Storytelling in Social Media

by Richard Reeve on November 16, 2008

in @CCSeed

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Storytelling as a best practice: it’s an intriguing topic, especially as it relates to social media.  There’s tremendous buzz around storytelling in social marketing, especially in the non-profit sector.  As Andy Goodman notes, “the viral marketing of ideas depends first and foremost on stories.”  It’s what I have been wrestling with since entering the social media space.  And yes, it’s all about marketing; consider Shakespeare’s task running the Globe.

Micro: Let’s start with micro-sharing and the 140 character limitation of Twitter.  What becomes clear when we study the advanced practitioners is that micro-sharing is live auto-biography written in short snippets.  It is not a journal: the audience is present, and they may or may not have any preceding context to the content they encounter.  It is and it isn’t conversation.  Threading, or a post series between two or more people through replies tends to be stretched over time.  Responses are crafted (or can and should be) in a way conversation does not permit.  So the media is plastic, flexible…well suited to being crafted.  Much in storytelling practice focuses on the hook.  The best 140 character posts I’ve read are all about the hook.

The Hook: You never know when or where someone will come across your stream, where or when they will break into the narrative.  In a novel, once your hooked, other things can develop; character, plot, metaphor; that elusive moment of truth.  Even when providing these aspects in social media space, each content packet needs a hook that allows someone stumbling upon it immediate access.  Nothing, from a tweet to a e-book, should be floated without a hook.

Channels: The power of storytelling in social media appears when content is published across multiple channels simultaneously.   Chris Brogan considers a blog to be home base and the multiple other options are outposts; facebook, twitter, youtube, flickr, backtype, utterli, delicious, etc…the list goes on.  The content that I’m engaged with and publishing, the story of it, can unfold and develop in different locations.  I can carry my content into another blog and comment on a relevant subject in a way that furthers my own story.  I can weave themes, key words, metaphors, and by recasting and recycling them, I am in effect securing the branding of my content.

Feeds: Composing this way, and publishing in the cloud of opportunities can at first seem disconcerting.  Where’s it all going?  Is there any consistency?  What’s it adding up to?  All of your publishing activity needs to be captured and collected.  I use google reader and friendfeed.  By establishing appropriate rss feeds you gather all your activity into one stream which begins to provide clarity as to the power of your messaging.  It also helps to map out where you should be going next.

Clouds: A great way to get an understanding of your content and help shape where your headed is to take advantage of cloud tools.  Wordle, twitter tag cloud, and similar tools help give a visualization to your content.  They help answer the questions, what have been my most consistent talking points and where have I gone astray?

Audience: audiences bore easily.  Do windows that open for more than two minutes really exist in this space?  Perhaps, but rarely.  We are talking about data clusters that need to be digested in 5 to 120 second snippets.  Scale the content down to the snippet, but not the quality of the content.

Postscript: Chris Brogan served a bevy of blogging topics yesterday after asking on twitter: “Hey, what do YOU want me to write about for tomorrow’s blog?” By offering the fruit of the results, Brogan demonstrated an essential lesson of how social media functions at the highest levels…listen and share.  Chris’ suggestions led to the emergence of this blog and my practice of social media.  It seemed silly to even consider not taking him up on another suggestion.  So amidst the many topics to pick from, I chose: “RevzNexus: @chrisbrogan Chris write about storytellers and how it could be applied to SM { social maso } strategies…..” Thanks to Chris and @RevzNexus for pushing me this way.

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  • Thank you for this excellent post and for the opportunity to share some of my own thoughts and even a story. It is so exciting to read and hear so much about storytelling, and I agree it is useful for business (That's what my blog addresses) and for nonprofits, but it's not just "a marketing thing" to pull people in.

    I might hook you with lessons I learned while training my own guide dog.
    Hopefully the hook did its job. When I share that training my own guide dogs (Thunder and now Molly Flagtail) deepened my level of belief in the powers of the mind, you may be slightly intrigued, but you become more interested when I share the story of bringing my dog through her fear stage.

    I raised Thunder from 9 weeks old, and once she had the basics (sit etc), I started taking her everywhere with me. She wore a training vest and I took her into stores and restaurants, onto buses, etc. When Thunder went through one of her fear imprint stages, all of a sudden she became frightened of the bus. We'd been on them dozens of times, but suddenly she cowered, shaking, beneath the bench whenever one rolled up.

    Perhaps the natural first thought might be, "Oh no, what if she never overcomes her fear? What if she fails? I can't keep a dog if she's a PET..." But I could not give myself the luxury of those thoughts, even briefly.

    I knew that my job was to hold unshaking belief in my dog and have no fear that she might fail. So I imagined her confidently stepping onto the bus and leading me to a seat, then just as securely leaving the bus at the journey's end. I imagined her being a competent and happy guide dog with a constantly wagging tail.

    That is what she became, and partly it was her good "raw material," and partly it was my unwavering belief in her.

    If this story touches you or makes you think, then I have employed the "mojo" of storytelling, which is to connect people. Because as the world becomes more "techie," we all want to know that we are communicating with real people and not bots.

    I am delighted to discuss storytelling and share stories with anyone. Blogging is, indeed, home base. Sharing connections through the social networks is also powerful.

    I believe that stories change lives.

    Thank you for receiving my story.
    Warmly
    Ronda Del Boccio, The Story Lady
    @TheStoryLady on Twitter.

  • Great post thanks - i believe storytelling is as engrained in our dna as tribalism. Its a deep human impulse that will, sadly, be left unsatisified where people are alienated in antisocial environments. there are many lonely people, even in crowded cities, who are perhaps a little introverted or don't meet common criteria for social attraction. Maybe this is one reason social media is so popular - we can satisfy our deep need for stories, in our own environments and yet with the ambiant intimacy we need as social animals.
    The really interesting thing is where social media enables us to be different people.

  • In thinking about how we use storytelling in our business, I came up with this example . . .
    Storytelling played the starring role in one of our most successful PR campaigns ever. By introducing a fund-raising event as a series of 16 chapters in one story, we sequenced the releases out, many as sub-events, over the course of several months. This was a few years ago, pre-twitter. I'm imagining how much more successful this what comes next approach with a twitter ID would be - for the organization and the community. Thanks for making me think, Richard.
    @wiredprworks on twitter.com

  • Nicely done. I wrote about Storytelling from a slightly different angle at http://beyondthe.biz/2008/09/2... ... including going back to "Put that down, you'll poke you eye out". Naturally that was from @Grandma.

    Thanks for the good read!

    Wayne

  • Great post! I think that one aspect of storytelling is how the story can live on beyond the reach of the storyteller. For folks who are just jumping into social media it can feel as if one is talking into an empty void, but there are people really listening.

    After your post a couple of days ago, I talked to my wife about the concept of focusing on one's intent and having a follow up of immediate action. I've also been practicing speaking my daily intent in one breath as you described in a response to my comment.

    So thank you for sharing your stories and they are appreciated.

  • I found you commenting on the Chris Brogan site. I look forward to learning more via your insights.

  • Zoe

    Reading this post tied together so many little bits and pieces flying around my brain.

    I like how you framed "channels" in the context of storytelling, rather than branding (the way it's often used). It really highlights how social media can be exploited to explore new facets of storytelling...without compromising quality, as you say.

  • Great article - thanks. I'm fascinated by the idea of storytelling or narrative in making sense of fragments - I feel it's what we're genetically programmed to do... Everything from Homer to the Bible, so why not the rich and confusing 'snippets' of the Internet.

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