Knowing how to tell the story of your company is one of the most important aspects of corporate identity.
Because? a good storytelling It allows you to humanize your brand and create a powerful sensitive bond with your customers. Specifically, it brings you closer to the emotions of those who interact with you.
Besides this, we all like good stories. Especially if they have happy endings or raise struggles with which we all feel identified.
Listening to them or telling them is one of the aspects that most bind us as human beings.
What is the storytelling of your brand?
The translation of storytelling is to tell a story. It is used to make commercials, documentaries, fictional stories, novels, short stories and even jokes.
When we talk about the corporate identityhe storytelling of your brand is simply the story of your company or the story of your brand.
Knowing how to tell a story may seem simple, but it has its art. You must learn to do it and here we give you some initial techniques for you to do it.
When to start telling the story of your company?
The history of your company can be done at any time.
However, there are some recommendations that we must take into account depending on the stage in which your business is.
How to tell the story of your young company?
If you are starting a business or you are in the middle of the road, you can write a few lines where you tell the human story that gave rise to your product, service or business.
Talk to people with empathy and sincerity. With a clean face.
This will help to establish an affective link with the struggles and affections of the person (or group of people) behind the website they visit or the service they consume.
We are all fighting different battles, and sharing it is not only inspiring for those who are watching or reading, but it helps to create the connection with your company.
And this happens because it simply reminds us that behind a great idea or business, there is a person or group of people who brought it to life.
Example 1: Tell the honest and direct business story. From its founders.
For example, here we leave you the most honest and frontal story behind the School, in the video they tell us how from the kitchen of an apartment they could begin to lay the foundations of the main Spanish-speaking digital business school.
All the coexistence and initial family skepticism.
How he overcame adversity, the beginnings from his own kitchen at home or the fact that his parents continually asked why?“when are you going to look for a REAL job”? 🙂 .
It is really inspiring for those starting out in online business.
Example 2: Tell the story of the company from the values of the company and the problem they seek to solve.
If we go back to the previous example, we can see how behind many companies there is a history of values and problems that they seek to solve.
For example, in this case, we saw how focuses on sort out Two problems that many universities or certified quality training have:
- Lots of theory, but little practice.
- Training and certification is very expensive
In order to overcome this problem in the most inclusive way possible, an educational model was proposed in which the central thing is to DO your business and that also is free.
That is, carry out your business online step by step and obtain a REAL certification for your own success.
There are other ways to tell the story of your company, but it is advisable to do it when it is more consolidated.
We already give you some examples and ideas.
How to tell the story of your company when it is old?
In case your company is more than a decade old and is more consolidated, you can build the history of your brand. How it was created and what were the problems that your company had to overcome to strengthen itself.
In this case, the story not only has to be told by the founders or their workers, it can also be told by the company itself or by a character that brings it to life.
Example of a company story told with an informative narrative (:/)
It is the example of the 75 years of the Gloria food brand, a company established in several Latin American countries.
Here We can see two ways to tell a story. In this first video we see that they make a somewhat boring account of their entire history:
However, see how everything changes when a story is well told:
Example of a story based on business values and taking customers as protagonists
In this commercial we can see one of the maxims of the storytelling in marketing: turn your client into the story of your company.
Here both the product and the people are protagonists in their daily lives throughout 75 years of history.
Example of brand stories based on the struggles of their owners in contexts of national crises
kfc
As an example, we have the history of KFC.
This traditional chicken brand welcomes its customers with the almost heroic story of General Sanders, who comes from a very poor family where he had to dedicate himself to cooking to help. He was unable to finish his studies and enlisted in the United States Army.
During the crisis of the Great Depression, he began selling chicken on the side of the road. Without having any experience in the food business, he saw that he could expand the sale of fried chicken to other parts.
Sanders is one of the founders of “franchise” ideas.
Both this story of overcoming adversity and the “secret” of the species used to make the chicken are inspiring for KFC’s corporate culture.
