8 Ways to Tell Social Media Stories
Social Media is an excellent place for new and existing brands to start building meaningful relationships with their target audience in order to connect with them on a deeper level. Social Media is a relaxed environment to build a budding relationship with customers by telling stories that would help them connect better with the brand. If you would like to create your own stories for your brand, it would be a good idea to use the services of a social media marketing agency. They can help you to create captivating and enticing stories that will draw in your target audience. Consider these eight ways to tell social media stories.
1. Connect people with the “human side” of the brand
Humans like to connect with other humans, that is just how we are wired. Even though, sometimes humans tend to seek the attention of pets – maybe to fill a void in their lives – there is always something that draws them back to the need to interact with other humans. Quite a lot of brands have experienced a deeper level of connection with their target audience by showing the human side of the brand. This is a way that businesses can reflect the persona of their brand.
People would be more moved to connect with a brand that is able to show a range of emotions, and that is sensitive to things happening either in the local communities where the brand is located or in international communities. People are driven by words, but they are mostly driven by words spoken by other humans like them. Occasionally, reveal faces working behind the scenes to get the job done in the brand, and weave a story around how important their work is to the consumers that received the end product.
2. Tell stories that the target audience will care about
Tell stories that your target audience will care about. If a brand is offering services that would help parents with children that have autism, you cannot be sharing a story about celebrities living with people that have autism while focusing on the lavish care they give. Rather, you can share a story about how living with such people is changing their perspectives about life and possibly how having access to the brand’s products, or services can help to improve their lives.
3. Use relevant and compelling images that are self-explanatory
Quite a large percentage of those using social media are driven by visual content. This is the reason why social media networking platforms like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are thriving so well. With this in mind, brands need to know how to create powerful images that can effectively convey a message to their followers. Photography is a powerful way to tell stories on social media. Brands can hire an expert to take pictures of a regular workday for staff or of people using their product, and these pictures can be shared on social media with or without a caption. Don’t be tempted to use stock images. It really doesn’t do proper justice to telling a believable brand story.
4. Create an irresistible monomyth
A monomyth is also known as a hero’s journey. The idea behind this storytelling method is to share something that would help those following the brand on social media. Typically in a hero’s journey, they set out to an unknown place, overcome challenges and in return gets some sort of reward or discovers some knowledge which he or she would take back home to share with those around who would care to listen.
5. Use relatable plot lines for the story
There is absolutely no use telling stories that people can’t relate to. Stories should always be relatable to a wide range of people with similar or different interests. Reason being that you want to be able to secure the attention of a lot of people the moment your post appears on their social media feed. So when crafting a story on social media, always think about how the story would catch the attention of anyone first, before they decide if it would be beneficial to them or someone else that they know. They are likely to forward such stories to people that they know if it would be beneficial to them also.
6. Every post on social media should have a narrative
For brands, every post on their social media channels should be seen as an opportunity to tell a story so they can connect with their followers. If you are posting a video, that video must tell a story and use the caption section to hint to followers what the video is about. This will help to spur interest. If there is a particular spot in the video that you want them to see, do this by noting in the caption area the exact time duration that they would see it (e.g. 00:16 or 1:17).
7. Share the stories of those who have interacted with the brand
When people buy a product or service from you, and they go on and on about how it has been useful to them – this is the type of (real-life) content that will do well on the social media page of the brand. Some customers might even go as far as sharing before and after photos of them using the product. People love to hear real stories of ordinary people like themselves. Brands can reach out to such people, to get accurate details of their stories and share it on their page with their followers.
8. Write stories that creates anticipation
One of the reasons why seasonal movies or TV series are able to keep the interest of their viewers is knowing when to drop a powerful cliffhanger at the end of an episode or season. This plot device can also be used in telling stories on social media to create anticipation for what would happen next by keeping your followers in suspense. If there is an upcoming event, product launch or something that you want followers to anticipate, start weaving an exciting story relevant to what you want to reveal later. Keep using elements of suspense in every post leading to the final post where you will be making the big revelation.