7 Principles to Good Storytelling
How do I use Storytelling on Social Media?
Use these 7 Principles to tell good stories on social media.
Storytelling. Tell Stories. Brand Storytelling.
You could probably say storytelling is a buzzword these days.
Buzzword or not, the truth is storytelling works. What is social media storytelling? It’s storytelling to connect with your audience. It’s the stories you’re telling people face to face but written for social platforms.
Stories are a powerful way for organizations to connect with their audiences. When people encounter stories, they are more likely to understand issues and ideas than facts and figures. Your facts and figures support the story. A well-told story evokes emotion and action - and we’re not talking jaw-dropping, or you need to grab the tissues kind of story.
Don’t forget - Stories come in all sizes. Sometimes it’s the minor story that will have the most significant impact. Often we’re so close to the stories we don’t recognize what will resonate with our audiences or what they will find interesting.
Basic Story Structure
Before we dive in, a story has three parts.
Setup
Tension
Resolution
Think about the popular nursery rhyme “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.”
“The itsy bitsy spider crawled up the water spout.
Down came the rain, and washed the spider out.
Out came the sun, and dried up all the rain, and the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again”
It’s simple. There’s no reason to overcomplicate it.
Follow these principles to tell good stories on social media.
Stories that people want to read!
1. Set a Goal:
What is the goal? Ask yourself these questions to find the answer:
What do you want to establish with the post?
Do you want to sell more?
Do you want to entertain?
Do you want a high engagement rate?
Do you want someone to share it?
What do you want them to understand?
Whatever the goal is, be sure that goal is reflected in the copy. What does someone have to understand to accomplish the goal you have set?
2. Be Authentic
What does being authentic on social media mean? Be a real person. Be transparent. Be helpful. When you show up as your authentic self, you create a safe place for people to connect with you. It showcases your brand and produces social proof. When you tell original and authentic stories, you captivate your audience. People are on social media to be social; after all, that was the point, right?
3. Make it Relateable
Immerse your audience in the story. Paint a picture of the relatable moments that are universal. What are the relatable moments? Feelings? Dreams? Hopes? Challenges? Fear?
4. Start with a Hook
Start with a hook. Good stories start by grabbing your attention. Utilize the art of a hook on social media to amplify your content. You only have a second to stop someone's thumb from scrolling and grabbing their attention. The hook could be your image or your copy, or both. If your hook is the first line of the copy or caption, grab them with that. This could be in the form of a question or a stop word. Typically a stop word is a negative word like “Don’t, Never, or Stop.”
5. Engage the senses
Describe the moment, person, or place using one or more of the five senses. It doesn’t have to be an essay from Creative Writing 101, but use what you learned in school to engage the viewer to consume your content.
6. Keep it simple
Can someone who just encountered this story or post understand the message? Is it straightforward? Is it easy to understand? There are many reasons to keep it simple and easy to understand.
For example, if you’re selling tickets to an event, and you’ve posted about the event 5 times in the past month, you can’t assume the viewer saw any of those posts. Be clear but concise. Even if they did see it, they need to see it 37 times to actually remember. There’s no scientific research behind 37 times, but we’re confident it’s not seven times like the experts claim. Read it out loud, and you'll find your mistakes.
7. Offer an Action Step
Does the audience know what they should do next? Be blunt and direct, and only give one CTA. What do they do next? Click on the link to buy tickets, comment on your post, or share the post. If you give too many CTAs, you risk losing them and scrolling through your posts.
Here are a few things to remember when putting these into action.
These principles will work. They will help you tell stories effectively on social media, not only on social media but across all communication channels. These steps can be utilized across multiple platforms and channels to recruit and retain employees.
Don’t try to use all 7 today and expect it to be perfect. Try one or two at once.
Practice. Practice. Practice.
Don’t wait for the perfect post to get started. Put it out there and make tweaks because roughly only 3% of your audience will see what you’re posting. 🧐
Don’t do it alone. Engage with others on your team or even clients.
Create a culture of storytelling at every level of your organization. Make it everyone’s job to participate in storytelling.
Check out the workshop Create a Culture of Storytelling. Learn how to identify, gather, and craft impactful stories to take your reports, marketing, and communications to the next level across your entire team or organization. The bottom line is storytelling should be part of everyone’s job, but you have to create a culture of storytelling for this to happen.
Workshops are custom and attendees always walk away with actionable items! Click the workshops button to see more!
