YOUR Brand Storytelling and How to do it?

 

Brand storytelling: What it is and how to do it Brand storytelling can be why customers choose your brand or why people want to work with you. But what is it and how do you start telling your brand story? Related Article: 4 Steps To YOUR Social Media Brand? "Once upon a time…" Those four little words make you lean in a little closer and pay attention because they promise something magical: a story. You're unlikely to start every piece of marketing content or sales presentation that way — if any. But you shouldn't discount the power of storytelling for your business. It's easier to connect with your audience with stories rather than plain facts and figures. Brand storytelling is a tool to help people connect with your company. It can be why customers pick you over the competition or why your job ads get 10x the applicants compared to other companies in your space. Related Article: Instagram Tips For YOUR Small Business? What Is Brand Storytelling? Brand storytelling is the process of using narrative techniques to connect with an audience, and shape and clarify a brand’s identity. “It’s everything you do, big and small,” explained Frontify’s Chief Storyteller, Karl Wikström. As an example, your brand story is expressed in your marketing, the product you deliver, the stories you share on social media,” he added. “It’s the experience you create for your customers, but also for your employees as well.” A strong brand story comes from a combination of discovery and invention. The discovery element comes from uncovering customer stories and team experiences within your organization. It’s essential for bringing authenticity to your story. Look for the consistent data points, ideas, and values that run through customer feedback and employee experiences — these are the core elements of your brand story. Related Article: Photogenic Social Media Marketing For Businesses? Brand Storytelling: What It Is And How To Do It  Brand storytelling can be why customers choose your brand or why people want to work with you. But what is it and how do you start telling your brand story? "Once upon a time…" Those four little words make you lean in a little closer and pay attention because they promise something magical: a story. You're unlikely to start every piece of marketing content or sales presentation that way — if any. But you shouldn't discount the power of storytelling for your business. It's easier to connect with your audience with stories rather than plain facts and figures. Brand storytelling is a tool to help people connect with your company. It can be why customers pick you over the competition or why your job ads get 10x the applicants compared to other companies in your space. Related Article: Kevin Hart Social Media Branding? What Is Brand Storytelling? Brand storytelling is the process of using narrative techniques to connect with an audience, and shape and clarify a brand’s identity. “It’s everything you do, big and small,” explained Frontify’s Chief Storyteller, Karl Wikström. “As an example, your brand story is expressed in your marketing, the product you deliver, the stories you share on social media,” he added. “It’s the experience you create for your customers, but also for your employees as well.” A strong brand story comes from a combination of discovery and invention. The discovery element comes from uncovering customer stories and team experiences within your organization. It’s essential for bringing authenticity to your story. Look for the consistent data points, ideas, and values that run through customer feedback and employee experiences — these are the core elements of your brand story. Then the invention element is the aspirational side of your brand story. Take those day-to-day experiences and turn them into a narrative that helps people connect with your brand and understand your brand’s purpose. Related Article: YOUR Video Content Is King? The Business Benefits of Brand Storytelling The concept of a brand story may seem a little vague to some team members. But knowing who you are, what you stand for, and being able to communicate that at all levels brings concrete benefits to your company. Greater clarity in the business A defined brand story can provide clarity within the company because the whole team has a shared understanding of what your brand means and what it stands for. Karl explained, "You have a very clear shared idea of why your brand exists, who you're for, and what you want to do better than anyone else. It's the foundation for making yourself relevant to your customers." That shared understanding helps guide decision-making because everyone's working towards the same outcome. It also helps create internal alignment around how you present to the market, because all departments can share the same narrative. Related Article: 7 Gary Vaynerchuk Social Media Tips? Helps you identify business opportunities and risks Your brand story can help you