Storytelling in Marketing
How to Tell Your Story on Social Media By: Brad Cebulski, Bconnected LLC
W
e have finally reached a point in society where social media for businesses and organizations is commonplace; however, the question of, “What am I getting out of it?” still remains quite strong. I have been lucky enough to be in this industry for eleven years now, and while the applications, platforms, and pages have changed, the overall philosophy has not - to be “social” with your “media” you need to be authentic to your story.
But how?
Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, or LinkedIn, the premise remains similar. Going back to the questions posed previously, there’s one thing I can answer for you: your fans, followers, customers, and friends care about who YOU are and what YOU do that makes you unique. So many of us want to craft the absolute perfect message to tell our target audience, but in reality, people just want to see what makes you special. This most likely includes activities and things you do everyday which you might think is boring because after all, it’s just “work.” To your followers, however, it’s new and different! They don’t see things from a day-to-day perspective the way you do.
To understand “how,” we must first understand “why.” People participate on social media platforms for the sake of connection. Despite whether or not you believe this is healthy for individuals, it is the basis of When we work with clients, we like to think why they are here. If people are looking for about the story in terms of “buckets” of a connection, do you think they care about content. These buckets are what make up who perfection? Do you think they care about advertisements? Do you think they care about you are as an organization. I would encourage you to think about what makes you unique what YOU care about? These are all quesand divide them up into buckets. These can tions you should be asking yourself before be buckets for team culture, thinking about “how” to behind-the-scenes processes, capture your story in order Your fans, followers, different specialties, your to connect with people. products/services, events, or For the most part, socustomers, and anything else that makes you cial media platforms friends care about unique! Now, break these are built to showcase buckets down into days on a who YOU are and content on pages that content calendar and get to are not advertisements. what YOU do that work. Pick up your phone, or We call this “organic makes you unique. camera, and start capturing content.” Now, there are things as they happen. One plenty of advertising of the best pieces of advice I can give you is opportunities and advertisements that are to start embracing photography and the jourwedged in between all of the noise, but it’s ney to continually create better content with not how the platforms are fundamentally photo and video. It’s a never-ending pursuit built (we will get to this more later). The and technology has made it incredibly easy. platforms are fundamentally built around interactions - specifically reactions, comments, and sharing. Whether it is Facebook,
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But what about my return on investment?
Glad you asked! Photos, videos, and content around your story aren’t good enough to drive ROI from social media by themselves. This is where all of the paid advertising comes in play. It is my firm belief that the combination of paid advertising, mixed with authentic content that’s posted organically throughout the week, is what will drive your growth and objectives online. We could talk for hours about either of these, and if you focus on them both while also being your truly authentic self, you will likely be able to answer, “What am I getting out of it?”
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