How to use storytelling to communicate with external audiences - thank god it's monday

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How to use storytelling to communicate with external audiences

Episode 5 • 12th December 2021 • thank god it's monday • Beatrice Ngalula Kabutakapua

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alist, and training more than: 1000

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you want to think about all these different aspects. And obviously, you want to think about the story. And when it comes to the story, you want to make sure that you have a clear message. You need to know why you're sharing this particular story or stories. So you want to have a clear message to share. Within your story. You want to have a structure for your story. This is really important. Well, a story that loses itself, it's a story that doesn't attract any attention, because it's just confusing. And also you want to know who's going to be your storyteller. And this is where I stopped for a second. Because the most neglected audience and storytellers, our employees, organisations spend time and money in adverts, and publicity and PR, which is, which are all tools that can help that do help. But there is a huge pool of storytellers inside organisations. And those are the current employees for the candidate. listening to the stories of those employees really means looking into the reality of how things are run in organisations. So if you want to do anything at all, work on your internal storytellers, work on your employees, make sure that they know what they're what are the story that they want to share, that they know how to share them that they know where to share them. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about this in a second. But I also wanted to mention the fourth element that you need when you're talking when you're communicating externally, with your audience. So when you're sharing story, externally, you also need action or a call to action. So you want to know what you are asking from your audience. And nowadays, there is a huge discussion and conversation around movement based brands, or activism based brands. And these means that there are brands and organisations that are not just doing what they do, but they're doing their work for a bigger purpose. And they want everyone to join in, in this movement. They want to change the world in a certain way. And they want to tackle a particular issue, and they want everyone to join in, you might have noticed that there is this joint revolution everywhere, which sometimes seems a little bit too much for me. But yeah, there is a huge focus on that. And the reason why there is a huge focus on that is because customers are now much more aware of everything. And they also have more choices. So they can choose brands based on what they believe in. And they can choose brands based on what the brand does. So you want to to include in your story, that call to action, which doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to tell everyone this is our movement and the you have to join the revolution. But it does mean that you want to articulate your story and your in a way that you can clearly tell them, you know, this is what we do, this is how we do it. And this is what why you should join us or this is what you should do to contribute. And you want to do that. But when you give a call to action to people, you want to make sure that what you put out is a reflection of what's inside. In other words, you want to make sure that your house is in order. You cannot use your external storytelling to attract diverse talent. If inside your organisation, there is no that are not the assets necessary to to see that story. So what goes outside needs to be inside as well. And another way of seeing these is to think about your external comms is external storytelling as a trailer to a movie. So you watch this trailer, and it's beautiful. And let me know if this has ever happened with you. But it definitely happened with me.

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I watch a trailer of a movie. And the trailer is so engaging. It's so amazing, so interesting. And I'm really motivated to watch the movie that I watched the movie and it's kind of kind of a disappointment because it didn't live up to the trailer. And I know that your organisation is not going to be like that. But there is it's really important that you think about that as well. You want your thriller to be representative of your movie. I remember watching some years ago the trailer of a TV series called diseases. And I know that I'm losing my point a little bit here, but I am a huge fan of TV serials. I love how they tell the stories of people. I love how we can learn from them. I love how they can change cultures as well and watch many of them and some years ago, I've watched this trailer of the TV series called diseases that really was so moving. And it was so universal. And it looks so interesting that it really convinced me to watch the TV series. And the TV series really didn't disappoint. Actually, it was even better than the trailer, it really couldn't even define how amazing the show was. And I don't want you to go and watch the show and think that it's horrible. But that's my viewpoint on this show. I think that there are so many different things done very well. It's obviously impossible to get things perfect, because Perfection doesn't exist on this earth. But you really want in the case of your organisation, you want the trailer to match the movie, you need to see the same quality and the same content. And when it comes to share your stories, your in your stories with the external audience, you can use so many different tools, you can really be super creative. If this is not something that you're doing that your company's not doing already. Some suggestions are podcasts, videos, blogs, adverts, but also simply social media, it can be a an Instagram page, it can be your employees sharing on LinkedIn as well. I do have thoughts about videos. And it's just one thought that I want to share. So when you create video, or if you're going to create video, just don't make them too corporate, make them very human. And make sure that it's not super polished or super perfect or super corporate, because that's that that's not the point of our story. We want to connect on a human level. So we need to talk behave and share the story as humans. There are also two other very important things to bear in mind. When you are sharing stories to external or to an external audience. The first thing is that it's not about perfection. It's about connection. You're not trying to create the perfect video, the perfect podcast, the perfect, advert, the perfect and everything you are trying to connect, you're trying to what needs to be as good as possible is that strive for connecting to people. And in order for you to do that you need to know your audience. And you need to train your storytellers as well so that they're able to be human personal, and they can engage people through their stories. The second thing, and these goals, particularly when you're creating some material to attract talent, you want to think about the fact that it's not about attraction is about retention. What I mean by that it's not about attraction is about retention. What I mean by that is that it's not just about telling to candidate, hey, look at us, this is what we do. This is why we are awesome. And these are our stories. But it's also about okay, this is what we do. This is our window, this is our trailer. And then when you join Nene, the movie is amazing.

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Or at least we are trying to making making it amazing. So you want to attract Yes, of course. But you want to retain more. So if you're wondering where to start from this, I would suggest to start internally, start with your own team start with your own employees. And if you have are hesitant about sharing stories to connect to external audience, think about the fact that storytelling heaters directly into our brain and our emotions. The reason why stories work so effectively. It's because they tap into the into the human emotions right away. So if you're doubting on whether to use stories or not, if the reason why you're doubting is that you don't think they're going to be effective, I suggest two things. The first one thing about the science behind it, storytelling works. Science proves it. And there are several studies to show that the second thing I would suggest is to test it out. You can never be sure of something if you haven't tested so give it a test. See how it goes. I know that there are also some in some instances there are some leaders that are more difficult or are are more resistant to that idea of sharing through stories. And this is why I'm currently working on a document where I share the arguments you can make with your leaders to convince them to share stories, to convince them to use storytelling. And in this document that will be basically the science behind storytelling, the case studies, the psychological impact, and overall the return on investment when you use business storytelling. So if you want to get that document, let me know you can either contact me on LinkedIn or on Twitter, or you can email me as well at comms@kabutakapua.com. And in the meantime, let me know what's your key takeaway from this episode?

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I am Beatrice Ngalula Kabutakapua And we have been listening to thank God, it's Monday. Now it's time to share your key takeaways from this episode. Connect with me on LinkedIn and Twitter. And if you haven't yet, subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Thank you for listening