The Key To Social Media Storytelling: Stop Marketing, Start Storytelling

April 22, 2015

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Not seeing results with your social media marketing efforts? Perhaps you need less marketing and more social media storytelling.

This week on the Social Media Social Hour podcast, I’m talking with Laura Holloway, founder and principal of The Storyteller Agency. During this episode we discuss finding and telling your company’s story via written, visual, and social storytelling.

About the show:

The Social Media Social Hour is a podcast for marketers and entrepreneurs looking to get on the social media fast track. The podcast is an interview format, where each week I get up close and personal with top brands and influencers to talk social media, tech and online marketing. Each week I also share tools that I personally use to help me with social media management, sales, marketing, accounts management, and productivity. The Social Media Social Hour is presented by Scoreboard Social.

In this episode, here is what you’ll discover:

Featured Tech Discovery:

  • Pocket
  • Great tool to use when you find things on the web you want to view later

About Laura Holloway:

  • Founder and principal of The Storyteller Agency
    • Founded to help businesses rethink marketing and consider their message in an ongoing narrative of conversation with their audience
    • “Stop marketing and start story-telling”
  • More than a decade of experience in Los Angeles, Phoenix, & Florida:
    • Television and film industry
    • Content marketing strategist
    • Editor
    • Journalist
    • Passionate story-teller

About The Storyteller Agency:

  • Focus on helping clients find the good story of their business
    • Find the story that their audience wants to hear
  • Started with only content marketing
    • Believed there needed to be more value for the audience
    • Wanted to stand apart as storytellers
  • Rebranded and remarketed themselves
  • How they uncover the story:
    • First ask “Why did you start this business?”
    • Second ask to see the About Us page on their website

About Storytelling:

  • Helping clients look at marketing & advertising in a different light
    • Not just about advertising or publicizing or selling
    • About having a presence out there that’s genuine and real and offering value to the audience
  • There’s always something interesting about a company, you may just have to dig a little deeper to find it.
    • There’s people that work there at the company and all of those people have stories
    • There’s a reason the company was started and that’s at the core of the story itself
  • Written vs. visual vs. social storytelling:
    • Written: the written words
      • Blog, website content, etc.
        • Blogs are the best way to have ongoing, consistent relevant content produced on a regular basis.
    • Visual: photography, video, graphics, etc.
      • Anything to make the content more visually pleasing or attention grabbing
        • You cannot have a strong content marketing program without having video and photography
          • It’s too plain and too one dimensional
          • People want to feel more engaged
    • Social: where you bring it all together
      • If a business does not have a social presence, that is the first place to start.

Mentionable Quotes:

  • “We’re really wanting to tell great stories, to offer value to the audience to help build and earn an audience rather than to just purchase it.”
  • “Sometimes when you have the word marketing in there, it’s hard to see the true meaning of what you’re doing.”
  • “We live in an age where consumers want to know more about the people they are working with.”
  • “That’s really where the story starts – with people.”
  • “When it’s more personal it just makes it easier to do business.”
  • “The more honest you can be with your storytelling the better.”
  • “You cannot have a business today without having Facebook.”
  • “If you don’t have videos or photography, you’re already behind in the game.”
  • “People love the behind-the-scenes.”
  • “Storytelling is one of the oldest mediums of communication.”
  • “Stories are relatable no matter the age, the demographic – no matter where you are or who you are.”

Items/people mentioned in the show:

Laura’s Social Media Six Pack:

  1. Are you a good swimmer? Yes.
  2. What was your last dream about? Matthew McConaughey was my camp counselor.
  3. If you were a superhero, what super power would you have? The ability to know the truth about any situation at any time.
  4. What was your favorite toy as a child? My buddy.
  5. Who’s the most famous person you’ve ever met? Adam Sandler.
  6. How do you prefer your eggs? Scrambled with cheese.

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