identify opportunities that will strengthen your brand, or risks that could weaken it. For example, you can use your brand story to help make decisions around things like changes to your production process, marketing campaigns, or partners to work with. For each one, consider: does this fit with the established narrative for our brand? Does it feel authentic, or will it feel like we’re departing from our brand’s ethos and purpose? Karl explained, “One way your brand story can really help is when you’re thinking about collaborating with other companies — maybe in a marketing partnership, for example. You can spot if they’re a bad fit for your brand and if partnering with them will risk angering your customers by going against your brand values.” Related Article: Should YOUR Business Advertise On Instagram? Helps you attract potential customers and employees Your brand story helps people feel connected to your brand based on shared values and belief in your company’s purpose. This can help you attract good-fit customers — Accenture found that 64% of consumers feel that “companies that actively communicate their purpose are more appealing than those that do not.” Customers connect with your brand through its narrative. That emotional connection can make them more likely to become loyal, long-term customers than if they were only attracted by your product offering. How to tell an effective brand story Your brand story can set your company apart from its competitors. But before you start seeing the benefits, you first need to develop, refine, and practice your brand story. Related Article: The Future of YOUR Social Media Platform? Follow The 7 Principles of Brand Storytelling There are lots of ways you can think about constructing your brand story. We use these principles as our starting point. 1. Purpose — Why does your brand exist? What’s your brand mission? To use a well-known example, Nike’s purpose is to “bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.” 2. People — Who are you for? Who are the talent and customers you want to attract? 3. Problem — What is the core problem you are solving for those people? This will become the foundation for your marketing and sales messages, so you need to dig into this principle. 4. Promise — What is the unique value you deliver? You don't need to offer something completely unique, like a product feature or service — your competitors can easily replicate those. Instead, focus on the value you bring or the values that guide you. Related Article: Crucial Social Media Strategy For YOUR Brand? 5. Personality — How do you do things differently in a relevant, noticeable way? 6. Paradox — What tension, contradiction, or conflict are you resolving? Having something you stand against can be just as helpful as knowing what you stand for. For example, in the early years, HubSpot built its brand story by positioning itself against traditional marketing tactics used in outbound marketing. 7. Protagonist — Who’s the “main character” of your brand story? Is it your brand or your customers? What makes your brand heroic? Or how does it make your customer the hero? These seven principles aren't unique — they come from many different storytelling techniques and approaches. But used together, we've found they help you start to shape and understand your brand's story. Related Article: Social Media For YOUR Local Business? Start with Why — This was one of the first books to bring wide attention to the importance of purpose to branding. In our opinion it’s best used in conjunction with other frameworks to be practically useful. Building a Story Brand — This book by Donald Miller gives you a framework to help identify the hero, conflict, and resolution that will be a big part of your brand’s story. Working through the framework can help you clarify the core elements of your brand story and understand how to work them into your company narrative. The most important part of telling your brand story is clarity. So going through the process of putting your brand's values, purpose, and narrative into different frameworks and approaches can help you think clearly about each part of your brand. Applying these frameworks or templates can help you clarify your narrative or uncover new insights. Guest Authored By Karl Wikström. Karl's the Chief Storyteller at Frontify, and Father of many bulldogs, and his daughter  Eja. Follow Karl on X. Bring Your Brand Story to Life Your brand story is more than just a slide in a presentation or page on your website. It’s expressed through your actions every week, month, and year. You bring it to life with every customer interaction, marketing activity, and internal meeting. So when it comes to successful brand storytelling, the most important thing is to remember to practice what you preach. Post Crafted By: Fred Hansen Brand Alchemist at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Pontotoc, MS. where I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

