Story telling through oral tradition is responsible for the majority of our culture. Social media has brought this element back to civilization as a driving force for societal change. Over the past decade the power over the spread of information has been released to the people through various social avenues. Facebook, Twitter, blog sites, and forums have in a way taken us back to our roots.
As this article from Forbes points out, media and advertising are being consumed in completely different ways than traditional ad agencies are accustomed to. One of the most important factors in marketing has become brand advocates. Word of mouth has always been a powerful tool for advertising, but never so much as in the Social Era.
So how does one take advantage of this shift in behavior? Victoria Barret of the Forbes staff lays out three important points:
- Don’t lead with facts.
- The story isn’t about you.
- Forget puffery, Find your voice.
As interesting as points 1 and 3 are, and you can read all about them in the Forbes article, I want to focus on number 2. When trying to be persuasive we all know intuitively what is most important; Me, myself and I. We know what drives us to engage material, the personal connection we feel to it. Quite often we forget that others are motivated by the same process (but not necessarily the same material). To truly touch your target audience it’s important to tell them a story about themselves. We must learn to take ourselves out of the equation and ask the question, “Why would the user share and engage in this content?” A perfect example of this in practice is the ad campaign Nike ran during the Olympics. What emotions will readers feel, or what reaction will they have to viewing the content we have created.
Think of your favorite book or tv show. Why do you come back to it over and over again? Is it because of some advertisement you have seen? Sure, that might make you watch the first episode or skim through a book at a bookstore, but to truly capture your audience a compelling story is required. Marketers in the Social Era have to think of their efforts in the same way. As the article from Forbes indicates, gone are the days when a marketer can simply tell the audience what they should think, or list off facts and statistics. People want to be a part of the story, and by engaging consumers in this way, we set a fire that spreads just like oral tradition only nowadays we call it going viral.