When it comes to communicating with your target audience it is of course obvious that you will need to use digital media and social media platforms to connect with them. But how you connect is the most important part. Behind all the data, research, and insights is one important fact – you’re talking to humans. They are the ones looking at the communications your brand puts out into the marketplace, so it’s important to always communicate with them in an authentic manner, you need to earn their attention and that won’t happen if you don’t understand what they want to see, hear, or read.
EVERYONE LOVES A STORY
Since the dawn of time people have told stories and when they hear a good one they not only remember it they share it and tell others. This same basic principle applies to the stories that brands tell to their audiences. When developing a story you need to take a step back and ask yourself a few simple questions.
- Will it resonate?
- Is it worth sharing?
- Is it memorable?
- Will it create a moment?
A well told story should resonate with the audience it is aimed at, and if it does that it will be memorable and worth sharing. Moreover, it should create a moment in someone’s day and that moment will have your brand attached to it.
TELL IT LIKE IT IS
Ensure your story is well written and crafted, this may seem like an obvious point but all too often you see pieces of communications from brands that don’t seem to understand this one simple truth – a well told story is a memorable story.
GIVE YOUR STORY A PULSE
Make sure it has some life in it, you don’t want your story to have a short life span, it needs to be able to live and breathe long enough to still be relevant for the duration of your campaign. Your goal is to ensure that when it is shared by others that it is still pertinent and thus will still be effective.
GREAT STORIES GROW
All the best stories have chapters, some never stop. Once your story is launched you’ll need to support it with more ‘chapters’. Once people have heard about the initial story you’ll want to follow up with more to support it and keep it top of mind. There’s no point in having a launch that gets everyone’s attention and then suddenly going silent. Once you have piqued an audience’s interest you need to keep giving them more. If your story resonated with them at launch they’ll be happy to hear more about it…curiosity is yet another human trait.
There’s a reason we call ourselves here at Vivaldi the Human & Digital Public Relations Agency, that’s because we know one cannot succeed without the other.
Joseph Henry is the founder and CEO of Vivaldi Public Relation Agency.
He is an expert communicator and influencer who has been helping leading companies achieve their strategic objectives in Asia for the last 20 years.
