Good marketing involves good storytelling. When you can capture your audience in the middle of a great story, they jump in with both feet, listening intently to what you might have to say next, and looking for ways they can become part of your story.
Remember “The Neverending Story” from back in the 80s? (I know, I’m dating myself here…) It epitomized what a captivating story can do in the mind of a child. Remember how the boy, Bastian, found himself in the story–actually experiencing it with all the characters, feeling the excitement and danger–as he eventually took on the role of the hero? When I watched that movie as a kid, I remember wishing I had a book that became that real for me, that sucked me into an alternate reality and let me be part of the story the way Bastian was part of The Neverending Story.
Now jump ahead a few decades. What stories have you found yourself wanting to be in the middle of these days? Is there a company or person whose story is playing out in a way you wish you could be a part of? It’s a whole new world today. With social media and marketing the way it is, you can actually become part of the story. On Facebook or Twitter, you can reply to the stories that are engaging to you. On YouTube, not only can you watch the stories on video, but you could even respond with your own video story. On any blog post you find interesting, you can reply, or even Tweet the post for the rest of the world to see, placing you in the story in a unique way. And with the life that viral stories take on as they resurface on different videos or blogs or Twitter pages, it really can be a Neverending Story that you become part of.
Movie studios have started to figure this out. When the new Johnny Depp movie, “Public Enemies,” was first releasing, Universal Studios brought audiences into the story by using Twitter and Facebook to invite people to rob a bank. And just the other day, the Twitter user @importantdate showed up, hinting at a tea party somewhere around Comic-Con in San Diego, starting the buzz about the latest Tim Burton/Johnny Depp creation, “Alice in Wonderland” (which doesn’t even release until March 2010!), and getting other Tweeps to link to the trailer, thus bringing them into the story and furthering the marketing efforts with very little work on the part of the studio (assuming the studio is behind the Twitter profile).
Other businesses are getting customers involved an experience that invites people to contribute their own content, which essentially becomes free advertising and promotions for the company. Take Chipotle for instance. On MyChipotle, customers can upload videos or photos explaining their unique creations they order at Chipotle. Some of the videos they have there are entertaining enough and of a good enough quality to actually be a commercial for Chipotle, and it cost them nothing to make. Everyday people engage in the storytelling, which is truly marketing for Chipotle. Even the Presidential campaign for Barack Obama benefitted from this kind of experience with my.BarackObama.com, where they invited people to share their own story of hope during the campaign, and gave them social media tools and outlets where they could essentially build their own site to tell their story, explain why they were supporting Obama, and encourage others to do the same. (No matter where you stand politically, from a marketing and social media perspective you have to give props to the Obama campaign for their use of social media! For some insights into how the Obama campaign used digital media to win supporters, and ultimately the election, check out this article.)
I think we’re looking at a phenomenon that could be dubbed “Social Story Marketing.” It’s a social web and a story-driven culture in which we find ourselves living and working today. So if good marketing involves good storytelling, and the social media provides a platform for storytelling that engages audiences on a new level, why wouldn’t we start looking at what we do as Social Story Marketing? I’m going to explore this concept a little deeper over the next few posts, but in the meantime, think about your product or business…what would it look like to engage audiences in Social Story Marketing?
