How to Create Stories that touch Hearts

The battle for attention has just begun. Brands are struggling to get the attention of their potential customers. Print Media, Billboards, Google Adwords, Facebook Advertising, posting on Instagram,... Some brands, and I think I can go broader by saying "most brands", struggle very hard in this war on attention using different media to spread their message. 

I see all these brands post content on social media, and after 3 months, they say Facebook and Instagram don't work for their brand. 

Besides a lack of patience, the main reason for this is that the content is not touching the hearts of the people consuming their content. 

Most brands only talk about themselves. They show off how great and how amazing they are. But they do not deliver what people are really expecting when on social media. People want to get entertained, informed, surprised and inspired. But brands just keep talking about themselves, in order to go for a quick sell.

But some brands understands they need to do something else. They understand they need to be native on these different social media. 
And if you are one of these brands, or one of these brand marketeers, I will give you my insights on how to create great stories that touch hearts.

First of all, you need to be confident in yourself. Don't think that creating great stories is only for big brands, or only for people like Steven Spielberg.

Think about what the people around you like when you are on social media. You will see they like real stories. Human and humble stories about the every day life. About recognizable situations that could happen to everybody.

That means you need to get a real story told around your brand. Not only that is has been established in 1873 by 2 poor immigrants with no money. But also about your ambitions in the future and what you do every day in order to achieve that bigger goal (think about instagram stories for this part of the story).

How do you touch hearts? By being real, human and humble. 

But that's not enough. To touch hearts, you must also know more about the psychology of humans consuming content on social media (or on TV - it's almost the same).

What you need is a cocktail of surprise, joy and fun.

You need surprising elements to keep your story alive. Surprise by doing something unexpected. You can create this by giving something to somebody who doesn't expect it (make sure it comes from the heart, not from your desire to be popular and to sell your brand). 

Joy is about positivity. Be positive in life. Think about the warm Christmas feeling and how it disappears on the 2nd of January. make it last 365 days a year. Positivity always wins. 

Fun elements always make a difference in likeability. Being funny is always a good idea. The more humble you are in your storytelling, the more fun elements you can add. if you get your audience laughing, you change their mindset. You touch their hearts. 

If you combine fun, joy and surprise elements with being humble, real and human, you have yourself a story to touch hearts. 

Then the tactics come into play.
1. Adapt the content to the platform on which you are posting. 
2. Post every day, or at least as regularly as possible.
3. Don't focus too much on how it looks - post it, get it out - done is better than perfect

Hope you enjoyed this post! Feel free to share it with your friends. And if you want to discuss this or give me your opinion, please send me an e-mail at laurent@lapinquotidien.com Would love to connect!

Written by Laurent Lootens. Owner and founder of Lapin Quotidien and So-Phi.


 

Written by Laurent Lootens, owner and Founder of Lapin Quotidien and So-Phi.