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Storytelling is a demanding skill for brands and marketers. There are tons of blogs, videos, and talks on storytelling that explain its importance, worthiness, psychology, and other aspects.
Almost every brand is trying to gain the attention of their audience by sharing some form of story—of their customer, their products, their team, or of the founders, etc. Mediums have changed with time but stories continue to exist.
So, let’s explore deeper into storytelling and understand what it is and why stories are so fascinating by interviewing Meera V.
As you grab your coffee or tea we invite you to join this interview with our guest.
But before that, let’s know a little more about Meera V.
Meera is a Growthpreneur & Passionpreneur | Master NLP | ICF Certified Positive Psychology Coach | Podcaster. With 15 years of Corporate experience, she is a Multiple Award winner for creating a Marketplace for Writing and Storytelling platforms on Social media and transforming Writer’s words and emotions into Anthologies.
She lives with the Purpose of Transforming words and emotions into Stories, creating Emotional and mental well-being.
INTERVIEW
Q1. Psychologically, what are stories, and why do we all get excited about them?
Stories are the expressions and experiences that we perceive. Each of us either wants to share something with our surroundings or with ourselves. In either wise situation, what we are sharing is a Story.
Stories are everywhere, some have been traveling through the footprints between the islands, some have been in the fossilized stones, and some in the silence of a jungle. The outfit might vary, and the outcome might too, but the thread called Story keeps the collage intact. The story connects.
Every country has its unique storytelling tradition and many stories have traveled from one generation to another through oral storytelling tradition the past has etched in our written stories for the generation to continue reading and knowing our stories.
At work, a fresher builds a story silently by observing how his managers and colleagues work. It becomes a selling proposition to speak about his or her work or the product and services of the company or for that hike in the salary and job position or job interview.
Stories connect first and tag along with the data, facts, and figures.
Even a spreadsheet for that matter is a storified theme though the purpose of it is data, profit and loss, balance sheet, and numbers and numbers. For a Sales/ Finance/ Accounts/ Audit/ Taxation function, information is saved in numbers but it’s presented by gamifying the numbers with content and concept, which to me is “Storification of numbers through emotions and experiences.”
The excitement element dances as the end product when we share stories, because of the DOSE component. And, we know what it means;
- Dopamine (D): Released when a Manager or Management appreciates or acknowledges an employee’s work.
- Oxytocin (O): The love hormone flows like a river between a mother and child or between spouses.
- Serotonin (S): It is a mood stabilizer that helps us in taking a conscious decision to be mindful of our thoughts and decisions.
- Endorphins(E): It helps to reduce stress and anxiety, a pain reliever.
For example, an employee is recognized for his work and he gets excited and shares the happiness with his parents or spouse through a series of incidences and experiences and the responses help in creating oxytocin followed by relieving the stress by the release of serotonin and helping the employee to be at ease and mindful about his or her decisions with the release of endorphins.
May not be the exact sequence but there’s a gamification of the incidences and experiences and thus a “storification” of the situation and is.
Q2. Every story ends with a lesson or information. My question is, Why not simply convey the pieces of information? Why through a story?
When my daughter doesn’t eat I try talking to her about food, how it was prepared, how it traveled to our earth, and then through different sources how it reached us, how a dog fed the puppy, how veggies were waiting to get into her tummy, by then half of the food on the plate is eaten.
If I just ask her to eat, I doubt even if one grain would have traveled to her hand.
Consciously or unconsciously we all are outcome-driven, what is fun in walking in a desert if there’s no camel or a jackal story and an oasis to rest.
Q3. At present, stories are used to make sales, and gain financial benefits with misinformation! What are your thoughts on this?
Everyone wants to share their story. Maybe 10 years back, we were asked to stop telling stories but even in an interview, HR/ Recruiters/ Line Managers are asked to check if the candidate is good at ‘Storytelling’ their thoughts and experiences.
Maybe emotions were skimmed out earlier in the workplace, today we have a cell or community which is ready to listen to your story or the emotional play. And, at work, it is considered a value add service.
Gamification or Storifying content is lost or stopped at schools when a child moves to secondary school, the time when we as a teacher or parents can add value through stories.
This is a time when the bottleneck builds and later on as an adult we look for someone who can listen to our share, which is nothing but a five-lettered word called Story.
Once the bottleneck is released, stories build and the value gets added.
Feeding a child Pizza is easier than a colorful and nutritious dish, the reason being the pizza story is eaten through the eyes of a child. The companies are selling their product visually and the children eat them visually, this is a story of gamification. Which is the same principle in Digital space.
Be it on Facebook with the likes or comments, on Instagram with the reels or on Twitter with few words and space, or on Professional platforms like LinkedIn with stories that serve hot and fresh right from the organizations.
Stories are perceived by each of us in our way or the other way.
Some perceive it through podcasts or radio shows, which is an auditory function used to build stories visually.
Some perceive it visually like the pizza story but create an auditory and kinesthetic element while eating the same.
And, some would meltdown just like our model on the red carpet.
Ads are the best storytellers at times, in a few minutes all the elements are perceived and the story is sold so that we just click the payment link to buy the product or services.
We all by default are story creators, the value element is added when we know to whom, where, and when the story is shared. Sharing the appropriate story at the right place, and at the right time is the determining factor for our product or services to be bought as a value add.
Q4. How to use storytelling to increase awareness, sales, and interest among the audience?
Storytelling is all about the timeline and tagging this with the software would add a fixing timeline to our work.
We can have this in our alarm settings for example:
Instead of allowing the alarm to snooze, once we click the snooze option, how about creating a setting where the alarm alerts for the first snooze with a voice option, ‘Don’t snooze me’, for the second snooze, ‘Would You care to wake up, for the third snooze, ‘I will wake up your entire family and I will lock the mobile functions for 3 hours.’
This might sound weird, but the story would help us in taking an action and we would be action-takers rather than enjoy being a planner alone.
Alexa is a classic example of receiving personal attention and it is the shortest story anyone would like.
For better sales and ROI, we have to work in a focused way without checking any of those notifications’ buzzes. Easy said and then done. There are loads of Software, Apps, and closed webinar groups that help us in completing the tasks, it works in a structured pattern, and the stories that we create in this mode are straightforward and a value-add.
Like I mentioned in the alarm example, we can have apps or software installed in our device or system, which has a voice that would alert us with tiny storified commands like, you’re committed to complete, enough, now close the SM apps, how many times will you open the spreadsheet, can you close those apps which you have kept it open for eternity?
It might sound harsh, but we as a human wake up when we are startled by short stories.
Q5. You must have heard about Metaverse! This technology is capable of giving a real, immersive touch to stories through virtual and augmented reality. What impact do you think the metaverse will have on our real story (the reality)?
Blockchain, metaverse, crypto, and NFTs are already creating loads of stories here in our market. It’s all about learning the ropes and working on our stories.
The concept of the metaverse is all about that personal touch and augmenting the virtual spaces into stories of personal brand, creating an ecosystem and more importantly creating financial independence and monetary benefits through “preneurship”. It may be Solo, Entrepreneur, Growth or passionpreneur, or even growth secret Hacking and creating opportunities in the Digital world.
I would only say one thing, if we don’t know coding or testing, it’s okay but be updated with the current stories in the Financial and Technology world, because they are creating stories through those tools and apps which is making our learning simple and comfortable to create stories in the digital world with real touch, enabling us to create our niche/microniche or build our own story called “Ecosystem.”
Note: These questions are prepared by Satya Prakash Mourya
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