This post tells us why brand stories are so important for business communication. In addition, we bring you some ideas and a handful of points to think about to bring to the surface interesting ideas for your business brand story be it a clinic, physical therapy center, gym, or any other.
Today I want to continue along that line and share some practical tips to manage and create effective stories for business communication.
Are you ready? Let’s start with a basic assumption:
Your stories must be guided by ” personalities “. We said to think about the salient events that characterized the creation and development of your company.
Here, don’t take it literally – a suggestion that I make explicit here because it often happens to follow this line (spoiler: don’t do it). Why not?
Nobody is interested in reading some sort of shopping list with what happened. The story is not so much in “this is what happened” as in “this is how our protagonist and the other characters were overwhelmed by emotions”.
Stories must be guided by personalities
Let’s take an example.
Let’s assume you are the founder of a successful medical apparel company.
Analyzing your story, it tells that you worked as an employee in an accessories company, then they fired you but you had already raised a nest egg, so you set yourself the goal of trying for a few months to get by to make your dream come true. Despite the slim possibilities, you made it and today your company has supersonic turnover and a team of designers working to grow your business.
Very well, congratulations. Interesting? Yes, meh. Maybe. A little ‘banality, if you hear many similar stories. In fact, the interesting part of the story is not “what happened” but “how did you feel about experiencing these events? “.
How did you feel when the company left you at home?
Did you sleep at night?
What were you dreaming of?
What challenges did you face on the long road to success?
It is the personalities who must guide the story you tell. Not the actions that have been performed.
Stay on the simple
In English they say ” kiss “, that is ” keep it short (and) simple “.
It is a fairly generic but effective rule in storytelling. Reserve plot twists and major upheavals for fiction in books and films… incorporate storytelling, things must be as simple as possible. Focus on the problem, solution, and success in the story you tell.
At the beginning of the story, focus on the problem.
The solution?
That is in the middle of the story.
At the end of the story, here’s the success story.
The tripartite model helps to follow a conventional narrative model and makes sure that you don’t go too far on the tangent, risking moving off the axis of the important aspects of the narrative. Corporate storytelling doesn’t have to be complicated.
How to expand the reach of your Brand Stories?
Then. In life, we tell stories to pamper ourselves and to tell others something they don’t know, as well as to excite them. If we are talking about brand stories now, marketing comes into play so… telling a good story is only useful if people actually get to know it.
The good news is that if we’re telling an interesting story, that’s already a great way to grab someone’s attention
Use stories to build your personal brand
Use your stories to build your personal brand while creating branded content… and encourage your collaborators to do the same.
Then, report these individual “personal brands” so that they flow into the content of your brand story – as if they were the tributaries of a river.
You will start a positive circle.
Use socials to attract the public
… and to expand your “reader” base.
Stories work pretty well on social media.
Use quotes, anecdotes, stories to give your audience some “tastes” that they can expand with the overall contents of each story. Overtime (it takes a while) these stories will become part of your brand.
Tell the story wherever you can
When you have your brand story, you have to try to tell it on all occasions when you have the opportunity to do it: speeches, interviews, hosted …
Find a way to adapt it to the container in which you are called to tell, every occasion is different and every medium has a slightly different logic from another, but using means of communication that are different from the “usual” social networks is an absolutely important tactic if you want your story to reach more people and in-depth.
On every occasion you will notice that there is always an “effect” on the minds of your listeners … And how your audience perceives your brand, magically becomes a component of your brand itself
Encourage your customers/patients to tell your story
People love stories. Customers are people. Customers love to associate a story with the brands they love. The favorite brand is not just “a brand”, nor is it just “a logo”!
The favorite brand is that something that the founder created in the solitude of his basement, or that thing that uses only 100% recycled materials because he decided to be ecological from the beginning… see? They are stories. By making your stories an integral part of your corporate identity, you will encourage people, customers, to share them.
This kind of information “sharing” goes far beyond what a simple product recommendation would do.
To connect your most important stories with your brand, the stories themselves must become what your customers, fans, and media mention as they talk about your company and products
