2020 has been a rollercoaster. During difficult times, telling a brand story can be hard. But even though it may be hard, there is still a way to do it.
As reported by Forbes on July 30th, 2020 by Goldie Chan.
3 Simple Ways To Tell A Brand Story In Crisis
How can we tell a brand story during a challenging time?
The past few months have been difficult for both people and brands around the world. Aside from what is happening currently, there will always be times that are more unstable for businesses. Instead of focusing on the negative aspects of what is going wrong, find better ways to connect with your audiences.
Even now, daily routines may have changed. What was considered normal now falls into an overused “new normal” or other buzzwords. We have to learn how to tell our stories differently and with special care to listen to what your audiences are saying. Here are three simple ways to tell a story during a crisis.
1) Be Sensitive To Your Audience
Not only do you need to be sensitive to your audience, it’s helpful to know that your audience is going through a deeply sensitive time. Tempers are flaring more easily and while divorce rates are rumored to be rising in the United States (and already in China), even businesses are not faring better from losing their audiences or falling internally apart. Being aware of your language and visuals that you use will help audiences want to continue to connect with your brand.
2) Tell Uplifting Stories
There is a wonderful Instagram account that documents happy stories from around the world. These uplifting and positive stories are exactly what is needed during times of crisis or difficult times. How can your brand better integrate happy customer stories or ways that your brand positive impacted a life (without being overly salesy)? What stories would resonate the best with your audience’s demographics and how can you start to curate more of them?
3) Make It Easy To Understand
Don’t obfuscate the story.
A bit of an inside joke, but the moment that you begin to use words and phrases that your audience doesn’t understand is the moment when you will lose your audience. Being relatable and easy to understand helps your reader feel that you are speaking in their language and you understand them. During this time (and most of the time) when audiences are easily distracted, keeping a brand story simple, sweet and short is the way to best tell any brand story.
Storytelling is an art that takes time to master. With practice and focus on your audience, you will continue to improve as a storyteller for your brand. And, how can we tell a brand story during a challenging time? By focusing on the audience, telling uplifting stories and making it easy to understand, we can gain new audience members during this time.
Being able to build a brand story is one way to stand out to your audience, especially during difficult times.
Additional Brand Storytelling Resources
Brand Storytelling 101 (Ideas BIG)
How to Tell a Compelling Brand Story (HubSpot)
Storytelling: How brands position through narratives (Medium)