YOUR Brand Storytelling During The Holy Days?

Brand Storytelling ideas during the holiday season

Brand storytelling is a relatively less used term. E-commerce sales have been explosively growing. There’s a reason why people prefer to shop online. Correction, there’s not one reason, there are so many reasons. Starting with convenience, people can shop whenever they want, wherever they want, however they want, in any device they want. Related Article: Should YOUR Business Advertise On Instagram? You know what I mean, right? And second, there are so many coupon codes, discount codes, special offers online, and exclusive online products. Other reasons include reviews, people can meticulously read what others think about a particular product and make an informed decision. This way customers know what they can expect. There is a free returns option also. In a world full of amazing brands, how can your brand stand out? That’s through Brand storytelling.

Brand storytelling is very different from branding. For starters, branding focuses on very materialistic things like color, theme, logo, aesthetics, and creates an image of how a particular brand should be perceived by a customer. But brand storytelling is different. Brand storytelling is how you emotionally connect to a customer by being your authentic self and what purpose you serve for the customer. The main goal of brand storytelling is an excellent relationship marketing tool. Why is Storytelling important during the holiday season? This is one question which always arises from a customer. Why should I buy from you? As an e-commerce brand, what values do you stand by? What do you provide for me other than the product, is what the customer in 2023 wants to know? Related Article: YOUR Video Content Is King? Brand storytelling plays an important role here. Brand storytelling makes you:Establish emotional connection Stand out from the crowd  Build trust and authority  Make them feel included in your community 8 Branding storytelling ideas during the holiday season 1. Website Design Your website or your social media may be the first thing that a customer sees which sets a definitive image in the customer’s mind. Make sure that you say something that truly defines what you are and what you stand for. Your website homepage or your website design doesn’t just have to be about what you represent. Even very minimalistic touches can be very influential on your customer. For example, take a look at the micro animation below which sets the holiday mood even with a very micro interaction. This contributes to one of the elements of storytelling – Attention-grabbing. 2. Streamline The Checkout Process Streamlining the checkout process is one small gesture from an e-commerce brand that you show on your site that you really want to make your customers feel convenient. Especially during the holiday season when the customers are in a rush? This not only increases conversion rates but also establishes a good customer experience. 3. Be Your Authentic Self Brand Storytelling is establishing that your brand stands for something. Don’t force your brand to be something that it’s not. Stand for what it really means, even if it means something really small. Take Patagonia, even on Black Friday, they stood by their values and boycotted the huge sale of the year opportunity. They opposed mass consumption during the holidays and their brand advocates even grew fond of what this brand did.  Related Article: Social Media For YOUR Local Business? 4. Unified Messaging On All Channels All the channels through which you communicate, be it social media, be it your website, be it your brand tracking page, be it your holiday packaging, be it your emails or SMS, be it your customer support representatives, set the tone right. All these touchpoints revert back to your emotional connection. This unified messaging not only creates consistency but also builds trust and credibility. Your brand, when it has a unified strategy, represents one thing and one thing only – your brand’s value, which is conveyed more and more to the customer once they get to experience all your touchpoints. 5. Customer Testimonial Customer testimonials are the social proof of what your brand stands for. This assures customers that you deliver what you say, leads to more conversions, and increases trust. 6. Showcase Your CSR Value If you’re doing something that’s good for the environment and the people around you and your customers, then you should definitely take the liberty of showing that off to your customers. Not to sound very salesy, but good deeds are not meant to be kept a secret. Related Article: 4 Steps To YOUR Social Media Brand? 7. Holiday Packaging Holiday packaging is one exciting touch point that you can use to further establish an emotional connection. You can customize your packaging, opt for eco-friendly gift options, add gifting options, do personalization, allow customers to add personalized notes, make interactive QR codes. This can lead to a very exciting unboxing experience. 8. Branded Tracking Page Brands often think that nothing much could be established on branded tracking pages. But we are here to say that it’s not the case. You can add a number of content to your branded tracking page. You can add videos saying what your brand does and how the product that is being shipped to the customer can be used. This promotes customer education also, which reduces the number of returns.  Bonus Tip: Build a memorable customer experience Building a memorable customer experience ties several knots to the relationship that you already have with your customer. 40% of shoppers do not come back to you after a poor delivery experience. So, in any part of the customer journey, be it pre-purchase or post-purchase, there cannot be any compromise in what you offer. If the customer is not satisfied with the experience, this creates a negative brand image which cuts all the ties that you’ve tried so hard to establish. Guest Authored By Raksna Aland. Raksna's an accentric traveller fallen into the passion of writing new and exciting content. Related Article: Instagram Tips For YOUR Small Business? We live in an economy where relationships hold the primary power. Establishing an emotional connection with your customers is very important as we state again and again and again. E-commerce is not just about convenience and variety of products anymore, it’s more than that. It’s a good strategy to include brand storytelling in your marketing in order to convert customers. This increases customer retention when a customer feels connected to the brand. Post Crafted By: Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, CO. where I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

The $7 Million Social Media Marketing Affiliate?

It's easy to make money with a massive social media following. The hard part is getting the massive following..

Related Article: 4 Steps To YOUR Social Media Brand?

Father's Day is usually a day for celebration. But on this particular Father's Day in 2014, Jason Stone's home was burglarized. It was only a year prior that he had embarked on his social media marketing journey, creating a personal profile that he then built up to 10,000 followers, a number that seemed dizzying to him at the time.

The criminals knew that he was out of town through his Instagram profile. They cut the power and he received an alert that said his security system had lost its power. Figuring it was just a power outage, he continued to enjoy his mini-vacation to Orlando. Unbeknownst to him, the criminals knew they had about a day to wait before the backup battery in his alarm system ran out. They patiently waited.

Related Article: Instagram Tips For YOUR Small Business?

Two days after he returned from his trip, Stone was infuriated by the burglary. It was a massive affront to him. He deleted all his social media profiles, vowing never again to allow people to know his whereabouts. However, a month later, he ditched that notion after seeing a friend making thousands of dollars from a single Instagram post.

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Thief Beacon?

