Where is your smartphone right now? In your pocket? On the table in front of you? In your hands, because you are using it to read this post? Chances are it is within your reach. If you visit any public place, a large proportion of people, regardless of their age, are looking at a smartphone, or have one in their hand. And of all those people, at least half are probably browsing their social networks, whether it’s to play games, double tap on a picture, share a status or a photo, people are surrendered to the “Digital Age” and, logically, Digital Marketing has turned out to be essential for companies that want to touch and win over consumers. This is where Storytelling comes in.
It wasn’t so long ago that marketing was based on one-way communication, with brands delivering their content through media such as radio, television, print, billboards, and later the Internet.
People were inundated with repetitive and fast-paced advertising of “must-have promotions” like the, “buy one get one free” or the “come now”, a tiresome communication without interaction, but effective in its time.
With the arrival of social media, the relationship between brands and people has been transformed.
Consumers now have a voice. They demand more attention, want to be heard, and prefer to identify with a brand before being impacted with sales. This is how Content Marketing emerges, responding to the new needs of consumers and making their communication with the brand fluid and bilateral. The contents with storytelling are small steps that benefit the relationship with consumers (and your business), making them laugh, think, feel appreciated, or even escape from reality, is an exchange of emotions that makes your brand more attractive and personal.
Emotional connection with other people is one of the highest forms of human communication, and a good story is the key to it. Storytelling has psychological “superpowers” that make it a powerful tool in marketing strategies:
- Emotion – When you hear a story, more areas of your brain are activated. This is why storytelling leads to more personal connections and deep emotional bonds than facts.
- Action – The connection and emotion that stories elicit don’t just stimulate passion; they can substantially influence our behavior. A series of experiments by neuroeconomist Paul Zak proved the fact. People who watched a video about a sick child had higher levels of oxytocin in their brains, which made them likely to donate money to an unknown person.
- Value – Stories trigger our emotions, sympathy and actions. In addition, stories have an influence on our perception of the value of something. Brands can add more subjective value to their products by telling stories. This theoretical conclusion has been proven by the Significant Objects Project.
- Memory – Storytelling is embedded in our culture, engraved in our hearts and therefore has a connection with our memory. Good storytelling leads us to retain events in a more “tangible” way and keep them in our long-term memory.
Knowing how to produce content with relevant themes is a big step towards success in digital marketing for companies, but it is also important to take other aspects into consideration, such as knowing our audience, making native content (which respects the format of the different social networks) and knowing when to use each format of content on social networks (posts, statuses, stories, reels, among others) … basically, a topic that would make another post!
In short, knowing how to tell and present our story in an appealing way is fundamental for good storytelling. Relevant content with a captivating narrative can dictate the success of your company, also helping to create a base of loyal followers and to know better your audience and even your product/service.
Interested in making your brand emotionally relevant to your consumers in the digital world through storytelling? Click here and talk to us!
