The Secrets of Social Media Storytelling

Give Your Social Media Posts a Leg Up with Storytelling

It is astonishing when marketers don’t tap into the vast potential afforded by story-oriented social media posts. Conversations – enabling which is the raison d'etre of all social media platforms – are?built around exchanging stories, an archetypal mode of presenting and consuming content. Storytelling is able to lodge information deep in our minds, with researchers suggesting that people are 22 times more likely to remember a piece of information when structured as a story than when related by using just numbers.?

Thus, to help you maximise your engagement through the use of storytelling, in this blog post, we’ve collated some tips on how you can establish a compelling narrative that inspires your audience to take action and retain your messaging.?

1. Use tension and suspense to hook readers

A good story usually has a conflict or a problem at its core. The hero (which could be your customer or your brand) needs to overcome difficulties in their journey to achieving their goal. The tension rises throughout their journey until the climax, the point of highest tension, following which a resolution is found and the story winds down.

Thus, storytelling naturally infuses narrative urgency, which motivates your audience to stop and consider your post. However, note that, overall, the post should convey a tone of hope and triumph, as humans crave happy endings.

2. Sell a dream, not your product

An often-repeated piece of advice is to show how using your unique product can solve your audience’s daily problems and make their lives better. Such posts are often of more value to your customers than others, and as a result, your audience engages with these posts more.

3. Use fail-safe copywriting formulas

Copywriting formulas are tried-and-tested methods for crafting arresting sales pitches. They are built on the principles of storytelling, so using them makes creating compelling social media stories as easy as ABC.

4. Humanise your brand

Behind a successful company often lies an industrious, determined, and dedicated team. Parallelly, a successful company isn’t possible without its loyal customers. People connect with people, so humanise your social media posts by highlighting the people involved with your brand.

5. Trigger emotional responses

A huge reason why a story succeeds when numbers don’t is that stories appeal to people’s intuitive, emotional sides and are thus easy to connect with; conversely, numbers are difficult to recall and slip through our minds. An emotional connection also makes your customers feel invested in your journey.

6. Give your audience entertainment?

Stories are primarily considered a source of entertainment. In addition to educating and inspiring your audience, ensure that your posts are entertaining, perhaps with a touch of humour. These posts earn more engagement and can even go viral.

Conclusion

A steadfast fixture of communication since time immemorial, stories are a universal language and, in social media, can be used to demonstrate your unique value proposition to your audience in a way that resonates with them. Stories appeal to people’s emotions and help forge spontaneous, deep-seated connections, which studies have demonstrated, time and again, exert a more potent influence on people’s decision-making processes than cold, hard logic or truth. Hence, a stimulating story may be the key element that ultimately gives you a competitive advantage in a crowded marketplace.