What is brand storytelling, and what makes it different from just generally having branding or advertising on your social media platforms or on your website?
What makes a brand story different? Why do we need a brand story in our business?
We spoke with Liz, Brand Strategist & Designer, in our last Expert Session about how to create persuasive storytelling to connect with your ideal audience.
P.S. To catch up on older Expert Sessions or watch the video replay of this session, head to the Skyrocket Blog Traffic Facebook group!
At A Glance
People buy from people
We’re humans, right? We like connecting with one another. We have almost created a little bit of a boundary to advertising because we’re overwhelmed with media constantly. So in a world where we’re overwhelmed with constantly being pumped media and products, how can we separate our brands?
That’s through the stories we have. There’s a quote by Seth Godin,
“Marketing is no longer about the products we sell, but about the stories we tell.”
That’s because we’re connecting with the humans behind the brand, whether it’s a big brand or a small brand, and that’s really central to brand storytelling; people buy from people.
Back in the day when we had advertising, it was all about having the best advertising design for their product. It was about showing how their products solve problems for people. For instance, we’re selling a beauty product by telling people they need the beauty product for this and that reason.
Then, somewhere along the lines, the advertising people realized it’s not working anymore.
Then they’ve said, okay, “we need to be more human-centric as brands. We need to focus on the human element of it and become customer-centric.”
For a long period in recent history, that has been what marketing was about, being human-centric as a brand.
Soon enough, we started realizing with social media, that being human-centric is not enough. One, audiences are overwhelmed with content and with choice. There are a lot more people doing exactly the same thing. Audiences can now choose certain products or services from a variety of brands and sources.
There’s also this element of you’re saying you’re human-centric and customer-centric, and the customer is king, but what happens to the employees working for the brand? How are they being treated? What impact does a brand or business have on the environment, around them and on the society around them?
Audiences are becoming more sceptical of the idea that brands have so much power.
Nestle is one example that shows you how audiences are almost controlling the market by not being happy with this human-centric approach alone.
There’s been a whole scandal about water in the community where they’re taking water from. People are not happy about that because they’re exploiting people, just like fashion brands who’re exploiting child labour in third world countries.
So, being human-centric in the sense of only being customer-centric doesn’t work anymore.
This is where the “people buy from people” comes into place. The people who buy from you want to know that you’re caring not just about profit, but about the people, the planet and the animals on the planet. That’s really important.
So that’s part of the story of what’s happening with how we’re connecting with one another. We need to become not human-centric. We need to become more connected to the impact we have as brands, and the greatest impact we can have is showing up authentically as ourselves and showing the people behind the brand and how they embody the purpose, the vision, the mission, the values and the personality of that brand.
Even if you’re an individual business owner, it’s the same thing. It’ll be a lot easier for you to sell a product if you explain your story with that product.
Why did you create this product? Why do you think this product is important for the world? What could the impact of this product be, beyond just a value add in terms of its product value i.e. what’s the emotional value of the product?
And that’s why I say people buy from people.
How to use stories to connect with the audience
It has become quite easy when we have a product or service to focus purely on the product or the service in such a way where we go, “this is a great product. This is going to bring you value.” Similar to services, “this is what I do.”
That’s not what your audience likely wants to necessarily see or hear.
If you’re doing wedding photography, and now you have a couple who’s interested to use you as their wedding photographer, what would make the couple choose you?
Yes. They might choose you for your quality photographs and the style of the photographs.
But there’s likely another photographer that has that same quality and style of photography as you.
The differentiating factor between why the couple will choose you as the wedding photographer is your personality. It’s how you deal with them in the process of what you’re providing them.
Are you providing them with a contract? Are you taking them through the contract in person, on Zoom or are you just sending them that contract and that quotation? Are they perhaps choosing you because of YOU?
That’s essentially what it’s about, and how much of that is present on your social media.
What if I don’t have a transformational or life-changing story for my brand?
I get it. Not every brand has a dramatic life-changing story or a rags-to-riches transformation journey.
If you just wanted to travel and share about travel, if you’re just creating wax candles to sell or knitting figurines, it’s not like you’re making a huge difference in somebody’s life.
How then do you carve a story that still connects your audience and shares about your impact?
Don’t underestimate the power of small stories. Some of the best stories have been told via small stories around campfires. If you look at human history, it’s not always the celebrity story that’s the one that makes the most impact. Yes, it has the most reach, but it doesn’t always have the most impact.
The stories that really carry meaning are the small stories shared with smaller groups around the campfire. Essentially, your story will matter to the person who needs it.
How to go about telling that story is then to talk more about the personal connection between you and the product, the company and the product, and the audience and the product.
Why do you do it?
Simon Sinek has a book “Start With Why” and a video on YouTube that talks about starting with why.
Why are you doing it?
That’s the driving factor behind stories. Your brand story starts with your why, your purpose.
