Why Engaging Social Narrative Matters

These days social media seems to be an overwhelming content repository. Most of it is a churning cycle of the same information being shoved into the same audience group, doing basically nothing for you or your business.

However, there is one way to make your content seem unique and rise above all. It is the storytelling approach that cements your brand in your audiences’ minds.

What Does a Narrative Do?

A narrative is one of the most captivating ways to convey your message and information. Do this by creating engaging stories that make your audience vigilant and invested. This leads your online audience to becoming passionate followers.

Be it your company’s vision, tips of the industry, or overall product expertise, weaving a compelling dialogue presents an impactful method of delivering your end product and goal. Everyone has their favorite author, book, or series, and that’s because we enjoy the narratives in these stories. They captivate your interest and interactions. What we strive for in marketing is similar.

Telling a Story 

Stories go beyond pieces of literature, they are a universal language that everyone can use and understand. They appear in daily communication forms and provoke a connection between people. In marketing, we try to use facts and narratives to communicate and convey our message to our target audience. This empowers listeners to visualize vivid, sensory elements of the content based on the storytelling and their own experiences and understandings.

Incorporating narratives in social media storytelling is the process of using social pieces to tell stories about your brand, products or mission to captivate your audience. Don’t go through the typical posting motions and think that storytelling on social media is another tactic to sell products or services. Instead, think of it enabling you to expose your brand to your audience and tell them what it is all about.

If you only tell stories with the intent to sell something, it becomes promotional and sales oriented. These are too pushy and don’t strike a chord with your audience because they fail to leave an impression on their minds. Sometimes the piece can be a building block. You don’t always need to sell on every creative piece. Make the post about your company, a story, or an employee. It’s about building the rapport between you and the customer that makes the brand recognizable and unique.

Develop Relationships

Developing the relationship between brand and customer is all about communication, and good storytelling is the key to it. If you’re telling a narrative and another person is engaged in it, you two are in sync with each other, the brand, and the goal. When they’re in tune with your message, storytelling becomes a powerful marketing tool. You need to portray the emotion, action, value and brand recognition in your narrative and keep building on it for campaigns and projects to come.

When you position your company’s pitch as a story, the audience becomes more engaged as it triggers personal connections and allows the viewer to think about themselves with your product in their hand. While they’re in that headspace, make sure they have a clear call to action to refer to. The connection and emotion that your story brings out can influence behavior substantially. The CTA should have a clear value proposition. Do the thinking for them, connect the dots as much as you can for them so the connection for how your brand can help them is quickly made. Leave room for imagination though, let their own personal experiences fill in the gaps and take your product to heights that you wouldn’t be able to imagine. If these things are done right, the brand recall will allow your campaign and company to be at the forefront of the audience’s mind when they’re in a situation that they built your narrative to align with.

Before establishing the narrative, you should first know your audience. Figure out who your listeners are, who will engage with you the most. The best way to understand your audience is to identify customer personas. It helps create a foundation for you to sell a story that resonates with your listeners and viewers. After identifying the audience, take a look at your business goals from short-term and long-term perspectives before developing your stories on social media. An interesting story might be enough for audiences to tap the like button, but what makes them more inclined to engage and take action is a meaningful story. When you tell a story that is deeply impactful, it can provoke their emotions and build a strong connection with your brand. In order to make the audience feel involved with your story and see themselves as a part of it, create content they can relate to, communicate with them on social media, update regularly, and share their own stories, not just yours. Leverage all stories to show sneak peeks of your everyday life and business doings. Share videos of your customers sharing their stories and how your brand is a total game-changer in that. Let them be a part of your brand now and cement in that brand loyalty and reciprocation.

Weave Stories Into Content