The Discipline of Story-Telling

Telling stories is not simply about grabbing a piece of content and distributing it to your followers. It is not about being well read and showing off to others. And it is not about selling product.

Telling stories is part of psychology and what makes people tick. As marketers, we typically are the commercial side of this psychology. While we have the responsibility of simultaneously increasing our brand's awareness and reputation, reaching back to our psychological side is the truest path to prosperity.

Content creation is where the magic happens. It is where we delve into the lives of our community and find out how they feel about themselves and the world they live in. In fact, our ability to tell their story displays the kind of understanding that only the most competent and trusted authors can claim.

It may seem unimportant to those who occupy the corner office, but the ability to tell stories is at the heart of sustainability. In turn, we have found that being able to uncover the stories from a marketplace endears us to our constituents and helps them find a better version of themselves.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, "43 percent of B2C marketers with a documented content strategy considered themselves effective versus 33 percent of those without." The LinkedIn Technology Marketing Community says "36 percent of B2B companies with a documented content marketing strategy considered themselves very effective, three times more than those without a documented strategy."

Maybe one of the most compelling stats comes from Contently – "68 percent of content marketers back original content over licensed content." In other words, it is as critical to use the discipline to find and construct the story, as it is to tell it.

As Jeff Goldblum pleaded with the scientists in Jurassic Park nearly 20 years ago, "I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here, it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now..."

Using discipline to uncover the stories that lie within your community will not only entertain the masses but will deepen your relationship with them as well.