In many cultural and commercial contexts, storytelling as the axis of corporate communications appears devalued, inconsequential, or underused. Every day with the difficulties posed by traditional media and the benefits of social networks and new digital media, the telling of emotional events seems to break down the barriers with the audience. This great attribute plays a transcendental role in connecting with audiences, which is a great goal. Here are the five keys to doing storytelling.
Storytelling is a communication resource as old as man himself. Much of the knowledge about the vital aspects of humanity was passed on to new generations through stories from the oldest to the youngest. All those stories were always charged with emotion, sensitivity and taught something to those who heard them. Those who told them deserved respect and authority. Much later, the traditional media made the chronicles and story a journalistic resource, and although preferred by the audience, it had to compete among many others to survive. Experts said the end of storytelling was near with the advent of the internet and its subsequent developments and add-ons. The opposite happened. New media in need of content found a hearty supply in the storytelling. The audience found the stories as fascinating as the first humans. The strength of this technique resurfaced to prevail. Today, storytelling has become the innovation in corporate communication that seeks to connect with audiences. Many companies claim to have strong and long-term relationships with their clients’ thanks to their storytellers. Organizations changed their communication, and today they are succeeding. Doing so is a step that many would like to take but do not dare. Here are the five keys to deciding to do it.
1. The storytelling touch people on a cerebral level but forcefully on an emotional experiential level. That is the point where change is achieved. The connection occurs, and the true transformation begins. Storytelling leads directly to an objective that is the connection that new media and social networks want. The connection achieved has special characteristics, for example, it is more profound, lasting, resonant, remembered, and therefore more powerful. If, as I said in a previous article, a corporate communication strategy is 80% in new media and 20% in traditional media, storytelling is the content that communities want to find, and the audience is also the cause of conversations and interactions between the organization and its clients.
Read here: THE GOAL OF CURRENT COMMUNICATION IS TO CONNECT WITH THE AUDIENCE. WHY MANY DON’T MAKE IT? https://bit.ly/3dr8f5o
2. When stories are told or listened to, special neural pathways in the brain are activated. The narrated stories are beneficial for the brain because they make you feel the effect of aerobics or brain gymnastics that everyone enjoys. One of the main functions of the brain is the creation of meaning. It helps human beings make sense of the experiences they live. So the brain has the unbeatable ability to make sense of diverse and profound experiences, thus helping people to survive. Brains are designed for this dynamic sense. As for positioning and reputation, these are achieved through the action of the brain that leads us to trust and recreate ourselves with the stories of others that captivate the conscience.
3. Arrange sequences of sensory details so they have an emotional setting and allow the audience to see the progress and change in the narrator. It is recommended that the stories told need to be a personal nature that is defined as a sensory history of events that have occurred in the narrator’s own life. Taken this concept to the corporate, marketing, or political world, stories help to strategically communicate information that ensures survival and growth, which are values for which human beings feel the fascination. People in the audience will always be willing to learn something like the ancestors who developed food, tools, or cultural traditions by hearing them from others. Thus, in today’s world, storytellers have the opportunity through new media to communicate their way of survival and growth using a certain product or message.
4. When stories are told with sensory details about objects, specific dialogues, and detailed descriptions, the narrator captures attention, activates memories, undoes blocks, and opens attention as a door to connection. A component of strategic messages in corporate communication is the call to action. When a good storyteller combines details, dialogue, and character development, he forcefully achieves another version of the call to action that is very powerful. Let’s put it in simpler words, a narration with these attributes draws the audience’s attention because it allows their identification with the narrator. People in the audience need to recognize themselves in the hero. The narrator should be like a mirror in which each member of the audience reflects. This robust identification occurs when a story has details that are not abstract. These real universally reflecting people by their predisposition to know stories that have good endings.
5. Telling what happened by eliminating opinions, judgments and criticisms is the way to avoid unnecessary discussions and endless debates between members of the audience or on the mind of a person to whom the judgments or opinions serve to close the doors of understanding. That is why the story must be completely factual so that the elements presented are the same or have equal value for all the people in the audience. That is not the case of opinions that, because they are subjective and dependent on the listener, provoke doubt and rejection. Telling real stories without interpretation has an impact on the audience. The facts are irrefutable, and so will the message too. People accept narratives based on real events because they can be verified if necessary. Something impossible to do with opinions or interpretations. Transferring this point to social networks, we can say that a factual account will have a greater chance of being shared and appreciated. Interactions will be faster, and the distribution of messages will increase directly.
At first glance, these five keys could show that the decision to innovate in your organization’s corporate communications is complicated. They are not if analyzed in detail. On the contrary, they robustly layout the pillars to begin that change. I recommend that each communications team begin doing exercises to find the storytellers who tell stories under these keys. This first step in getting started with storytelling as your corporate communication hub will tell you if you’re ready or what changes to make first. If this first step is positive, move on with creating messages from protagonist stories that align with your organization’s communication strategy. If you still find this step positive, start posting messages as a test and measure the reaction. If everything is still positive, prepare to make the final change. If you encounter obstacles, stop and make corrections and restart again. So you will see that change is not so difficult, and you will be the first to be happy to be a good storyteller. To learn more about this topic or if you have a need to structure the storytelling in your communications office, write to me at ottogutierrez@ymail.com, tell me about your project or needs, and I will surely be able to help you.
Otto Gutierrez 