In the old days, we used to talk about company profiling, having vision, mission and values.
It’s the same thing now as well.
What’s your vision for the world around you? Why do you want to do that?
It’s the same in relationships, right? If I’m in a relationship with someone, we’re going on our first date. Why do we get attracted to one another? We’re sitting around the table getting to know one another. We want to know who the person is, what makes them tick? What are they hobbies? What kind of things do they like doing?
Then if there’s resonance, these two people connect. The same as with branding.
Don’t be afraid to share who you are, why you started the brand.
How do you craft unlimited stories about yourself?
“I feel like I’m repeating my own story too many times. How much more content can I put out about my story?”
If this is your concern, you’re not alone. When speaking with Anandie, I raised this question to her. She opened my eyes to so many different ways of sharing your story I never even thought about!
The short answer is, craft your story based on your “who”s and “why”s.
You can find little different ways, with different themes that are relevant to your industry.
The “Who”
You’re likely not just doing one thing. You’re offering wedding photography. You’re offering lifestyle photography. You’re offering corporate photography, corporate portraits.
There’s a ‘who’ story behind the corporate. There’s a ‘who’ story behind the wedding photography. There’s a ‘who’ story behind the lifestyle photography.
The “Why”
There’s a why in every story.
It could be because you want what’s best for them on their wedding day.
Those are the types of things you need to think about in yourself and in others, how you can build those relationships through shared stories.
Taking the story of wax candles as an example, what’s the story of candles in general? Why do people like buying candles right now, where we are in the world?
Self-care is a buzzword, but it’s something that people are getting more and more in tune with, needing to empower themselves. While it might be more of a superficial way of self-care, pouring a bubble bath and putting the candles and starting your week and getting into that space where you’re creating a space of self-love for yourself, that’s a story.
That’s a small story, but it has meaning, and so many people can relate to that.
Use your own experiences
There’s possibly also a personal story somewhere in your history about your experience getting married, or your experience getting corporate photos.
This is about you going back into your bank of memories and thinking, “I used to have this problem. I’m solving it now for other people.” You can share your journey from there to here and bring it together.
That’s how your audience will choose you – based on your story, your “why” and your values.
The stories don’t always have to be about you. You can, through the way you share, encourage other people to start a cultural community around your product.
Are you creating a safe space for your audience to share their images or stories about how they are using your products in their life?
Maybe they use candles for religious reasons. Or maybe it’s candles being used for weddings. Some cultures will each light a candle within the wedding ceremony. That’s a beautiful story, and a lot of people are using candles for those occasions.
Every week, you can take people on a journey with you on your Instagram stories of what you’re doing with your candles personally, that’s a story.
Even the story of making the candles can be made into a story. Who’s making the candles? Show people the behind-the-scenes of making the candles.
Another example is knitting or cooking. If you look at YouTube behaviour, viewers don’t care about the artwork or the final food product on YouTube as much as watching the process of doing something through Youtube tutorials.
So let’s talk about social media and your website.
Are you only showing your quality photographs or are you introducing yourself? Are you telling them about how you handle the wedding day? Are you making yourself visible on your social media?
Those are easy, starting points to tell your brand story, because it’s what makes you unique.
You want to share a little bit about you. What’s more important is sharing why you’re doing this.
If you’re telling that wedding couple that you’re doing this because you love the idea of romance, marriage, commitment and you want to document this as best as possible for the couples so that many years down the line, if they have marriage troubles or if life happens, they have a good memory of these memories captured, it might resonate well with your audience more.
During the pandemic as well, many people have lost their loved ones. The only source of photos of granny being there possibly could be during that couple’s wedding.
That’s an example of using current relevancy to shape your story.
How do you craft stories as a service-based business?
With services, it’s a lot easier. With services, there’s that immediate human connection.
Here are some examples of how to craft stories around a service-based business.
1. Taking readers on a journey of your day to day business.
2. Sharing your personal story as to why you started the service.
3. Show readers the “how”s and the “why”s, like how you do something different than someone else does and why you’re doing it differently.
4. Utilise your About page to share your whole history about how you started the business with your readers.
5. Your homepage is prime property, so use that well too. You can share the services you offer. Directly below those services, you can pull specific snippets and explain to readers why you offer these services, what’s your story, why you decide on these services and not other services – all that to bring in that human connection.
6. Showcase your clients’ stories. You can show your portfolio of work and the individual stories of past clients that you’ve worked with.
You can share other people’s stories about your services via testimonials. Not just any regular testimonials, but testimonials that are written in a way that’s storytelling. Using specific types of questions, clients can really create a story on behalf of you about your services.
Not every story is a grand Lord Of The Rings type of story, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be the smallest stories or sharing your audience’s stories that connect your brand with your audiences.
That’s where and how you connect with your audience, through shared stories and experiences.
