A Storytelling Approach to Social Media

Posted by Gino Cosme

May 20, 2008

While price, quality and specs will always be an important deciding factor in a customer’s buying decision, something else is equally as important. Emotion.

Alongside the above, a customer’s motivation to choose one brand over another is sparked by emotion. I speak from experience - whether it’s that 3G enabled iPhone I badly want, my preference for flying SAA (yes, yes, I stand alone on this one) domestically or Swiss Air internationally, my eclectic choice of music, or my choice of vehicle, I’m inspired through emotion (and a little bit of common sense). Back to this post, in order to elicit the right emotion, it’s paramount that we connect with customers in an engaging and personal manner. And while it’s easy to say that putting up a blog or launching a social media campaign will cut it, how these strategies are executed are far more crucial.

I think that strategically focused communications focuses on two things: it captures interest and encourages a desired reaction by tapping into both the person’s mind and heart. To do this, we need to position our brands in the marketplace using communication methods that humanise the business, intrigue and entertain current and future customers, stand apart from the marketing bounty, and ultimately have a positive impact on the bottom line.

To execute social media creatively, it too - like its traditional counterparts - needs to be done with manageable chunks of content that helps people relate to the brand in a non-corporate way through experience and conversation, dubbed storytelling. This storytelling technique - as many of us bloggers know - when coupled with building trust and ultimately inspiring desirable responses can help produce communications that speak to and with people in mind.

Back in 2006, Seth Godin wrote an ode to storytelling. One of my favourite lines include “Great stories succeed because they are able to capture the imagination of large or important audiences…Great stories don’t appeal to logic, but they often appeal to our senses. Pheromones aren’t a myth. People decide if they like someone after just a sniff.” Stories can be told through TV ads. Through social media. Through multimedia. Through new thinking…

Social media