Are you harnessing the power of storytelling?
As humans we are hardwired for stories. It’s the way we connect, build empathy and emotion, which drives behaviour. In this episode we discuss two ways to tell better stories and share Julie Masters ‘Keep it or share it’ tip.
Good morning. My name’s Kiri, I’m the Business Growth Strategist here at Tiny Hunter, and today I want to talk to you about storytelling because we all love a good story. We’ve been telling stories since the beginning of time, and storytelling is a great way for brands to get cut through.
Recently, we asked you what is it that’s keeping you up at night and one of the responses was all around cut through. How can I grab and keep my audience’s attention in this day and age when there is so much noise out there? This is a great question. I’m sure it’s really relevant for most businesses, especially at the moment when the rise of AI and ChatGPT anyone and everyone can create content now, so there is a lot out there, and it is most important that you’re ensuring what you put out there is relevant and engaging. A great way we can do that is through storytelling. We know that as humans, we’re hardwired for stories. It’s the way we connect with people. It’s the way we engage. It is the way we build empathy. Which leads to emotions, and we know that emotions are what drives our behaviors. So if you’re wanting your audience to do a certain behavior, do you want them to buy, click, attend, sign up? Whatever it may be, you’re going to need to create that connection with them and you can do that through storytelling.
How do you tell a good story? Well, firstly it needs to be personal. Have you ever wondered why TED talks are so popular? It’s because most of them start with a personal story, and what that does is it makes us connect with that speaker fairly quickly. We can begin to understand what they’re going through. We can empathize with them. Another great way is to make sure that it is human. Talk in a language that is real and honest and human. If you have a lot of jargon in your industry, don’t sort of try and break that down. As humans, we don’t want perfect anymore. We want real. We want to build a connection and we want to understand you.
Lastly, I want to leave you with a tip by Julie Masters, who is an expert in storytelling, and that is the “keep it or share it” rule. This is really simple. Anything you create, view it with a lens of: Are my audience going to keep this or share it with someone they know? If the answer is no to either of those, then don’t put it out in the world. It’s really simple, and I love it.
That’s it from me, it’s time for brekkie.
Written by: Kiri White
Published: August 2, 2023