STORYTELLING: ONE OF HUMANITY'S OLDEST PASTIMES AND MOST POWERFUL TOOLS

Storytelling is a fundamental part of being human and it is suggested that storytelling developed not long after the development of language itself.

Storytelling is the act of telling or writing stories and typically they are told for entertainment, informational or educational purposes.

Regardless of the reasons, stories are everywhere. We devote much of our lives to telling stories about who we are, what we've seen, what we've done and where we've been. It is part of our very nature, our history and is likely to be a part of our future for a time beyond our comprehension.

So why are stories so powerful and so integrated into our very existence?

Stories let us share information in a way that creates an emotional connection because they provide context, relevance and alignment.

They allow us to gain a deeper understanding of people’s experiences and therefore understand each other better. What this permits is fundamental and sits at the heart of storytelling in my eyes; stories allow us to teach and to learn lessons. By taking what the storyteller has learned and applying it to our own lives we create a gateway to broader perspectives.

Why is the emotional connection created by storytelling so significant?

In a business context the emotion provoked by a story is often one the listener attaches to the problem they have; one the storyteller has the ability to solve.

In this way storytelling acts as a mirror. You are holding it up in front of your listener or reader and taking them on a powerful and visual journey, revealing and reflecting back their thoughts, emotions and 'problems'.

What’s so powerful is that you are doing this through your own experience which demonstrates empathy and builds trust. You show your audience that you not only understand their problems but you’ve been there yourself, you’ve felt them and then you’ve conquered them.

You have transformed.

Demonstrating transformation is a critical and hugely important step in storytelling if the story is intended to inspire, engage and teach.

It's hard to find anything more powerful and inspirational than hearing someone tell the story of how they overcame adversity, how they broke free from limiting beliefs, how they moved through a difficult situation to reach their finish line. These stories are evidence that change is possible.

And when this is executed with elegance our stories draw those most aligned toward us whilst simultaneously repelling those who do not align.

There's more...

Whilst stories help us share and understand information, they also make it memorable - another incredibly useful characteristic when your goal is to build personal and professional relationships - with the right people I might add. 

So let's combine these elements:

• memorable

• emotional

• informative

• educational

• reflective

• evidential

 …and most importantly transformative.

By sharing information through storytelling we can garner a reaction far greater than we ever thought possible.

Learn how to harness the power of storytelling and you can build connections and understanding between yourself and those you choose.

Now apply this to your business.

Tell the right stories and the right people will sit at your campfire. They want to know how you overcame the problem they face and how you can help them.  This positions you as the answer and the solution to the market you wish to serve.

Hannah March is the founder of Lumos Marketing.

CLUBHOUSE: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

Social audio platform Clubhouse burst onto the social media scene in January this year after Elon Musk tweeted that he’d be on the network for a chat. Almost overnight, the service became one of the Apple Store’s most in-demand apps, despite still being in beta and despite being invite-only.

Following in Elon Musk’s footsteps, Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey, Justin Bieber, Drake and many other A-list personalities have appeared on Clubhouse. And where A-listers go, the social media gurus are sure to follow. With publicity as ‘the next big thing’, weekly active users went through the roof, jumping from 600,000 at the turn of the year to 10 million by the end of February.

The result? In early April Clubhouse closed a new funding round that valued it at a staggering $4 billion. So what’s all the fuss about and, as a marketing communications professional, should you give it your time?

To answer the latter question you have to understand the ins and outs of the former. And there are lots of ins and lots of outs to consider.

The Good

Starting with the concept, Clubhouse is one of a new breed of ‘social audio’ services. These, and others including Twitter Spaces and upcoming products from Facebook, LinkedIn and Spotify, are audio-only. No text messaging, no video livestreams, no photo sharing. Just people talking to one another about a specific subject at a specific time.

On the latter point, it’s real-time. You can’t record a Clubhouse room natively and there are no repeats. So if you miss the time of a discussion, you miss out. Users love this aspect as it creates exclusivity. Get a couple of influential people from your industry to join you for a discussion and users will have no choice but to join at the time you set, rather than thinking ‘I’ll catch up at another time’. You build direct relationships not only with your audience but also with the influencers themselves. It feels intimate.

