Storytelling IV: Best Practices

In our previous blog posts, we pointed out what to look out for when telling a story and why it works. Now, we’ve looked for great examples where companies apply their story throughout their entire communication. During our search, we realised that this is not so easy to find.

It’s so great when you do eventually find an example, where a strong, emotional story is told, but the product remains the focus.

Here, Google tells us a wonderful story. Wonderful, because it has been skilfully created. And there are several reasons for this. First off, let’s take a look at the story and its structure.

Storytelling III: Where Does One Begin?

(c) fotalia.com

Before you can tell a good story, you should understand a few things about yourself and your audience. We’ll explain what:

We have already explained that the story you tell about your company should be both basic and emotional. Here we give you specific advice on what you should watch out for when finding and telling your story.

Storytelling II – Why it Works

Storytelling: Our brain loves stories (c) Bryant Arnold

In our first blogpost on storytelling we promised we’d give you a reason why storytelling works as a marketing tool. Here it is:

The basic assumption of storytelling is that the unconscious mind controls a substantial part of human behaviour. Hence, also the purchasing behaviour. Or, as Werner T. Fuchs formulates it: The unconscious mind makes the purchasing decision, the conscious mind justifies it.

In his book „Warum das Gehirn Geschichten liebt“, Werner T. Fuchs presents mechanisms of storytelling. In it, he doesn’t only discuss what makes a story a story, but he also offers numerous examples from the world of marketing and innovatively links them with the latest discoveries in brain research.

Storytelling I: What’s the Story?

Nowadays, marketing and communication cannot get around the following topic: storytelling. There’s no need to go through shelves of books on literature. Simply follow our blog and check out the different aspects of storytelling to deepen your understanding on the topic.

Storytelling for business

Storytelling is profoundly human (c) fotalia

There are two aspects, which make storytelling so compelling for companies. For one, stories are deeply rooted in human culture. Everybody knows stories, everyone tells stories. The most popular stories are told over and over again – throughout generations.  But more importantly for marketeers: stories convey and release emotions – why and how, we’ll explain in one of the next posts.

Storytelling has nothing to do with superstition. It works – we’ll provide the reason for why it works in another chapter – and is becoming increasingly important. So much so that companies, which are placing more emphasis on direct marketing and social media, cannot avoid storytelling any longer. Due to this development, brand and business communication is rapidly changing from monologue to dialogue.

Whoever wishes to tell a story that works and evokes emotions will most likely ask himself the following questions: “What is a story?” and “What is my story?”.

Telling Tales: The Narrative Revenue Opportunity

by Dr. Bill Nichols, Astrophel group

‘Narrative, narrative’ everywhere. It’s a staple of consultancy creds. Every PR campaign and every brand, apparently, should have one.

But how exactly do you sell it? Make money? And, as a client, what are you buying?

Cynics say 20 years of narrative chat is just consultant re-packaging – backstories and news agendas remixed. A case of: ‘the sun shone down, having no alternative, on the nothing new’ – to quote a favourite narrative opening! (‘A’)

Maybe. But my own research review is surprisingly positive. It comes with two caveats. That: (1) PR folks really are the great storytellers; and (2) PR consultancy management teams really want to exit their traditional comfort zone and exploit their intellectual assets (e.g. storytelling).

So what are the prospects? This little narrative is a ‘will-they-do-it? And like ‘whodunnits’, we need means, motive and first…

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(A) Beckett, S, Murphy (1938);

Why social media shoots for the stars

It’s no secret that social media has taken the world by storm. But some parts of the world seem a lot more reluctant than others to embrace this “storm”. Germany is the perfect example. Look for instance at the world of celebrities. In Germany, celebrities and non-celebrities alike, shy away from even having an online presence. Now I firmly believe in the adage, “each man to his own”. But if the rest of the world is doing it, we’ve got to ask ourselves, aren’t we missing something??

So I decided to ask an expert to shed some light on the subject… Richard Le Cocq is the director of Laughing Buddha, the social media management & digital consultancy based in London.

When a celebrity approaches you to manage their online profile, what are their main requirements?

Richard: All celebrities are individuals, so they come to us with different needs and experiences of social media. Some are savvy and need tips and simple ways to improve their presence, others have no idea where to begin and need setting up and advice so they can feel confident using it. It can be a scary thing for many, what with all the networks you can sign up to and the incredibly public mistakes other public figures have made in the past. So we always try and recognize an individual’s needs first and work closely with our client so they can develop an online voice that suits them. For example, some love chatting about themselves so Twitter makes perfect sense, yet others may be more visual so a photographic platform like Instagram or Flickr might be more appropriate.