Socially Curious (how curiosity converts)

I am naturally inquisitive, it’s the storyteller in me. I love to learn, but it wasn't until recently I discovered WHY I have that innate desire (which is stronger in me than most people).

I guess that's maybe why when we were struggling with my daughters first name we landed on Alice. Lewis Carroll's timeless classic about a girl that falls down a rabbit hole and meets all kinds of unexpected creatures from disappearing cats to a smoking caterpillar has inspired countless generations. Besides the doctor said she looked like an Alice and the name stuck!

One of Alices catchphrases is - curiouser and curiouser!

The human brain is hardwired for curiosity and that’s why stories fit our logical world view so well. We have an innate almost hardcoded desire to solve mysteries and stories are the metaphorical tool for the job.

In his paper 'The Psychology of Curiosity', Loewenstein breaks down four ways of involuntarily inducing curiosity in humans:?

(1) The 'posing of a question or presentation of a puzzle’;?

(2) 'Exposure to a sequence of events with an anticipated but unknown resolution’;?

(3) 'The violation of expectations that triggers a search for an explanation’;?

(4) Knowledge of 'possession of information by someone else"

Information gaps create gnawing levels of curiosity in the reader.

Nowhere is this more evident in Alices Adventures in Wonderland, it's one giant mystery.

(1) Posed a puzzle (she falls down a rabbit hole into a new world).

(2) Exposed to a sequence of events with an anticipated but unknown resolution (nobody knows where the story is headed).

(3) Surprised by red herrings (and a whole host of odd characters).

4) Tantalised by the fact that someone?knows whodunnit, and how, but we don't (except maybe Alice).

This is what the curiosity zone looks like.

When we give our audience too much information, they become overconfident and less curious. Moving from an adult state, to a child state back to the adult state again.

Think of everything that you do on social and how this bigger picture of strategy and framework within your content serves the much larger purpose of storytelling and curiosity.

Your profile is a great jumping off point for this. Because done well it will inform your content and also enable people that return to it to see the tendrils of story that creep out from it as content.

This should be a seamless process for your audience. Every article, every video, every poll and every post should have that element of curiosity that compels people to want to engage with your profile. Going deeper down the rabbit hole. With no disconnect in the narrative between where they met you (through your content) to where they are going (your profile) to finally meeting you digitally on a call (selling).

“But it’s no use now,” thought poor Alice, “to pretend to be two people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make?one?respectable person!” - Alice

We do this by being ourselves (everyone else is already taken said Oscar Wilde). Being our whole and authentic self leads to little in the way of disconnect for our audience. We can be a larger than life version of ourselves, but being anyone else is too much effort.

But by also producing content we get to discover who we are and take our audience along on the ride! Enabling trust and a sense of belonging that goes deeper than any rabbit hole ever could. From an employee advocacy standpoint that is incredible. Seeing the people you work with grow, explore and find their voice. Which results in more revenue, pipeline and growth for your company. Like a certain pair of twins, one goes hand in hand with the other.

Why is creating content important though?

Of the over 830 million total LinkedIn users and 310 million monthly active users, only?3 million share content?on a weekly basis – just a touch under 1% of monthly users.?

That means 3 million users are getting 9 billion impressions each week. As a B2B?business?owner these are the kinds of numbers you simply cannot ignore.

“When I used to read fairy tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!” - Alice

Loewenstein’s?Information-Gap Theory?argues -

"There are many things that people don’t know and that don’t bother them, but awareness of specific pieces of missing information can prompt an unreasonably strong desire to fill these gaps."?

Think about the knowledge you have stored up, acquired over a lifetime that could be invaluable to your audience. Wrap it in story through your content, each piece building into a much larger strategic framework of who you are as an expert and a human. Then do this across your entire team and watch storytelling magic happen.

Curiosity won't just help you define?your story ideas it can also work other miracles too.

The power of curiosity can also result in...

• being curious about?yourself?will help drive self-awareness and growth;
• being curious about?others?will help drive empathy and collaboration;??
• being curious about?ideas?will help drive learning and understanding;
• and being curious about?challenges?will help drive problem-solving and innovation.

Stay young, stay foolish and above all stay curious!

Are you ready to go down the social media rabbit hole?

"It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then." - Alice