This is the formula we use to grow the tech brands we work with (i.e. we helped bring 350k new depositing customers over 2,5 years for a London-based tech startup). Want to discover what helped us get there? Keep reading.
Before we start, let me address the elephant in the room.
Yes, the term “storytelling” has become a bit of a buzzword.
I know that a lot of content around it might be vague or seem not to have any connection with business. At the end of the day, storytelling can be anything.
What I mean by storytelling in this article is building a narrative for your brand communications in the social media space.
Storytelling is a building block of good marketing in the 2020s. No matter how performance and results-driven your business goals are, building stories that engage your audience will help you get there.
I don’t have to tell you that when you’re launching or growing your tech startup, digital space is where you need to be to build & grow your community. And that comes with a twist.
Your brand needs to be heard.
On social.
Where the attention spans are shorter than a blink of the eye.
And ... it really is noisy in that space.
Getting noticed on social is a challenge every new brand will face.
Big marketing budgets help but do not guarantee success. I’m sure you know by now how complex digital marketing is as a whole and that there are multiple moving parts to make it work.
So whether you’re currently building up your marketing team to launch your product or want to bring more new customers to your brand, let’s start with the story about the Heider, F. & Simmel, M. study published by the Wired magazine [1]:
“Our impulse to detect story patterns is so strong that we see them even when they're not there.
“In a landmark 1944 study, 34 humans – Massachusetts college students actually, though subsequent research suggests they could have been just about anyone – were shown a short film and asked what was happening in it. The film showed two triangles and a circle moving across a two-dimensional surface. The only other object onscreen was a stationary rectangle, partially open on one side.
Only one of the test subjects saw this scene for what it was: geometric shapes moving across a plane. Everyone else came up with elaborate narratives to explain what the movements were about. Typically, the participants viewed the triangles as two men fighting and the circle as a woman trying to escape the bigger, bullying triangle. Instead of registering inanimate shapes, they imagined humans with vivid inner lives. The circle was "worried." The circle and the little triangle were "innocent young things." The big triangle was "blinded by rage and frustration." [1]
As humans, we’re wired for stories.
Stories help us establish emotional connection and understand information.
Since caveman-days some 30,000 years ago our ancestors were practicing visual storytelling to depict their combat and survival.
