W
hen I was a little girl, my grandfather used to tell me stories about his life when he was growing up. I can still remember tales of how he and his friends built go-carts out of wooden boxes and other discarded items and how he’d stand outside the five-cent movie theatre shouting, “I’ve got three, who’s got two?”
I got to know my great-grandmother, a woman I never met, through his stories. She was a loving single mother and my grandfather a dutiful, if not mischievous, son. The way so many of my grandfather’s stories started with, “My mother sent me to the store…” told me everything there was to know about their relationship.
As I grew up and interacted with my cousins, I learned they were familiar with the barking snake, too. My grandfather told them his stories, the common characters from which we now used to identify our family members. No one could tell a story like my grandfather, and he never wasted a story on a stranger. Distant relatives from other cities were instantly loved ones if they knew about the barking snake.
What Happens When Stories Are Told
Stories impart historical information, from what you cooked for dinner last night to how your grandfather entertained himself as a boy in a poor neighborhood in New York. The bits of information in your story can be useful to readers in many ways. We learn from each other’s experiences, and they can spark new ideas for the future.
The stories you tell also bring us together in unique combinations. We recognize the humanity in the story and identify with the experience. I did not grow up in a poor neighborhood in New York, but I remember inventing games to entertain myself as a kid. Most adults can identify with the boredom of childhood and various schemes to overcome it.
The information in stories helps us form connections with others. They provide that spark of recognition when you see a familiar face across a crowded room. You realize that with one commonality, two people can build a relationship where you discover others. Belonging is a bond all humans seek.
Bringing People Together
What if content marketing was just storytelling and amassing a customer base was helping people recognize their commonalities and build relationships?
This technical concept that every business must have which we call Content Marketing is just storytelling. It is a concept humans have used for centuries to impart information and entertainment. Anyone can tell a story, and we all have stories to tell.
Picture the cultural elders sitting by the fire talking about the past. People gather around, drawn in the intrigue and a desire for knowledge. Interpreted through their own frame of reference, the story resonates with each person as they imagine themselves in the place of the main character. They enjoy the warmth of belonging to the group and come back often for another installment.
Now, picture yourself as the storyteller. You tell your stories on your website and customers gather. They stick around long enough to read your blog and sometimes share their experiences. They come back for subsequent posts. They bring their friends, and they buy from you.
Yes, building your business can be as simple as telling your story. Your story and the story of every one of your customers overlaps in your market niche. Be a storyteller and gather the members of your brand’s tribe to the heart of your website.
I grew up to be a storyteller and a writer of other people’s stories. I can help tell your story and develop content marketing for your business that leads to more website traffic and increased sales. Put my storytelling skills to work for you through the affordable content writing services at New Day Strategies.
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With the emergence of a pluralistic vision of organizations such as construction of multiple stories become apparent a new conception of the narrative, which is now being re-evaluated and considered an effective way to a different and innovative insight, direction and business management. That’s why the story can become a tool available to businesses to redefine their identity, to deepen their knowledge and improve communication.
Thank you for reading, Aldo, and contributing this clarification of the role of storytelling in organizations to the discussion.
Culture can be interpreted based on observable elements such as rituals and ceremonies, stories and myths, symbols, structures, control systems and power relations of the organization. Managers can also leverage these elements to influence the culture. In particular, the corporate memory is the one that more makes clear the ability of any organization to protect and manage their “knowledge” and “know how” in order to incorporate it into the activities, culture and values shared by the members of ‘organization itself. From the point of view of its construction, the learning history is based on the practice of storytelling, an approach to communication that uses the potential of memorability and the strong impact of the narrative. ………..CONTINUE………..
Christine – As one story teller to another, thanks for sharing this important marketing information for today’s internet businesses.
Thanks for reading, Len. I always enjoy reading your stories, too.