Read the following article on social media marketing and post your comments in t
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Question
Read the following article on social media marketing and post your comments in this discussion board
4 Storytelling Ideas for Social Media
Storytelling has always played a part in successful marketing.
It must be for good reason that (almost) every social media platform today has rich storytelling abilities. Be it Facebook’s Live feature or Instagram’s Stories status update.
If you're thinking on capitalizing on the art of storytelling, here are 4 ways to up the game for social media:
Key learning from a series like Star Wars:
Without an ‘in-your-face’ call to action, every new movie makes you want to watch the next. Imagine creating this same effect with your social media ads through storytelling.
1. Drawing from popular stories around you
Star Wars. It’s not just about the large fan base that still exists. Every new release leads to ticket sales. So, the movie makers (Read: marketers) have achieved two things here; long-term engagement and increased overall revenue.
Pamela Muldoon, Revenue Marketing Coach for The Pedowitz Group says, “One of my favorite storytelling techniques was used in “Pulp Fiction”. Quentin Tarantino uses a nonlinear storytelling approach that groups different characters together into various scenes and unique points of view. There is an intersection among many of these characters that is eventually played out in a few of the scenes which makes for a more robust and interesting story. Marketers can learn a lot from a non-linear storytelling approach by creating content from different points of view. These POV's can be from an external audience such as your target personas, or from an internal audience, such as different departments within the company providing insight for the prospect and/or customer.”
That doesn’t mean one has to only draw from a movie series example.
Marketers can draw inspiration from so many things around them besides drawing from what leading brands do.
Look at some of the most popular world brands, you will notice they are all great at storytelling. Put it to test. Be it McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Apple or Amazon. Amazon, for instance, has its own ‘Stories of Entrepreneurship’ where they feature every seller’s story. This is such great fodder for a social media campaign too!
Kate Santore of Coca-Cola took to the stage at the recent Content Marketing World to talk about the world-famous soft drink’s storytelling brand principles. In a CMI blog on the event, she was quoted as having said, “At Coca-Cola, we want to create Coca-Cola stories and not stories by Coca-Cola. That holds true when our product is a character in the story with a credible role to play. There are four typical archetypes that we look to: object of desire, embodiment of an attitude, social connector, and functional offering or benefit. If you read a script or even partner-created content and say to yourself, “Can I tell this story without Coca-Cola?” and if the answer is yes, then it’s a not a Coca-Cola story.”
Attention Marketers!
What if we told you that most of your consumers (about 90%) are not really interested in your marketing efforts, would you sit up and take notice?
Takeaway:
The idea for a great story for social media marketing can come from anywhere, not necessarily a competitor’s post or campaign!
Integrate the story into all touchpoints for maximum amplification - not just on social media but also on TV and print and other important channels in your marketing mix for consistency and a seamless brand experience.
2. The missing opportunity: capitalizing on (visual) storytelling
Given all the dynamics in the adwords space, and the more recent changes in newsfeed policies across platforms like Facebook and YouTube, or regulatory updates such as GDPR - while brands and digital advertisers are still reeling from the impact, maybe they are missing an opportunity here.
What remains constant across social sites is the ability to tell engaging stories differently, despite it all.
Live videos on Facebook get 3x more watch time than traditional videos. And the main reason attributed to this has been the ‘exclusivity’ factor where users get to ‘feel like they are in the moment’. Results have also shown that videos get 10x more comments, which equals more potential for engagement.
Knowing this, there is so much scope to capitalize on visual storytelling using rich infographics (known to receive 3x the engagement on social media than other content types), videos, graphics and more to tell a great brand story.
Platforms like Instagram offer Instagram Stories as status updates that disappear from user’s feeds after 24 hours. Btw, Instagram Stories had hit 100 million a merely two months after launching. So clearly, people like stories.
Facebook Live, on the other hand, remains in the feed. Facebook Stories is different. People see Facebook Stories of Pages they follow or Like in the Stories section on mobile and desktop versions. This content doesn’t show up on the News Feed unless posted there and disappears in 24 hours like all Stories.
Takeaway:
Telling visual stories across multiple social networks in ways best suited to each is a great way to amplify the noise and get the most out of your storytelling buck! Be informed by your users and their preferred journey to pick the right medium for the right version of your story.
3. Stories can keep people engaged without always needing them to click through to another site
Some cool benefits of telling a story
Much easier to consume, while on-the-go, doing laundry, working out, washing dishes…
Enhances brand recall and value
Creates a long-term connect with the consumer
Adds a touch of authenticity to the overall brand voice
Let’s use another idea.
I’m sure you remember the Humans of New York initiative that went viral a couple of (not so many) years ago.
The Humans of New York Facebook Page makes for a great storytelling case study. Most of the posts on the Facebook Page are long and need users to click on “See More” to get to the whole story.
Takeaway:
Long-form posts can lead to other types of clicks, such as increased “See More” clicks thereby keeping traffic on your post or business page for longer
For social channels, targeting an increase in “See More” metrics could be an alternative way of building brand value than diverting audiences to another site all the time.
4. Character limits are passé: there’s always a way around it
Every social platform comes with its own share of challenges. For a platform like Twitter, character limitations were a feature that marketers often had to struggle with.
But where there’s a will, there’s a way - If you can’t fit your story into one tweet, kick up a Tweetstorm!
What is a Tweetstorm?
The practice of sharing a train of thought longer than the per-tweet character limit through a series of tweets. The tweets could start or end with a letter or number to indicate the sequence for the benefit of near real-time or offline users.
Pro tip: One can try attaching multiple photos to a tweet too, but make sure they are uploaded in sequence!
Alternately, since Tweetstorming is platform-specific, for the others, sharing consecutive posts with a common hashtag could probably be a good way to tell a story.
Takeaway:
Stagger your story- tell it in parts and keep audiences engaged for longer
After all, this, let’s pose a question:
Do you know what your customer wants?
Well, the answer is - she wants a good story! So, will you tell her one?
Explanation / Answer
Social Media Story telling
Like what we see in movie series like Star wars, the story telling feature in social media creates a great opportunity for promotions and marketing. Through story telling in social media two objectives can be met. 1. Long term engagement - People will be interested and will be waiting to see what’s coming next. 2. Generate a continuous source of revenue in terms of sales. For eg: Star wars, ticket sales, sale of merchandise, etc
Marketers can learn a lot from a non-linear storytelling approach by creating content from different points of view.
Non-linear storytelling is something that marketers can look forward to use in social media marketing. It creates contents from different points of view and finally intersects them at one point to make it an interesting story
Inspiration for these stories can be anything from internal or the external world. When it strikes the potential customer with more sense of belongingness or reality it pays more. For example, In Coco Cola, they make Coco-cola stories rather than stories made by Coco Cola. When the story is about the brand and by the brand, it creates more trust and belongingness to the brand.
So the idea for a great story can come from anywhere, Marketers need to look at how it can be integrated and made to a story of the brand and amplify it to the maximum by covering all touch points.
The stories need to be different and engaging for it to make an impact.,
Videos gets more audiences in Facebook and if it’s a live video it gets 3 times more viewers as viewers feel part of the moment and hence get more engaged.
People like stories and their engagement with Facebook live and Instagram Stories are examples of that
Some cool benefits of telling a story in Social media
Takeaways from the passage:
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