It was then that he knew he needed to get back on social media, but this time to do it differently. That's when Millionaire Mentor was born, the profile that's amassed 2.5 million followers in a very short period. It took Stone just six months to reach 100,000 followers. After that, just six more months to get to 1 million. All authentic. Not one was paid for.

What ensued after this has been a journey across social media that can be categorized as nothing short of amazing. In my conversations with Stone, although he realized the potential for success and monetary gain on the platform, he never thought that social media marketing would create a lifestyle that would allow him to get rich and afford him the freedoms that he enjoys today.

Thanks to social media, in the past 12 months alone, Stone, who only posts affiliate marketing offers on his profile that he thinks would appeal to his target audience, has netted a whopping $7 million in sales. That's without ever selling his own product or service.

Related Article: YOUR Organic Social Media Marketing?

Simply put, it's an astounding and astonishing number that reveals the allure of becoming an influencer on a platform like Instagram.

How to Market on Social Media the Right Way

Stone's social media marketing prowess wasn't something that happened overnight. In fact, in his earliest days, he struggled to gain followers. It wasn't until he joined forces with other Instagramers that his audience really started to skyrocket.

Forming a bond among 15 like-minded entrepreneurs, Stone and his newfound friends launched a Kik group. The goal? Give shout-outs to each other on a recurring schedule.

Each day, all 15 members would give a shout-out to one of its members every single day, rotating the schedule until all 15 were marketed on every profile.

Related Article: An Eight Figure Instagram Influencer?

The members included Tim Karskiyev, Joe Duncan from @before5am, Joel Brown from @addicted2success, Steven Mehr from @agentsteven, Mike from @motive8co, Katriel Caledron from @donkarlito, Brad Cameron @buildyourempire, Peter Boone from @achievetheimpossible, Jamie Erogan @bossthings, Farokh Sarmad @mrgoodlife.co, Nathan Chan @foundr and Ruben Chavez @thinkgrowprosper.

The tactic worked. And it was powerful. Each of the profiles that were in this mastermind-like group saw their follower numbers skyrocket. What ensued afterwards, was a platform for Stone and the others that could be leveraged and capitalized, not just for financial gain, but also for influence.

Clearly, most people know just how alluring social media platforms like Instagram and SnapChat are. They're avenues for connecting with the masses and spreading your message. However, not many people reach the saturation that's required to ensure high visibility.

When it comes to marketing anything on social media, without a large footprint, you'll largely fall flat on your face. But getting there is incredible difficult. In my conversations with Stone, there were a few primary strategies that he wielded to build up and amass such a large following. Stick to these strategies, and you'll find success in the social media realm, as long as you don't give up.

Related Article: YOUR "Innovative" Social Media Advertising?

1. Define Your Niche Audience

Carve out your niche audience. Who are you targeting? Get specific? This is important because you'll be curating your content towards that intended audience. Everything that you do or say needs to geared towards these people. In marketing speak, they call this your demographic.

The more you can define your demographic, the higher your chances for success. If you ignore you target demo and try to go after and appeal to everyone, you'll be less likely to succeed. Millionaire Mentor is a very specific niche market, targeting people that are interested in business opportunities.

Related Article: Power Influencer Tips From Cartia Mallan?

2. Add Massive Value

You can't succeed on social media without adding massive amounts of value. Today, that's more important than ever. There's fierce competition in the marketplace, and everyone knows that the stakes are high. For those that can break through the proverbial glass ceiling and build a massive following, tremendous riches and opportunities await.

Find ways you can share your expertise with others. Find ways you can help the people that follow you in some way, shape or form. The more you focus on this mentality, the more likely you'll be to succeed in the long run. Stone did this with motivational sayings that inspired and pushed people to achieve their goals. How will you add value?

3. Create Viral Videos

Stone and many other influencers have leveraged videos to get their message out. Videos, which are done the right way, have the potential for going viral. And, when they acutely appeal to your target audience, they are potent and powerful on many levels.

Take the time to create videos that will appeal to your audience. Use a video editor or hire someone that can help you. Stone had someone create all his videos, investing a small amount of money little by little to building out his brand. He knew that was the surest way to reach the biggest audience.

Related Article: 127 Facts About Video Marketing?

4. Collaborate

Find like-minded entrepreneurs on social media who you can collaborate with. Reach out to them. Build a group. Join a mastermind. Or find some other way that you can team up with other people who might be in a similar situation as yourself, or with a similar amount of followers.

