5 Storytelling trends marketing leaders should know about
From video to VR, social media and beyond, there is a host of mediums through which a brand can tell its story. At its core, brand storytelling is a business competency that drives emotional engagement, resulting in enhanced business performance. Below are five storytelling trends marketing leaders should know about.
Mini-ads
With traditional advertising struggling in today’s digital landscape, companies need to consider fresh, inventive ways to connect with consumers and deliver their message as part of their digital strategy.
A visual medium that yields great results, video continues to grow amongst marketing teams as a way to tell the tale of a brand or product. So much so that companies actively using video benefit from 41% more web traffic than non-users.
Having understood this new wave of behavior, Facebook announced its intention to launch six-second ads that will allow brands and businesses to tell a condensed story to their target audience – the Mini-Ad. Jumping on this trend, YouTube recently launched its ‘Six-Second Story Challenge’, an initiative that spawned a host of incredibly inventive results:
These new ads not only have the power to bring a brand’s story to life but this snappy six-second format will tap into a content overwhelmed audience which in turn, will drive engagement.
The key to leadership is knowing the latest trends and encouraging experimentation in a team to trial new formats that may add to the business. What’s key to remember is that not every trend with have relevance to your audience, so choose wisely and empower staff to make decisions based on knowledge and research.
Customer-led storytelling
As our world becomes increasingly well-connected, consumers have many platforms to share their thoughts and opinions. With 92% of people admitting to trusting their peers over a traditional advert, those charged with leading a team need to ensure your brand is providing customers or a client’s customers with an opportunity to tell their stories.
For inspiration, the customer-centric storytelling from Airbnb is an excellent example. As a wholly customer facing company, rather than telling their version of their tale, the company harnesses the power of customer-led storytelling to give people a chance spark up narratives. The platform is called ‘Stories from the Airbnb Community’ and it is highly-engaging with a mix of amazing stories published regularly.
When it comes to customer-driven storytelling, strong leadership is essential to not only give your team the confidence to reach out to your business’ key audiences through different outreach strategies, but offers them access to a host of digital mediums in which to do so. That said, it’s essential that as a leader, learning to understand your audience through social listening and stay abreast of ever-evolving customer outreach tactics is a priority.
Philanthropic storytelling
In today’s world, customers crave transparency and want to know more about companies, how they conduct their business, how they treat their employees, what their ethos is, how they source materials and handle their products. So, when it comes to brand storytelling in the modern age, it pays to be clear, concise and honest.
A prime example of ethical brand storytelling, the kind that resonates with a younger, more adventurous and increasingly environmentally conscious generation is Patagonia. Sporting the mission statement, ‘Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis’, the outdoors and adventure brand focuses on showcasing its efforts through its marketing savvy campaigns.
Through its ‘Worn Wear’ initiative, it hires 45 full-time repair technicians to fix Patagonia garments that are in need of a little TLC. Alongside the work power, its video campaign ‘The Stories We Wear’ highlights the fact that people that wear the brand to show the endurance of the product they make as well as the attachment they have to these clothes.
As a leader, it’s essential to ensure your team is engaged with everything the business is doing from new developments to possible charity partnerships. By researching key company facts and remaining informed yourself, you’ll be able to provide insights and details that can offer transparency during campaigns. Some of these exciting new developments and ethical improvements may even become the centerpiece.
Immersive storytelling
Experts suggest, over 200 million virtual reality headsets will be sold by 2020. With augmented reality becoming an increasingly viable option for businesses to connect with their audience through the medium of VR, it’s fast becoming an interesting tool for brands to convey their message and get people invested.
By taking an individual and immersing them in a sensory experience that forms the center of your brand’s story, your business stands to forge a meaningful connection like never before. As this form of brand storytelling develops, a host of innovations are expected to come to the surface and for digital marketing leadership, immersive storytelling medium that will not only assist in the creation of forward-thinking campaigns but give others the tools to push their skills to a whole new level.
Immersive storytelling is to an extent, still in its infancy. As a result, this brave new world of storytelling has a huge amount of scope with many new skills to master along the way. That said, as a leader you should foster a culture of learning, giving your team the time and resources to upskill themselves and gain new knowledge to make your brand’s immersive storytelling as innovative, inventive and ahead of the pack.
Dark social
Despite the somewhat ominous name, dark social media isn’t as sinister as you might think.
Dark social refers to the type of social sharing that can’t be tracked accurately, for example, the data that isn’t registered up by web analytics platforms. In theory, if a person clicks a link to a site from an open social media site like Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, an analytical platform will reveal precisely where that referral came from.
But, with the rise in consumers sharing links through private messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Snapchat, as well as more traditional mediums including email or SMS, there is more to measuring referral sources, traction and success than relying on Facebook or Twitter engagement.
By opening up channels of communication, digital marketing leaders can increase internal engagement and give people an additional voice in which to contribute to the brand’s narrative.
With so many platforms and ways to share your company’s story, there has never been a better time to connect with your target audience, make your brand a thought leader and lead others to victory through an exciting, emotionally stimulating and focused brand narrative.
Source: digitalmarketinginstitute.com
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