When you share your brand story,
especially on social media, your aim should be to communicate the purpose and mission behind your brand — ultimately focusing on
who you are.
But first, you need to know what platforms to use and which
storytelling elements you can apply. This is because one approach will work better than another, depending on the platform you use.
But what
are the
brand stories and how do you tell them? Don’t panic — we’ve got you covered! Join
media update’s Maryna Steyn in uncovering four tips on where to find your brand story on social media.
Let’s get into it:
1. Show the people behind the brand
Introducing your audience to the individuals behind the scenes contributes to humanising your brand. Instead of being some faceless company, seeing the
actual people who work there makes potential clients identify with them and realise, ‘Hey, they are people just like me.’
One way to do this is to post pictures on social media about any fun activities or special celebrations that happened within your company. For example, post a few happy snaps of folks in party hats who achieved the milestone of a product launch on your social media.
This shows the clientele the devotion and hard work of a team that they would
love to support — ideally showing their support by bringing their business to your dedicated brand.
Another way is to place images of individuals in a ‘meet the team’ section. Placing a short bio with a photo on Instagram, for instance, is a great way to introduce the people that make big (or small) brands a success. This also shows your team that you are recognising their efforts.
2. Curate brand content from your followers
Using the content your followers create online to tell your story sounds complicated, but it's not. This type of content that you will be using is the posts, videos or comments that your audience created, wherein they rave about your product or service.
One way to use this content is to reshare a video where a customer tagged you and spoke about the benefits of your product. You can reshare it on your page and elaborate in the post how the benefits that the customer highlighted aligns with your brand values.
Since we are living in a society that is craving authenticity and valuing recommendations above traditional forms of advertising, sharing customer reviews and opinions are crucial to your business growth. Imagine what happens when such a reshared video is seen by other potential customers. They see other people — who weren’t paid to rave about the product — give a ‘trustworthy’ explanation about how your product helped them.
3. Tell stories with your captions
If you’ve already discovered the power of the caption, then this will sound like a no-brainer. But if not, then you definitely
need to pay attention!
Telling your story in the caption is a subtler approach then posting a long manifesto about who your brand is. Instead, it slowly reveals important parts of your identity and what your brand values are.
Let’s say that you are a skincare brand that focuses on using natural ingredients in products, such as avocados in your facemasks. A great way to use captions would be to post a picture of a raw, freshly sliced avocado and add the phrase, “We believe in only using fresh, natural ingredients to bring you only the best quality product”. In this way, you tell your followers what your brand stands for and what your goals are.
4. Employ storytelling frameworks
What are storytelling frameworks, you may ask? Well, they are the common structures used to frame a story’s progression. One such structure is the hero meeting the guide on a journey that has a particular goal or solution at the end. (Think
The Lord of the Rings.)
When you bring this structure to your brand’s story, your brand will make the customer the hero and you will be the guide. Their journey would be the problem that they need to solve.
Let’s look at an example of a hardware brand. In its social media posts, they will guide their customer to the right tools to solve the problem of a broken pipe. Once the consumer fixed their problem, they would feel like the hero.
You can apply this structure to video content, long-form posts or images. The options are
endless!
This is a
great way to ensure that you tell your brand’s story in a way that will make the consumer feel good, while showing what an imperative role your brand played in their success.
What is your favourite way to tell your brand’s story? Let us know in the comments below.
*Image courtesy of Vecteezy