There is power in numbers. You can't expect to do this yourself or go it alone. It's called social media for a reason. Do shout-outs and joint ventures with other people if you want to experience explosive growth in followers and fans over time. Just don't expect it to happen overnight.

5. Leverage Hashtags

Many of the social media influencers that I've communicated with in the past have leveraged hashtags as a way of getting their message across. Years ago, it was far easier to do this when hashtags were relatively new. Today, it takes more focus and effort to achieve hashtag dominance.

Take the time to research the right hashtags and ensure that they're applicable to your audience and your content if you're serious about succeeding at the highest levels on social media.

Guest Authored By R.L. Adams. Robert Adams is a Writer for Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Engaget. He's a blogger, serial entrepreneur, software engineer, and best-selling author of dozens of technology, SEO, online marketing and self-development books, audiobooks and courses. Follow Robert on Twitter.

Related Article: The 30 Top Social Media Influencers?

Having a strong online voice is part of your brand.

Any communication by or about you, such as your name being listed on your practice's website, is part of your brand.

Taking control of how you are perceived by others helps to build your professional reputation.

Whether you want to expand your practice, find colleagues to collaborate with, or are looking for career opportunities, your reputation is key to achieving your goals..

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  Crafted by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

YOUR Social Media Brand Voice?

Creating a strong brand identity on social media involves many facets—logo, typeface, taglines and more—but one of the most important is the development of the brand voice..

When we say brand voice, we mean the authentic personality of your brand.

Ask yourself: “Who would my brand be if it was a real person? What would it sound like?” That is the voice of your brand.

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Platform Persona?

Voice is the most critical aspect of defining your brand identity because it serves as a framework for your social content.

Everything from tweets to blog posts should speak seamlessly to your audience across platforms and posts. Inconsistencies can sabotage your entire social strategy.

Here are a few steps for simplifying the process of establishing your brand’s voice for social:

Know Your Audience

Think about what your current followers want to hear about from your brand. It can help to use a tool like Facebook’s Audience Insights to see demographic and psycho-graphic information about your audience. This can help you determine how you frame your voice and content on social.

If you discover that your page’s followers are all over 65, creating a lot of meme-based content won’t resonate. Spend some time getting to know your audience, and the ideas for how to speak to them will follow.

Related Article: YOUR Audience Response Social Media?

Try Some Exercises

One of our favorites at Ignite Social Media is the “we are, we are not” exercise. This helps you to determine boundaries for how you will write on social media. It’s easy to do, but it is also easy to mess up. Each “we are, we are not” should work as a boundary for your writing and voice.

Good example: “We are funny. We are not goofy.”

Bad example: “We are smart. We are not stupid.”

See how the first “we are” example explains a feature of the brand, while the “we are not” serves to curtail that feature? The second example isn’t saying anything, except for that the brand is smart. What kind of smart? Is it smart, but not know-it-alls? Smart, but not technical?

Use the “we are, we are not” exercise to help frame your brand’s voice in more narrow, easy-to-follow terms that future writers can refer to. Shoot for 15 to 20 statements to guide your writing.

Related Article: Tweaks To Elevate YOUR Brand?

Find Inspiration

If you are developing a brand voice on social media, you should look to inspiration from your fellow social media marketers.

There are heaps of brands that have established powerful voices on social media.

Follow top brands and celebrities and look at how they make their voices come to life in social media posts, and adapt their approach to fit your brand.

Keep in mind that the brand or celebrity doesn’t necessarily have to be in your industry; inspiration from all over will help you develop a voice that’s all yours.

Related Article: Creating Engaging Social Media Content?

Map Out The Nitty Gritty

A lot of social media writing is less about what you say, and more about how you say it. In this case, details matter, so it’s important to outline a verbal identity. Will you write in shorthand? Will you use slang? How about emojis?

Make guidelines where you lay down the law of how you will write copy. This creates consistency and saves time when you are debating whether to use “bae.”

While developing a brand voice ultimately takes time and effort, it is an invaluable tool that sets your brand apart from competitors and ingratiates it into the lives of your audience. These steps will get you started on the path to building a recognizable, consistent brand voice that will resonate on social media.

Guest Authored By Stephanie Purinton. Stephanie is community management manager at social media agency Ignite Social Media. Follow Stephanie on Twitter.

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While developing a brand voice ultimately takes time and effort, it is an invaluable tool that sets your brand apart from competitors and ingratiates it into the lives of your audience.

These steps will get you started on the path to building a recognizable, consistent brand voice that will resonate on social media..

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  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)