So what’s not to love?

The Bad

Well, as I said, it’s real-time. Only we live in an on-demand world. Think about how often you use Netflix to watch what you want, when you want. Now compare that to linear (live) TV. The same goes for Spotify and podcasts; we’ve become accustomed to full control, and lots of people don’t like the idea of having to tune into something at a certain time. It seems very 20th century.

There are also questions over how live audio fits in once we’re all moving around more again. During the last few months Clubhouse has had a captive audience of people in lockdown with time on their hands. But what happens when we’re back to commuting and working in offices? You can’t really take part in a room from a train. And are you going to ask the boss if it’s OK to take an hour to sit and listen to or take part in a Clubhouse discussion when you’re at your desk?

Then there’s the fact that Clubhouse is only on iOS at the present time. Android users don’t get a look in and, apparently, it’s going to be several months before there’s an Android app. Considering in the UK and US Android’s market share is around 48%, that’s a lot of people who can’t get involved.

The Ugly
Moderation is an area that Clubhouse is yet to adequately address. Technically rooms are self-moderated as the admin can choose who to let speak and mute anyone at any time. But there’s certainly a risk to your business holding a live event where people can say what they want without any recourse.

And one of the biggest concerns around Clubhouse cited by its critics is data privacy. In April this year 1.3 million Clubhouse user records were leaked. That’s about 10% of the total user base! Studies have shown Clubhouse’s data to be “leaky”, and until this is shored up it seems you’re taking your privacy into your own hands every time you log on.

You Decide
At the end of the day, you need to make a choice as to whether you think Clubhouse is right for your business. To my mind, there’s no doubt that social audio is here to stay in the same way that podcasts are here to stay. Whether Clubhouse is what that will look like is the big question.

As with most ‘next big things’ in social media, there’s absolutely no harm in testing the water knowing that you don’t necessarily have to stick with it if it doesn’t work for you. Experimentation and careful planning are key to success online, after all. And who knows - maybe it’s the thing that will catapult you to the next level?

Paul Sutton is an independent digital marketing consultant and the host of the Digital Download podcast. You can find out more at www.paulsutton.co

EMBRACING YOUR EMPLOYEES IN A SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Like many people operating in the social media space, I came into it from a media and PR perspective. The principles are pretty similar - working out how best to get your message from A to B - in our case, from our business to our customers, our brokers and IFAs, to our communities and to our employees – current or future.

From a media relations perspective, that route from one to another is obvious: newspapers, TV, radio, etc. From a wider PR perspective, it may be more about addressing the organisation’s public (to use the old traditional word) using different channels.

The social media world has fundamentally shifted things away from that route one option. Edelman has been telling us for years that trust in the media is very low. The “fake news” acclamation is now common parlance (thanks Donald!)- either in jest or in reality.  Social has given communications to the people. It’s given a voice and a platform for anyone to speak. Influencers are no longer the chosen few from the C-suite. They’re on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. And they’re quite possibly your employees!

Fortunately, most companies have now come around to the fact that social media isn’t about to un-invent itself. The vast majority of people use social in some form in their day-to-day lives. So, businesses need to embrace it. Are there risks? Of course there are. All perfectly manageable. But social creates huge opportunities for us as well.

I spend a lot of my time empowering colleagues to step out into social media spaces. Not sharing pics of their meals, or their holiday snaps (well, not all the time). We want them to be engaging with their respective professional communities. Why? Because better connected people do better business. Or they learn new tools, techniques, trends. And as a result, they become better professionals. And then they do better business. And they become more engaged employees. Who share and shout about their work. And then we do better business. Spot the theme and the opportunity here?

We’ve given them ‘permission to operate’ and reworked our social media policy to be more “you can..” rather than “you shouldn’t’…” We’ve helped them with approved content working closely with PR, Media, Marketing and HR. And we’ve shown them how to do it. All in the regulated world of financial services.

