Storytelling Matrrx from Story Worldwide

The team at Story Worldwide has developed a very useful and scientific approach to categorizing and developing brand stories. It’s called the Storytelling Matrix and they describe it best in the video below.

As you watch the video and listen to the examples, think about where your specific brand stories may fall — and begin to look for gaps. For example, your customer success stories or case studies may be more linear — that is, you don’t offer a way for the reader to interact. That’s fine, it’s difficult to interact with a piece of collateral that you pick up at a trade show! But, what could you do to make it more interactive? What about offering a webinar or a video of the case study that your audience could then participate in or share with others?

I think that lots of brand stories probably fall into what the Story team calls Linear, High-Density and Highly-Customized. That means the story is shared (but not participated in), filled with information (and often lacking a light touch) and very targeted to one group (and not broad). This is good if you are delivering a specific presentation to a prospect, for example. It can be highly targeted and relevant to them, But too often, we see these types of stories filled with technical detail, jargon and targeted to a tech specifier when there may be a committee of business buyers involved (NB: technology marketers, I’m looking at you…)

Consider ways that your story might be broadened to offer a fresh approach to buyers you’re not reaching today. I’m not suggesting that you “dumb down” your brand story — if you sell rocket science, you’re going to discuss math. I am suggesting though that not every story needs to be told with the withering specificity that a rocket scientist might require.

Where does your brand story fall in the storytelling matrix?

Related articles

• Do you ever tear the roof off your brand story? (brandtelling.com)

funk-o-mart (Photo credit: Digital Sextant)

“Give Up The Funk
(Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)”
Tear the roof off, we’re gonna tear the roof off the mother, sucker
Tear the roof off the sucker
- Give Up the Funk, Parliment Funkadellic

OK, now that you’ve got that beat running through your brain, let me ask you a question:

Do you ever tear the roof off your brand story?

No, I didn’t just climb out of a flying saucer (points if you get the reference); I am wondering whether you ever really rethink and reimagine your brand story by tearing it apart and putting it back together? Sometimes it’s the best way to see if your brand story still resonates with your current and future prospects.

Take this as an exercise: write your brand story on a white board. Next, create a mind map of everything that comes from the story — how it’s viewed by the industry, what stories your customers are telling and what your team says about it. Then look for common (and uncommon) threads. Are you missing something? Can you make it sharper and more meaningful? Or does it need to change?

Now, go put on some music that helps you think and work on how to really tell your brand story.

Johnny you rosin up your bow and play your fiddle hard.
‘Cos hells broke loose in Georgia and the devil deals the cards.
And if you win you get this shiny fiddle made of gold.
But if you lose, the devil gets your soul.
– The Devil Went Down to Georgia, Charlie Daniels Band

Rosin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m going to assume you know the song (and now you can’t get it out of your head). It was the line about rosining up his bow that struck me as I listened to the song just last night. I think that the act of rosining is what prepared Johnny and helped him to beat the Devil. But what exactly is rosining? The easy answer is that it is coating or rubbing the strings of a bow (that thing the violinist or fiddle player uses to make music).

I always assumed that rosin made it easier to play the violin, that is, I thought rosin, a slippery substance used to make it easier to solder electrical connections, made the bow glide over the strings. But it is actually just the opposite — rosin is used to improve the friction or grip for the bow (and ballet slippers and hand grips). I got it completely wrong. Which made me really think about something:

What is the rosin in your brand storytelling?

What is it that causes the friction, the grip and the interest in your story? As a violinist might ask, “What makes your brand story sing?”  There are many ways to tell your brand story, just as there are many ways to play a fiddle. But the bow makes the instrument sound more melodic. And, apparently, it has a lot to do with the rosin.

So, think about this as you are crafting and sharing your brand story. What can grip and vibrate the story in such a way that your audience experiences all of the music and mystery that you intended?

This is important – you might not lose your soul if you forget your brand story rosin, but you might not get that shiny fiddle either.

Related articles

• What does your brand story look like through a telescope or a microscope? (brandtelling.com)

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Nice Observatory - 50cm Refractor (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

NOTE: From the Wayback Machine. A version of this post first appeared in 2007.

I was playing with Google Earth and looking at my home (and realizing that some of my neighbors have awfully large pools) when it occurred to me that I was getting a drastically different view when I zoomed in versus when I zoomed out — even just a little bit. The closer I got, the image in the center became more detailed, but less connected to the outlying area.

It’s true of brand stories as well. We’ve all heard the “can’t see the forest for the trees” line, but the truth is that we often see both just fine. The problem is we’re not always good at telling where to place the emphasis at any given time. Should we focus on our patents or our industry standing? Our technology strengths or our vertical knowledge? Our people or our customers? Ourselves or our competitors? (psst, focus on yourself).

There’s a fine balance deciding when to pull out the microscope and when to use telescope — but when managed successfully, we often get the most interesting stories.

What do you see when you take a telescope or microscope to your brand story?

The buzz you’re hearing all around you is about Content Marketing. But what exactly is Content Marketing and how can you use it to promote and share your brand story? Glad you asked. The folks at Come Recommended, a content marketing and digital PR consultancy for organizations with products that target job seekers and/or employers, have developed the fantastic infographic below. Take a look at how you can “Jump on the Content Marketing Bandwagon” to tell your brand story. See how many of these things you are doing today and how many you might be able to leverage.