Have you heard of community storytelling?
It's all about collective memories.
“No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.”
Daniel Kahneman.
This is VIJEV and it’s time to chat about storytelling. This concept is being thrown around in the media like confetti and somewhat overused like the way we talk about artificial intelligence (AI). I’m sure you must be confused as I am about what it really entails.
Storytelling as I see it is simply a way humans share their values and experiences (fact or fiction) through a sequence of events that connect on an emotional level.
Can you remember the earliest stories that your parents, grandparents or teachers told you? If you had an emotional connection to it, you are more likely to remember it long-term. The emotional nature of stories helps them bind to our memory in a much stronger way than simply trying to remember factual data. This is essentially why stories are powerful. The ones that resonate and connect with us, are the ones that are memorable.
We want memorable stories that inspire our dreams or even reveal our worst fears. We are creatures of habit and stories are a fundamental way that binds the messages to our memories. Thus, humans have created and shared stories habitually in order to convey their message to us that has meaning and ultimately influences us through them. Scientific study is clear that stories help us learn better and retain information faster.
Storytelling consciously helps us experience human life beyond simply surviving. We crave it. Therefore, storytelling is a powerful tool to convey an indelible message. A message of resonance and action. This is why we are inspired by poets, writers, singers, actors, and all the merry storytellers that have impacted our lives in some way.
It’s not just WHAT you say, it’s also HOW and WHERE you say it.
Today, storytelling has taken on new forms and mediums utilizing new technologies that are available to us, helping us spread the word faster than ever before. It’s not just the Internet, but also the platforms that push our lives on social media into the public eye. The problem now is that there are too many stories from around the world and it’s increasingly more challenging to be heard. However, great stories do keep piercing through the bubble of noise and eventually get to us. These are the ones that get hyped before we find out about it. It’s where people push their views, reviews, and it gets all “trending” that eventually gets our attention. This is how marketing storytellers of today get their word out. It’s the idea of community storytelling. A powerful quiver in the marketing weaponry.
Community storytelling - collective stories from influential people and consumers that leverage new products with existing audiences.
This is not influencer content where popular people just take pictures and videos and make them about themselves. These are storytellers who can write and script narratives across many mediums that fit their personalities and the products in question. It’s the kinds of stories that connect authentically with people that want to see them. Do you know of great stories that helped sell the products/businesses in a more authentic, clear, and conscious way? Yes, you have. Have you looked at something and you go “Now that’s great marketing!" These are messages that have communicated to you in a way that helped you bring down your armour of cynism and connected with you in a human way, thus helping you build trust. This reminds me of the popular meme when a product is awesome and you know you want it:
How do you get to the point where customers want your product? You first start with a great product! How would you know? It starts with YOU, the product creator.
It starts with YOU.
Why are you creating this company or product? Do you have a purpose? Are you simply creating something to feed our basic needs (which is important) or do you want to create a movement of change? The best example is this video about marketing from Steve Jobs many years ago that’s worth an entire MBA. His talk shares his idea of why he created Apple and he used this “why” to market and brand Apple. And notice how he parts his wisdom through storytelling.
The Mom Test (It’s NOT about you).
Once you are clear about your purpose for the business, what product/service do you now create? Well, you DON’T. That’s the mistake many entrepreneurs and businesses make. It’s at this point, you may have an idea but you need to test it. You need to find people who will provide authentic feedback on your idea WITHOUT them knowing what your idea is. This is where you find out about their problems and their experiences in life. This is where you ask questions about their user behaviour and their reason for doing things. The key to finding out all of this is to ask the right questions that can enlighten you and not lead them on. This is just like asking your mom about your ideas. She will tell you what you want to hear to spare your feelings and just support you in you whatever you’re doing.
E.g., Your purpose may be to make shopping easier without physically going to the store. Here are two types of questions you may ask your mom:
Would you like to shop on your computer and get products delivered to you instead of going all the way there? OR
How do you go about shopping for your products? If you’re physically unable to go, how do you get your shopping done?
You can clearly see the first question would just lead her on to answer “sure, why not”. The second question she may give you is an answer that’s deeper into her behaviour. She might answer by saying “Oh I go out every Friday morning and do my shopping for the week” OR “I just call my friend and she takes me to the store”.
You can find real experiences and with enough feedback, you can build a picture if there’s a problem at all. That’s great too. Why build a new product that solves a non-existent problem?
Find patterns in consumer behaviour that indicate if real problems/desires/needs do exist.
You can read The Mom Test, by Rob Fitzpatrick in more detail which can help you ask the right questions in understanding people before you build on your next big idea.
Here are some great insights on The Mom Test by Rick Kettner from his YouTube video:
Build Your Story For Your Audience (Now it’s about YOU and THEM).
What types of stories inspire you? Can you recall the ones that left an impact on your life? Those are the stories that resonated with you and the ones you can use to tell your own story. I personally love humour and using the power of comedy to convey a message. That’s because I love building products that bring joy. That’s my why. What’s yours? Can you connect your personal life experience to the products or company that you’re creating? Simply being your authentic self is all it takes. Take a look at one of the most famous pitch videos from the founder of Dollar Shave Club. It’s just blades but the way it’s told makes it compelling. What’s great here is the founder himself is doing the talking, and risking ridicule to tell his story his own way.
Here’s another from our client (Teddy’s Ice Cream) where we get to sell something as simple as Ice Cream done in the local South African style.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
This is community storytelling, leveraging a local celebrity that people know and getting him to build a story that connects the product to his followers. Not quite influencers who simply share photos or videos with the product but instead storytellers who script a story around a product and most of all have fun doing it. Not surprisingly, we can see amazing engagement.
Seek Community-Market Fit (It’s all THEM).
Once you have people asking questions about your product you have a community-market fit, your buyers become your fans and they will start to create content of their own volition. This is commonly known as referral marketing but in the context of storytelling, it’s the community that starts sharing stories with one another, sharing their real experiences without even involving you. BONUS: Search algorithms and social media platforms favour this above all else.
Community Feedback-Loop (It’s THEM back to YOU).
The community that is actively engaged in sharing their stories, will share what is positive and negative about their experiences. This is a goldmine in getting feedback about your business that will assist you in prioritizing what’s important for your customers and continuously improving your company, adapting as they do.
If you care about what you’re building, people will care too, and remember people buy from people so it’s the outcome they seek. What’s in it for them? Happy storytelling!