We want employees to use social to learn; to use social to connect; to use social to build relationships. Because if they use social to keep networks warm to them, they are effectively using social to keep networks warm to us.  And a more social business makes for a good business.

Keith Lewis

Social Media & Social Business Manager, Zurich Insurance UK

 More at keith.social or connect at linkedin.com/in/keithlewiscomms  or @KeithLewisComms on Twitter or Instagram

NOT ALL HEROES WEAR CAPES – SOME LUNGE, OTHERS PLAY FOOTBALL AND SOME BREW BEER

As we settle in to what has been a highly anticipated new year, we want to recognise three people that had a positive impact in 2020, in what was arguably the most challenging year of our lifetime.  

As life changed and the country adapted to new ways of living, some people saw it as an opportunity to help, campaign and fight for things they believed in. They stood out and went above and beyond to make a difference.  

• Joe Wicks 

As a mum of two primary school aged children, when families across the country were told they would be home-schooling, I was overwhelmed. I felt terrified. I was fortunate that I still had work but that meant delivering coverage, meeting deadlines, attending meetings (virtually of course). Nothing day-to-day from a work perspective had significantly changed for me  - other than having two children with me all day, every day, that needed to be taught.  

I spent that first weekend of lockdown in March carefully planning my lessons for the week ahead. How would I work and teach? And then Joe came along…. He announced that he would live stream ‘PE With Joe’ at 9am every weekday morning. Now, sadly, 9am didn’t fit in with our timetable but 2pm did so we would catch up each afternoon. It burnt off energy for my two pupils and it gave me some head space. But you know what the best thing about all of this was, the consistency. Each day the three of us had the familiarity of Joe’s voice. My children knew that at 2pm they got their PE kit on and it marked the end of the day for us. It felt like we were all in it together. He did that until the end of the summer term. What dedication. And now, he’s back. Here to help us all once again.  

Joe had almost a million families attending his classes and smashed the world record for the largest streamed workout on YouTube. I have no doubt his lessons will be as popular this time round too.  

He’s subsequently gone on to sell merchandise for charity, and every now and again throws in a class just for old times’ sake! He helped so many families at one of the toughest times and I speak on behalf of many parents, particularly those who were working dung that time, when I say thank you. I have a feeling 2021 will be your year – you’ve made yourself too popular now! 

• Marcus Rashford 

Before his campaign to put a stop to child hunger in England, if you heard his name, it was football you thought of. Some may not have even known his name. But that all changed when he stood up and made himself be heard off the pitch (for the right reasons) and quickly became a national hero.  He shouldn’t have had to fight for this cause; no child should ever go hungry in this country, but the sad fact is they do, and Marcus made everyone aware of it. 

He launched a petition to end child food poverty when government scrapped free school meals during half term but what makes this young man so heroic is that he is only 23 years old and he showed such maturity as he put himself out there to help.  

His passion was palpable. He isn’t a natural lobbyist, he talks with his feet remember, that’s his bread and butter. But here he was speaking to news media, not sports, about his challenging experiences growing up. He described how he would collect his Christmas dinner from food banks and his honesty captured the nation. The support he received was incredible. 

The petition gained over a million signatures and forced a second government U-turn when they announced a winter grant scheme for families in need. This helped so many and businesses, individuals (myself and Carie included) continue to pitch in and help local families.  There is a real sense of togetherness in this positive step change and it’s all down to one man’s grit, determination and his Twitter platform. 

• James Watt 

James Watt is the CEO of independent Scottish brewer, BrewDog. You’d typically find them making beer – the clue is in the name. But when the pandemic hit, they took it upon themselves to help and one weekend in April they started making hand sanitiser for the NHS. A product they admit they knew nothing about!  

At the time, right at the start of the pandemic, James was fighting to protect as many jobs as possible with pubs closed across the country; but his commitment to be a force for good drove him to help. The hand sanitiser was produced in the company’s distillery and they supplied NHS frontline workers and charities. 

 To further help, they shared what they had learned along the way and offered tips for other businesses looking to do the same.  

When so many businesses were on their knees, facing huge amounts of uncertainty, this guy pivoted.  And he pivoted well.