There are countless things we have established in some of our previous discussions. For instance, we have established that content marketing is important. We have also established that email marketing is important. The importance of video in driving engagement is yet another important aspect. The banner all these and more fall under is digital marketing. These are examples of the many vital elements to rolling out effective marketing. Yet in all of these, there is one recurrent thing – storytelling. Storytelling is an area you now need to master. Today let us look at how you can enhance your business with storytelling on social media.
Find Out Trending Topics Online
You cannot tell the right stories if you do not know what people typically talk most about. What topics are people interested in? Where online do people have discussions on what interests them? This means you have to sift through the various social media platforms. The thing is, trends are seldom consistent across all of them. We have spoken about hashtags before. They are central to easily finding out what topics are trending.
Keyword searches also help in zoning in on what people talk most about. This all takes diligent research to come to a collection of comprehensive insights on trending topics. Even search engines, e.g. Google, are strategic in helping you figure out what is trending. At the most basic, just going to the Google homepage, you can immediately see trending topics. Entering keywords can expand into the specific areas people are searching for regarding those keywords.
Have An Appreciation Of Social Media Platform Algorithms
No, I do not mean to imply you should get into the world of coding. You should find out how the different social media platforms work. This is vital because you will know how to tailor your storytelling. You will know how to do it in a way that the respective platform’s algorithm favours. On every platform, things about your content are treated favourably by the algorithm.
Then some things are penalized. Some of you may recall I once did an article on, what you need to know about the latest Twitter algorithm. Kindly check it out to get a feel of the algorithm insights about a platform that can help you. Bear in mind that algorithms are constantly altered and or updated. For example, from the time I did that Twitter article, the algorithm has changed several times. Thus you need to find out what the latest is regularly.
Understand What It Takes To Tell An Engaging Story Online
Again this is going to vary depending on the digital platform in question. You can tell stories in many ways, but not all are engaging. There is, however, one recurrent element that applies to any platform. It is the art of telling a story in parts. Consider Twitter, for example. Of course, now, you can write lengthier tweets with Twitter Blue. Regardless, one of the most engaging forms of tweets is threads. Despite Twitter Blue, many users still get hooked by threads. That shows you the importance of storytelling in parts. By the way, the ‘parts’ element can also refer to ‘series’. This means doing separate posts covering parts of a full story.
On Facebook, consider how Strive Masiyiwa used to do it. His Facebook page emerged globally as the top in 2018 with the most engagements. Almost 800 million posts were viewed, and a page-by-page ranking was done. In that study, 34 of Strive Masiyiwa’s posts made it into the top 500 globally. This safely placed his page at the top, with over 63 million engagements in 2018. That was a clear testament to the power of storytelling and especially doing so as a series. Platforms are different, as I said. However, you must figure out how to use the parts or series approach in storytelling. After all, it conditions people to be loyal followers of your brand, thus increasing engagement.
An Appreciation Of Psychology Is Needed
You must understand the psychological tactics needed to get people hooked on your storytelling. People in business often tend to forget that it is all about psychology. In another article, I highlighted how funny content is one of the types of viral content. In your storytelling, you must take advantage of that humour effect. Then there is what is called the verbatim effect. It means the human brain does not capture everything that is said. It mainly wants to capture the core aspects.
Thus if you fill your content with ‘noise’, people may not get you or even engage with you. This means you must master the ability to say more in fewer words. Examples of ‘noise’ are adverbs and adjectives. Remember, I always emphasise the importance of influencer marketing. That is a strategy that taps into the bandwagon effect. As in the tendency of people to follow what is or what is associated with what is deemed trending or popular. These are just a few examples, but so many strategies for effective storytelling are anchored on leveraging psychology. Take time to look into this.
If you apply all we discussed to heart, you will bear exceptional results. Storytelling on social media is here to stay. Not many people in business have mastered it yet, especially here in Zimbabwe. You can distinguish your business by putting what we discussed to work. After all, Zimbabweans are wired to get hooked on effective storytelling.
