Find Your Story
By
Mark Cameron
Social media platforms have become a “must have” in the modern marketer’s kit bag. Recently we’ve seen the focus rightly shifting away from technology to techniques required for a successful strategy. A social media strategic plan will address any number of metrics and activities depending on the business objectives. However, one thing every good plan will have is a strategic approach to content marketing. Optimizing your content for each platform to ensure the best message reaches your target audience is essential, but that’s only half the story. The biggest challenge for the digital marketer is to develop a creative way to tell the brand story.
Creativity in storytelling has always been important. The viral nature of digital communications means the success of that creativity is obvious, and measurable. Successes stand out, and failures vanish into white noise. While there is no magic formula for developing a creative direction, it is vital for business leaders to understand why it is needed.
Storytelling is in our cultural DNA. Great stories capture the imagination and help us relate to the underlying message. For your business, compelling storytelling is essential for one simple reason—people do not really care about the brand. It’s easy to forget that the business you live and breath is not as interesting to your market as it is to you. And real customer loyalty is difficult to maintain. Developing a good story helps to make your brand interesting and attractive. The story about the business origins, for example, can help to put a human face on your brand. The story of Facebook starting out in a coffee-fuelled Harvard dorm room has helped turn Mark Zuckerberg, and the Facebook brand, into something resembling legend.
Social media gives you the ability to tell stories in a new way. While no technology can help you construct a narrative, knowing how to use each platform correctly helps you be more effective in its telling. Finding out what sort of content your audience will engage with doesn’t need to take a long time. Experimentation should be seen as an essential part of the process. If the content doesn’t resonate with your market, keep trying. Don’t make the mistake of blaming the platform. Find out how the platform works best for your brand story.
While telling a story may sound fun, if the narrative is not converting interest into sales, then it’s virtually meaningless. So before you start storytelling, listen carefully to your audience. Find out where their desires intersect with your brand. Then focus the content around that—tell a story that says, “I can help.” Help them join the dots and the business results will follow.
Social media has eroded the barriers for any brand to tell its story. Dollar Shave Club (http://www.dollarshaveclub.com) in the U.S., which went from virtually nothing to an international brand with just one YouTube video, showed us all that if you get it right the world is yours for the taking.
Mark Cameron is CEO and lead strategist of social media conversion and commercialization agency Working Three. While his agency is based in Melbourne, Australia, he works for some of the world’s most innovative and forward-thinking brands. As a regular speaker and writer on social media and digital strategy, Mark stays focused on customers and outcomes, not the technology, leading to simple strategic conclusions.
