How to create authentic user generated stories?

How to create authentic user generated stories?

How to create authentic user generated stories? 370 218 Shlomi Ron


Yesterday, I needed to duplicate my house key.

If the year was 1979 or even 1989, I would most likely check the yellow pages book. But since we’re in 2019, I googled “key duplication” and immediately received local stores nearby.

Since this is not a rocket science project, I picked the closest store and headed there. Logical, no?

When I arrived at the store, the store owner was busy helping another customer, so I patiently waited.

While waiting, I was able to catch this dialog: “

Customer: “How much would it cost to duplicate this key?”



Store owner: “Oh, this would be expensive, because it’s a computerized car key. I need to open it up and when you insert it to your car it will be re-programmed.”

At that point, I was thinking wow! I didn’t realize key duplication could be costly and dreaded what my key would end up costing.

Maybe the store owner caught my facial expression or simply was looking to serve his customers faster, all of a sudden he stopped working on the first customer’s key and asked me “what do you need?”

“Oh I just need to duplicate my house key” and I handed it over to him.

The owner took a quick glimpse of the unusual shape of my key, and said: “I can do it with the regular key shape, it’s cheaper would you like that?”

After overhearing the earlier talk about the expensive key job for the first customer, I immediately said YES!

It took him literally 30 seconds if that to duplicate my key. He handed over the new and original keys and smiling said: “Here you go. By the way, how did you find us?”

I told him I simply googled “key duplication.”

The store owner smiled again and said: “if you promise to write a good review about us on Google, I can give you the key for free.”

Surprised at the complete reversal in my expectations, I gingerly said YES OF COURSE!

And guess what, I was happy to give the store a nice review.

This simple story vividly illustrates a couple of key lessons.

First, it shows how a simple routine act of kindness can go a long way. The gesture was not too complicated to execute on either side the giver or the receiver. Yet, it was tightly glued by a mutual trust of making a nice deposit and the need to acknowledge it.

Second, with our fragmented communication landscape where audiences tend to ignore flat sales pitches and instead look for more impartial user-generated content, ratings and reviews have become another important storytelling engine for businesses. Learn more about how to leverage user-generated content for your marketing strategy in my podcast interview with Tim Sae Koo, CEO of Tint.

When it works well, you get authentic real stories from real people that help other people evaluate your services.

Finally, this tactic falls squarely under the larger category of placing your customer as the hero of your story with clear pathways to storytell their experiences. Such tactics work best at the Adopt and Advocates stages of your buyer’s journey.

What small steps are you taking to delight your audience? Schedule a FREE conversation to learn how we could train your entire team with our custom Visual Storytelling Workshops.

Shlomi Ron

Shlomi Ron is the founder and CEO of the Visual Storytelling Institute, a Miami-based think tank with a mission to bring the gospel of visual storytelling from the world of art to more human-centric and purpose-driven marketing. A digital marketing veteran with over 20 years of experience working both on the agency and brand sides for Fortune 100/500 brands such as Nokia, IBM, and American Express. He started VSI to combine his marketing expertise with his passion for visual stories stemming from his interests in classic Italian cinema and managing the estate of video art pioneer, Buky Schwartz. At VSI, he helps brands rise above the communication noise through visual storytelling consulting, training, and thought leadership. Select clients include Estée Lauder, Microsoft, and Cable & Wireless – to name a few. He currently teaches Brand Storytelling at the University of Miami’s Business School. Thought leader and speaker at key marketing conferences. He is also the host of the Visual Storytelling Today podcast, which ranks in the top 10 best business storytelling podcasts on the Web. His book: Total Acuity: Tales with Marketing Morals to Help You Create Richer Visual Brand Stories. Outside work, he is a nascent bread baker, The Moth fan, and longtime fedora wearer likely to jive with his classic Italian cinema interest.

All stories by: Shlomi Ron
2 comments
    • Shlomi Ron

      Thanks very much, Yannis for your feedback. I am glad you liked my story. It’s all about paying attention to those small, typically meaningless common everyday occurrences, that sometimes carry an important moral for another discipline in our lives.

Leave a Reply to Yannis Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.