Storytelling essentially involves creating a story around relatable characters and situations and making one remember the same after many years. It means giving meaning and shape to information that otherwise sounds boring. If one remembers a tale well, that means the story was really powerful. In other words, social networks are necessary not just to share tales about the brand, but also to narrate it and tell more about it. As an example, ‘Impossible is Nothing’ by Adidas was extremely successful. The reasons for its success were not the athletic shorts or the sweaty model dribbling the ball, but a true story that talked about Messi. This managed to touch our brain and make our emotions run several years later.
Messi had a problem with regards to growth hormones, and this helped create a positive impact, highlighting a moral that what one thinks bad is not always bad. If companies need to really tap into the power of social media channels, they need to stop using them as distribution channels and convert them into conversation channels instead. Today’s social media stories can be considered as powerful tools of persuasion for the world.
Agents of storytelling
Blogs have existed for more than a decade for the purpose of storytelling. But now even YouTube, Facebook and WhatsApp have jumped on to the bandwagon. For every user, both WhatsApp and Facebook allow the creation of stories, which tells the world what he or she has experienced recently. In fact, the more you incorporate stories as part of your social marketing strategy, the closer your customer will be to your brand. Social media stories were first used by the application Snapchat. Instagram stories, YouTube reels, Facebook stories, Twitter moments and Skype Highlights are others n the same league.
Human beings are hardwired to enjoy stories. Most of us are born with a “story drive”, or a wish to hear them. Every culture makes use of stories to show how the world functions, especially to children. Ever since the first cave paintings were found, storytelling has been an integral communication method. It has been capable of eliciting emotional responses and gathering support, thus making it a vital tool in the hands of content marketers.
How are stories formatted on social media?
A social media story can be created with the help of text, pictures and graphics. It remains online for a period of 24 hours and is then withdrawn by the respective social media site. All users may not be pressing the ‘Like’ button for every part of the story, but many would definitely be viewing the details (views are tracked by the respective site). In other words, social media stories can be considered as the most trending formats for video and photo collections today.
What is most interesting that one can keep adding content to the story all day- it does not have to end at what you uploaded the first time. Instagram also offers the ‘Boomerang’ option through which a single action can be continuously repeated. Imagine a car rally being shot at mountainous and other locations, being sponsored by a tire brand. The entire story, with driving videos, will make for an excellent story to promote the brand.