Story Me

We need stories

Storytelling is a basic part of human nature.  We are drawn to stories.  Stories teach us about the world, they teach us about each other, and they teach us about ourselves.

As children, they hold an almost magical appeal to us.  My sister spent several months on a ship in the South Pacific visiting tiny islands most of us have never even heard the names of.  The children on the islands would surround her and demand "Story me!  Story me!"

We all have a story.  We all have hundreds of stories that together create the story of our lives.  And we live surrounded by millions of other stories that create the intricate fabric of our history as a species.  And there's a very primal need to share those stories and an equal need to hear them.

Technology creates new opportunities for storytelling every day.

The ever expanding universe of technology is giving us more and more ways to share those stories and one of the most powerful ways yet is video.  During WWII, in one of the darkest times in history, people still flocked to the theaters to let the stories pouring out of Hollywood wash over them.

Today, there are screens every where.  In our homes, our schools, our stores, on our desks, in our laps, and in our pockets.  And we are turning to them more and more for news, information and entertainment every day.  And the global reach of those technologies goes beyond any other form of communication that we've ever had.  

And through those technologies, the audience can communicate back.

Storytelling becomes a conversation.

On the web, these stories really do become conversations.  Commenting, sharing, embedding, social media, all of these things create hundreds of avenues for a single video to spread around the world and for your audience to tell you what they think about your story, how they feel about your brand, how and why they use your product or service, and why they don't use it.  The audience becomes empowered to share their own feelings and experiences that relate to your story.

But what may be even more important is the global reach to targeted markets.  The distribution of a video can be very selective as the video can be distributed to the blogs and websites that your target audience already visits, giving you an opportunity to tell your story to the people that will best understand it and be in the best position to act on it.

Finding the stories that stay with us.

So how do we create these stories and how do we create stories that will resonate with our audience?  One of the most critical factors on the web is time.  The attention span of the internet surfer is extremely limited and their exposure to information is overwhelming.  

You have absolutely no more than four minutes to capture the imagination of your viewer.  After four minutes you risk boring them or making them feel like they are wasting their time, which will very likely  destroy any positive impression your video may have left on their minds.  This is not the venue for presenting your thesis.  Take no more of their time than you absolutely must.  Say what you have to say as quickly as you can in a way that they will remember.  Short soundbites, catchy phrases, or a powerful story around your message will be more accessible for recall later.  Leave the details to your website or supporting documentation.  The video should simply serve to spark the imagination and encourage the audience to seek out more information.

So what will stick with them when they click away from your video?  As much as many of us would like to present a logical argument for why our company/brand/product is better than any other, people make far more of their decisions based off of emotion.  And a video that triggers an emotional reaction is far more memorable than one that presents facts.

A story that makes us laugh or makes us feel hopeful or inspires us or gives us a new way of looking at the world and ourselves, these are the things we remember.  These are the things that touch on that primal need for storytelling that reveals our better selves as individuals and as a species.  Our playfulness, our ingenuity, our ability to grow and learn, our ability to help each other, our ability to make things better.  Some times we just need to remind each other of these qualities that are inherent to all of us.

So what's your story?  Story me.