I planned on today’s post focusing on the legal and measurement components of UGC campaigns to finish up the three-part series.
See part one on how to set up a user-generated content campaign.
And part two focused on optimization of your user-generated content campaign through the PESO model.
But then I realized on the day after the Thanksgiving holiday approximately zero people would want to read about legal issues and crunch numbers.
So instead, I’m putting that final segment on hold and we are going to talk about social media storytelling.
But not buzzword social media storytelling.
Really good stuff, you’ll actually want to read.
I’m going to share some fun examples of excellent social media storytelling, in hopes it will inspire you out of your turkey coma.
When Social Media Storytelling isn’t a Buzzword
Social media storytelling is one of those really awesome sounding phrases communicators like to throw around.
Sadly, when pinned down on how they tell compelling stories through social media, the results are lacking.
That’s why, as with many things we do in communications, we often need to break out of our industry box and preconceived notions and look at how others successfully tell stories on social media.
These might be brands or they might just be creative individuals.
Either way, they are able to use the social channels to tell compelling stories people ACTUALLY care about.
Here are some of the favorites I’ve come across in the past year.
Dear David is a Twitter Spook-tacular
One day our crazy and ridiculously creative friend Whitney Danhauer emailed us and asked if we had seen the “Dear David” thread on Twitter.
I’m going to try to get through this quickly before I freak myself out.
OK, too late.
I’m already freaked out.
“Dear David” is an on-going ghost story about author Adam Ellis’ experiences in his apartment.
An apartment possibly haunted with an angry child ghost.
It’s been playing out over the last few months with as many twists, turns, and cliffhangers as a sweeps hungry soap opera.
If you Google “Dear David” you’ll come upon a plethora of news stories written about the feed and the author.
Stories that recount revelations, try to make predictions, and analyze events.
“Dear David” is getting more news coverage than most best sellers.
And it’s all made up of 140 count soundbites.
While I can’t read the entire thing, because I’ll never sleep again, the parts I’ve read are genius.
It makes me want to do something similar (but not about ghosts, definitely not about ghosts).
Foxes + Insomnia = Genius Storytelling
On November 12th, around 3 a.m., poor Colin Carlson suffered from a struggle many of us endure: insomnia.
Now while I normally either just lie there, angry at the world, or get up and work or clean, Colin used his time much, much more effectively.
He wrote an encyclopedia of foxes, through tweets.
And it’s a thing of beauty.
Sometimes I read things and think, “man I’d like to be friends with that person.”
This is definitely in that camp.
It’s something that might go through my head in those wee hours, but I’m just not clever enough to put them down on paper.
You might not think foxes are very interesting.
You may have never ever wanted to know much about the different types of foxes.
But I guarantee you’ll read through this entire thing.
Take a lesson here if you have a “boring brand.” And learn about foxes in the process.
No One Shows Up to Class and a Story is Born
Back in January, I stumbled upon this amazing thread from a teacher, waiting patiently for his students to show up for class.
You follow his saga from start to finish. An amazingly compelling, Seinfeld-esque overview of his student-less existence.
And it’s priceless.
The Humane Society Takes on Instagram Stories
I’ve seen a lot of influencers and brands use sponsored IG stories, or even simply the Instagram story link feature (only available if you have an account with 10,ooo or more followers).
Some do it OK.
Most do it really poorly.
Overall, the majority forget the name of the platform they are using is “Instagram Stories.”
They lose the storytelling component altogether.
Last week, however, I was scrolling through my IG stories and up popped a sponsored story from the Humane Society.
The story feed post had an irresistible video of a dog wiggling her nose at the camera, with tender eyes staring straight at you.
Call-to-action: “See Her Happy Ending.”
Note: neuromarketing research shows that people respond with action to positive.
While they respond by inaction to negative.
So positive calls to action are much more effective than scare tactics, or negative ones.
When I swipe up, I’m taken to a multimedia site which takes me through her story.
It contains video and a progression slider, which takes you through her rescue and recovery.
Then finally, shows me her happy ending prior to a donation request.
And BOOM.
An amazing example of strategically using the features of a platform to tell your specific story in a meaningful and effective way.
Share Your Examples
There are so many great examples of social media storytelling out there, both from brand and individuals, that help launch ideas for ways to tweak and apply the strategy in a different way.
The more we can observe and analyze these things as communications professionals, the better we can tell our, or our client stories.
Each time you see something that resonates with you, step back and ask yourself:
- Why is this effective?
- What parts of this work best and why?
- How does this make me feel?
- Does it make me want to act? How?
- How can I take this concept and apply it to something I’m working on?
Seen a great social media storytelling examples? Or one of your own? Share it in the comments below.
(To get you going, here are some hilarious ones, found by Whitney.)