Other examples of how to tell the story of your company
Stories from established brands or celebrities are very attractive. Everyone wants to hear your story, what you did to become successful and how you took it to the next level.
This is why show business characters, resilient people like Chris Gardner or billionaires like Elon Musk and Kiyosaki have turned their personal stories into a source of inspiration for many people.
Many want to know what they did to achieve success and how they took it to the next level.
In the case of companies, we know that Apple, Hermés, Facebook, Microsoft, Nike and other consolidated companies have even made series and films that tell of their beginnings.
What are the keys to creating your brand story?
Formula for the storytelling of your company
Traditionally the formula for building a story is:
- Introduction (introduction of the characters, description of what they are looking for),
- Development of the story (what happens with the characters? what do they want? conflict development of the characters),
- The climax (moment in which they have an achievement or think they are going to achieve it. Peak moment of the story) and
- Outcome (conflicts are resolved and can end with a moral).
Formula for the construction of the conflict in your story
To create a formula for the construction of conflicts in the stories, we will base ourselves on what Julien Algirdas Greimas calls acting roles.
Basically, in every story there are six main roles or characters:
- What we seek (the object of desire) – Answer the question of what do I want?
- The subject that requires or needs – Answer the question of who I am
- Who facilitates the object of desire – Who brings what I want?
- The recipient (who receives it) – Who will receive it?
- The Helper (who supports the achievement) – Who or who can help me?
- The opponent or enemy (who opposes the achievement of the wish). – Who opposes me?
Let’s see it with examples. To create your story you must:
- Be clear about what you are looking for: money, success, solving a problem, fame, good nutrition, being healthy, being happy, having children, love, peace, etc. Here the list is immense, because it can include aspects such as “that everyone has the ability to have an online business”.
- The subject that requires or needs it: in this case, they can be the owners of the company, the founders, a community, a group of people with special characteristics, animals, etc.
- Who facilitates the object of desire: Who contributes to make this come true? – friends, family, credits, business policies, etc.
- who gets it: In general, you can place both those who receive your products or services, and your own company.
- Who are against? : the fears that you had to overcome, the skepticism of your friends, who told you that you could not achieve it, the economic difficulties, bankruptcy, taxes, other companies, etc.
That’s why it should work on conflicts.
The characters need to solve something for the story to make sense.
To help you think of some examples of conflicts, we are going to work on building a character and you can use them to create the story of your company.
Types of business stories and characters.
How to create a character
For a character to be irresistibly perfect, it must have some flaws.
People don’t want to meet someone who is perfect in everything, the perfect family, the perfect children, the perfect house. People don’t like that.
They are looking for someone transparent because real people have flaws, they want to see the human side of someone, to know their losses and their reasons.
All human beings have flaws and work deep within for a great cause.
You will hold people’s attention for as long as you are willing to be transparent, that will allow you to have a powerful brand and a strong character.
Character types:
The Reluctant Hero: Forced Into Action
To incorporate people into your business and brand you must start by telling a good story. It is shown that the stories of the reluctant heroes are captivating.
The reluctant hero is that type of hero who is almost forced to be. He is an ordinary character like any other, until something amazing happens to him that changes everything.
Example of Peter Parker and the Grasshopper Colorado
For example, Peter Parker was a normal teenager, until a radioactive spider bit him.
After that incident his life changed completely, he improved his strength, reflexes and speed, and he acquired special powers to help others.
His Uncle Ben told him: “With great power comes great responsibility”But Peter just wanted power, he didn’t care about the added responsibility.
Peter passed up the opportunity to stop a burglar, and his Uncle Ben decided to do it instead. When the thug murdered his uncle, he realized the great meaning those words had.
Shortly after, Peter becomes Spiderman, a hero who was on a mission to find his uncle’s killer while fighting crime.
The reluctant hero is like that, an ordinary person, with the same defects and insecurities as the others and whose only difference is that you must leave your comfort zone in order to make a difference within your world. This character can be anyone.
It’s a plot that works quite well and we’ve seen it in several movies…
