Tips for aligning your storytelling with your brand
We are living in the content era, as marketers there is always a pressure to keep creating content that matters and can break through the noise. So, I thought as we continue through National Storytelling Week, I would share some tips and tricks of how to align storytelling with your brand.
Align against your brand values
When I volunteered for Essex Scouts, I think The Scout Association had this the most nailed that I’ve come across. As part of their media and comms training they would share the brand values with examples of how these can be demonstrated, and the idea was that for a story to be strong it needed to demonstrate at least two our three of the values.
This was a quick and easy way to make sure that brand values are embedded across volunteers and staff. But also, has other benefits, such as makes sure that we’ve really considered why we are sharing that story and how it connects in with the wider brand story. It also helps with refining the content and identifying the hook.
Align against your strategy and strategic objectives
Have strategic pillars or objectives in your company great? Start with them, grab the flip chart and get the team together and just ask everyone to note down what stories they think you could tell for each of them pillars. For example, charities also have a pillar around extending their reach. How could you show this through impact case studies of the new people you’ve reached in that financial year? Or did you develop a new service that year to extend your reach? Tell the stories of the staff and service users that were involved in developing the service. Tell the stories of how and why there was a need for this service.
Doing this kind of exercise will probably give you hundreds of ideas of potential stories so then prioritise these down by asking the following questions:
Which ones will our audiences enjoy hearing or reading the most?
Out of those, which ones could support with SEO keywords we’re currently trying to tap into?
And finally, which one’s help reinforce our brand the most?
Tell your employees stories
Employees have great stories to tell and are often fantastic brand ambassadors. They have chosen to work for you, so the chances are they are naturally aligned with your brand values. Whether they have been promoted or done something cool, celebrate it with them and talk about how they got there. Everybody loves a behind the scenes story and to be able to connect with the people behind the brand.
Share your brand history
How your brand came about, and its history is often a quick win when thinking about storytelling. People are interested in these things and knowing how companies develop. Again, it brings a human element in to who you are and what you’re trying to achieve. Start by plotting out your key milestones and then think about who within your company could offer a personal perspective on that topic to really bring it alive.
For example, celebrating your five years of business and you’re HR manager has been with you since the start. Why not ask them to do a reflection piece on the last five years and moments that have stood out to them.
Tell your stories in different formats and ways
For me this is about being efficient and getting the most use out of a story. Tailor the format the way that you share it across the different channels you use, including social media. My main piece of advice is to collect the full story and everything about it and then deconstruct this and see how you can turn it into a campaign pulling out different pieces and elements over a time period to get the most leverage.
For example, if you’ve got a long length case study of four pages, turn this into:
A long length piece of content for your website
A short length piece to go alongside relevant content. For example, if they are talking about benefits of using a particular service with you a couple of paragraphs to place on that service page.
Pull quotes that can be used for shorter form print or press releases and social media content
Identify the key points of the story for social media and figure out how you’re going to tell it in different and engaging ways that I tailored for each channel. If you want to include video think about how you can film for all different channels at the same time to make it is as efficient as possible.
Get in touch to find out more about how Marketing Moments Agency can help you tell impactful stories within your marketing activity.
