SXSW: Forget Stories. Your Brand Needs a Narrative.
If you’ve spent any time at all recently reading PR and marketing blogs, you know that storytelling is a top trend, and for good reason. Building storytelling into the communications mix delivers the personable and engaging messaging that sticks with audiences and is effective fodder for social content consumption.
However, at SXSW yesterday, I learned where stories fall short in a brilliant presentation titled “Moving from Story to Narrative,” by John Hagel, author of “The Power of Pull” and co-chairman of Deloitte’s Center for the Edge.
The problem with stories, Hagel argued, stems from the fact that they’re not participatory. Stories are told to the reader, from the vantage point of the teller. This leads to the next problem. Stories eventually end, and the reader moves on to other things. Now, savvy marketers reading this will say to themselves that those other things can be influenced by providing compelling calls to action, streams of related nurturing content or the ability to participate an adjacent community. Without a doubt, this is all true, but even the best CTAs don’t work all of the time.
Read the full post by PR Newswire VP of social media Sarah Skerik on Beyond PR.
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