Have you started using video content on your social media channels yet? A video is easier to consume than chunks of text and many people would prefer watching something than reading.
But just any type of video will not do the trick. It has to connect with viewers on a deep level and engage them. And the best way to do that is to tell a story in your video.
So in this post, I’ll give you 8 ideas with examples which you can use to create storytelling video content for your business.
A Fictional Series Around Your Business
Creating a fictional movie or a series of episodes is a great way to enhance your brand. You can create a story in which your products or services have a role to play. Or you can show the character in your story solving a problem using one of your products.
Kate Spade New York is a great example of this. Their video series, called #missadventure, is hosted Instagram, Facebook and their own website.
The series is about a character’s misadventures related to a hotel. The star of the series, Anna Kendrick, goes through an engaging sequence of events featuring the company’s products. All of her handbags and other accessories are from the same brand - Kate Spade.
A fictional series allows you to promote your brand as well as entertain your target audience. It’s not necessary to get this done by a professional actor, but a decent performance and compelling plot can make your story more believable and brand more credible.
Shoot A Documentary
Many businesses think of documentaries as dull and boring. But depending on your niche, documentary style videos can be very effective.
Not everyone is looking for entertainment and killing time with quick and fun videos. There are people who prefer videos that make them learn and think - videos that add value in their lives.
When it comes to telling deep and meaningful stories, nothing beats an informational and inspirational documentary. You can either create one documentary video, or a series of true stories about a topic that your audience will find interesting.
Chipotle used this idea with great success when they made a series of videos about Major League soccer.
Go Behind The Scenes
People love to know the real people and processes behind a business.
For example, if you run a restaurant, you can give them a peek inside your kitchen and introduce your chefs. If you sell any kind of product, you can show them how passionately it’s made and packaged in order to delight customers. If you provide services, you can show your team in action working on a project.
The more people get a sense of real human beings running a company and what drives them, the more they can trust and connect with the brand.
A great example is Ed Sbragia. The globally known winemaker created a video to tell a story of wine in their barrel room. Note how the video doesn’t look as polished or professionally made.
That’s intentional. The kind of videos that seem raw and authentic do a better job at engaging viewers.
You can either star in such a video yourself, or look for people in your businesses who feel confident about getting in front of the camera and speak with energy.
Create A Tutorial Video
If there’s something you know your audience will love to learn how to do, that’s your chance to show that you want to help them. Create a video about how to do something and accomplish an end goal.
The Home Depot is one of the companies that do it effectively. They create videos related to DIY projects that tell stories of how to complete a project from start to finish.
For example, there’s a video on their Facebook page where Caitlin shows how to carry out a project, along with visuals that tie well with the story.
Such videos are not only educational, but also inspiring. They make things easy and encourage viewers to take action to reach their own goals.
Plus, they also do a good job at conveying what tools or resources the viewer will require to finish a task. This serves as a great opportunity to mention your own products or services.
Share Your Humble Beginnings
Origins and early struggles also act as great story ideas. If your business has an interesting beginning, create a video to tell the story.
Show your audience the pain points you saw in their lives and how you came up with an idea to address those challenges. Tell them what challenges you faced on the way and how you overcame them.
Such a video series is also a great opportunity to show how much you care about your customers and the values on which you built the company. So the viewers can relate and deepen their trust in your brand.
Get Customers To Tell Stories
Who can connect the most with your potential customers? Existing customers who were once in the same boat and going through the same challenges.
So if you can get your customers to be a part of your video stories and tell how your product or service helped them solve a problem, you can maximize engagement from your target audience.
Airbnb, for example, regularly posts story videos on their Facebook page. Each video is about an amazing place to visit, from the perspective of an Airbnb host at that place.
Apart from the authenticity, the beauty of this strategy is that it takes a bit of burden off your shoulders. This is because your customers are helping you with content creation.
Your Personal Stories
The best way to create trust is show there is a real human being behind the business. When you share personal stories that convey your thoughts, emotions, vulnerabilities and lessons you have learned, you educate, inspire and entertain your audience at the same time.
Gary Vaynerchuk is an entrepreneur who does this really well. He has been well known in the video storytelling space for many years. And he’s always experimenting and coming up with new ideas related to video creation and marketing.
His Facebook channel is a great place for videos involving his personal stories. These stories teach a lot of valuable lessons in entrepreneurship, which have come from his real-life experiences.
Guest Interviews
Inviting a guest to an interview session may not seem like telling a story. But you can make it so by encouraging your guests to share their stories.
A big benefit of video interviews is that you don’t require big budgets to create the videos. Shooting a video interview doesn’t even require your guests to travel to meet you in person.
You can easily record a video chat with them over Skype or Google Hangout. This adds to convenience and makes it even easier for you to get sought-after guests on your episodes.
With a video interview, you can draw out interesting stories from industry influencers and other people of note.
Make Animation Story Videos
Animated videos such as Whiteboard explainers or those featuring cartoon characters are also very popular among all audience segments. And they can be used to tell even the dullest of stories in an engaging way if done right.
Chipotle’s Back to the Start video series is a great example of telling stories with animated videos.
There are two ways to create animated storytelling videos.
If you have a good budget, you can work with a creative agency that specializes in animation work. This option is slightly expensive but can result in a high quality animation video.
If you are low on budget, you can use animated video creation tools such as Powtoon or GoAnimate to create videos on your own.
Utilize Humor
Humor is an essential component of our happiness as well as memories. We remember the fun times and love to go through those experiences again and again.
So if you can create stories that make your target audience laugh and have a good time, your videos are more likely to spread and build value for your brand.
No matter what niche your business is associated with, there are many humorous situations related to your industry which can make for great storytelling material.
Here’s a great example by Citrix. As an established brand with a strong portfolio of products, Citrix’s target audiences are business executives around the globe.
So when it came to promoting their new product Sharefile, they had to pick a concept and emotion most people can relate to. So they created a humorous story related to the pain point that their product helps with.
With a slick production quality, strong action, and good writing, the video not only entertains but also emphasizes the core message in a clear manner: missing files related to a project causes frustration and confusion. So keep the team functioning smoothly with Sharefile.
Conclusion
When your videos tell stories, they increase engagement and lead to more shares on social media. People talk about these videos both offline and online.
I hope this post helped you get some ideas that you can implement in your video marketing and drive results for your business.
