The Power of Story-Telling

My supervisor urged me last week to register for a meet-up event here in Boston, after a lot of procrastination and contemplation, I opened the email, clicked the link and rsvp’d for the event. The title of the meet-up was Story-telling in the context of Design thinking. It turned out to be a very engaging session compared to other meet-ups I have attended as there were group activities to facilitate the learning process as opposed to lecture style meet-ups. It got me thinking after the session how important story-telling is.

Story-telling has been a huge part of our lives in more ways than we realize. Whether the story is captivating or not, we are constantly narrating the events of our daily experiences to an attentive or not so attentive crowd.

Smart businesses have incorporated this very simple tool into their marketing mix to humanize their brands and have their consumers relate better to the brand. I belong to a number of food groups on Facebook and I realized that the posts that get the most engagement have a story behind it. I recently posted a picture with a caption explaining how I could not stop picking at plantains when I fry them and the reactions in the comments were overwhelming in a good way. A lot of people could relate to what I posted and even decided to share a bit of their experiences as well. As a brand, if I needed to do research on consumer behavior in the design thinking context and I needed consumer insight, the 100 plus comments received on that post would have given me a good head start.

I have decided going forward that I would always incorporate an element of story telling into the businesses I create content for because at the end of the day, consumers want a brand they can relate to. I also plan on capturing the not so attentive crowd by drawing them in with an experience they are familiar with and possibly convert them to a brand advocate through the power of story telling.