more companies are talking about “a brand positioning story”. But what exactly is the difference between branding and the story? And where does the concept of positioning fit in?
“Content is King” is the current meme for organizations and brands that want to connect with their audiences. Whenever you read something about social media these days, you will read about “the power of content marketing”. By now the expression “content is king” has become so standard, the meaning of the word “content” is no longer clear: what is content? And more importantly, what is the story of this king, and will he connect with his audience in today’s hyper-connected world?
Still today – and I would even say especially today – if you have a good story, and tell it well, people are more likely to remember you, and more likely to pass it on.
No Story, no fans.
The net has created new ways of telling your story. But it is my experience that many companies today fail to find their real story and get stuck in a self-promotional story that puts the entire organization in a less believable category.
Most corporate and brand stories are mere bragging, which tends to turn people off. They are blaring out messages, cleverly packaging them in stunning ad campaigns and repeating them as often as possible to augment the impact. But cavemen told their stories in a way that basically dragged people toward them. They could whisper the story around the campfire circle (the circle is what we label today as a “community”) and still find connection with their audience. Companies are in need of real and emotionally engaging stories to tell. “No Story, No Fans” (the book as well as the phrase) reflects the idea of shifting your mindset from broadcasting about your products to really connecting to the people who will eventually be spending money on your products.
How difficult do you find it today to get your story connected to a new, hyper-connected world?
How difficult is it to tell real, authentic stories to the right people and find real engagement? Believe me, I know how challenging it can be to produce smart, highly targeted and truly innovative stories. But I also believe companies today would be able to connect better with their audiences if they would start using stories as little gifts to the community, if they would start to trade authentic and truly engaging stories as a means to reconnect with their audiences and regain trust. And trading stories is (or has to become) the new “business as usual”. You can read all about that in Part 1.
I would like to share with you a few recent blog posts that I think clarify the importance of storytelling much better.
First this article ‘For Brands, Being Human Is The New Black’, an illustration how brands are seeking to gain customers by showing their human side.
Then there is artist Jonathan Harris’s new digital platform, aiming to help people “find a signal amid social media noise”.
German giant Siemens is (successfully) humanizing its brand through storytelling
And of course my book on storytelling “No Story, No Fans” is full of examples of engaging storytelling. For instance: “Days with my father” (page 70), or the story of Steve Jobs on page 73.
Storytelling is a process, in the sense that you actually need to take different steps to make it work.
