Simple Solutions for Storytelling

In the B2B industry, it can be easy to get caught up in selling your products or services. However, a better way to captivate and engage your audience is through storytelling. Let’s dive into the types of storytelling, how to build a story and how to make your content memorable and relatable.  

Once upon a time is a familiar hook to begin a story. Incorporating this grabs the attention of your audience to keep reading. Next, you begin to formulate your narrative. You can tell your story orally, visually, written, or digital. 

• Oral Storytelling: One of the oldest storytelling forms is the spoken word. Oral storytelling tells a story through voice and gestures via song, chant, and the narration of poetry. 
• Visual Storytelling: The earliest form of visual storytelling includes hieroglyphs. This form of storytelling has evolved into videos, infographics, powerpoints, and more. Visual storytelling “offers an advanced, powerful way for a good storyteller to tell a compelling story“
• Written Storytelling: As societies developed language and alphabets, written stories became more popular; but it was not until the invention of the printing press that written narratives changed the history of storytelling on a global scale. 
• Digital Storytelling: With the advancement of technology revolutionizing the way we tell stories, we have access to millions of stories with one click of a button. “The rise of television, film, and radio has given great storytellers a wider platform than ever and has, in turn, led to the rise of new and innovative storytelling techniques…With social media, we are all storytellers, trying to make sense of our own origin story one post at a time.”

After the format, you can begin brainstorming the 4 Ps of your story: People, Place, Plot, Purpose. 

For the sake of this exercise, we will look at Episode 68 of The Robot Report Podcast, where Steve and Mike interview Adrian Macneil, co-founder and CEO of Calif.-based startup Foxglove. They discuss open-source visualization and debugging tool for robotics. Adrian shares the company’s spin-out from autonomous driving company Cruise, how its solutions differ from RViz, the challenges of robotics development, and the keys to running his startup.

• People: Who is in your story this is people or sometimes a company; in our case, it is Steve, Mike, & Adrian Macneil
• Place: Where is this story taking place? On The Robot Report Podcast 
• Plot: What journey are you going to take your audience on? On The Robot Report Podcast, Steve and Mike interview Adrian Macneil, where they will be discussing open-source visualization and debugging tools for robotics.
• Purpose: Why are you telling this story? What should your audience get out of it? Adrian Macneil is telling this story to discuss Foxglove’s spin-out from autonomous driving company Cruise and how its solutions differ from RViz. The audience will learn the challenges of robotics development, the keys to running his startup, hear other interesting new stories, and more. 

After you choose how to share your story, it does not mean you have to stop there. You can use the same content and share it differently. For instance, Episode 68 of The Robot Report Podcast was first distributed orally through their podcast, then written via the website, and lastly, digitally via social media posts. 

 

Telling your story in multiple ways helps you reach wider audiences interested in the topic on different platforms. A great way to create memorable content in B2B is by creating a persona for your company or brand; this makes your brand stand out, be more relatable, and be trustworthy. 

Now that you know the simple solutions to storytelling – go out and create your business stories; I will be on the lookout!