Every PR practitioner has had it drummed into them that we should be telling our brand’s story. David Berkowitz, CMO of the digital agency MRY in New York City, has a different idea: he sees storytelling as just another broadcast activity, when in fact, the power of story lies in the response you evoke in the audience. Writers know that. Movie makers know that. Even a good presenter know that unless the audience has a response nothing good happened.
Yet when we tell a brand story we tend to get so focused on ourselves that we lose sight of the power of engaging the audience and letting them into the story. We should be encouraging them to own that story and weave it into their business or their lives.
When the customer makes the brand story a part of their experience, that’s good story making. How does this happen?
1. Audience participation: A story that’s created with the brands’ fans and followers allows the audience to participate and add to the story. Story making requires some effort on the part of the audience.
2. Fan-inspired: Stories that come out of conversations or issues that are already in the lexicon of your audience have the best chance of success. How do you find those ideas? Listen. Tap into the social conversation around your brand and listen for the issues, ideas being discussed and the problems your brand solves.
3. Decentralized distribution: Brand storytelling often aims to contain the content where it can be controlled. Story making allows the content to roam free across social media. Give the audience free rein to create, post and share their stories on their own channels. Then you can bring all those stories back to your website or newsroom by curating it via hashtags with a cool tool like Hashtagio.com
4. Be authentic: The clearest indicator that a brand story is being controlled is that every story is a glowing endorsement. When you set the story free and give the power to the customers, be prepared for the fact that you can’t please all the people all the time. That’s life. You can be proactive in connecting with our customers – reach out and ask them for feedback. Then use that feedback to course-correct if there are any genuine issues. And encourage the customers with great stories to post them online. Make it easy to do so – give them tools to help them create a memorable brand story of their own.
You can access the recording of this hour-long conversation with David Berkowitz at the Commpro.biz Digital PR Channel.
