How to Tell Stories in 3D?

And it’s a wrap!

Last week, I hosted our first ever event in the metaverse via Spatial. It was a great experience with lots of learnings along the way.

I’ll share a few lessons that stood out for me.

Story Design

You want to come up with a theme that is aligned with your brand narrative and audience interests.

I chose unpacking the timely topic of Metaverse Storytelling.

Yet, instead of hosting the event on Zoom, I held it on a metaverse platform because I wanted my audience to learn while actually experiencing the medium.

I find it as a great example of what happens when form meets function.

3D Planning

Since you’re dealing with a 3D space where people are moving around and have practically 360 view of your content – there are new considerations.

First, you need to plan your avatar’s look & feel, branded signage, optimal placement of your shared content (in my case it was ppt) and embedded NFTs, linked off OpenSea.

Pre-event, you want to let people who signed up to arrive earlier, so they can have enough time signing up and sprucing up their avatars.

Everybody wants to show off, right?

Emotional Cues

I liked the fact that in addition to my headshot overlaid on my avatar’s head, I could add a bubble-shaped live video feed from my webcam.

This way you can still convey distinct emotions when chatting with people.

I think this is super important as there is no backdoor chat channel – only good o’l person-to-person conversations.

Education

Because every 3D universe is a bit different, I kicked off the event with education on basic navigation commands in the space and then switched to personal introductions to keep a friendly vibe.

Another lesson, since people will trickle in even after the start time, instead of repeating the basic training or risking people staying muted, I simply posted a training sign with the basics.

To get a flavor of our first event in the metaverse,
I put together the above video tour where I recap various aspects

Main Dish Strategy

Think also about creating a central value piece for your audience.

I did it with a short presentation about what is all the fuss with the metaverse?

In my presentation I covered how the whole metaverse narrative started, misconceptions, common definition, what brands are doing and tips for what it could mean to your brand.

Missed our event? No worries, you can watch the recording of my full presentation.

Audience Engagement

The session was followed by a lively Q&A and open networking in different parts of the mountain lounge.

Visual Design

Why mountains you ask? Since VSI is based in Miami, the mountain scenery was a nice change of pace 🙂 Think about the right visual scenery for your stories.

I had lots of fun and plan to continue running these events and experimenting.

So stay tuned!

What You Can Do Next

It’s still early days for the metaverse. We’re still at least a decade away from realizing its full potential.

Consider it as a new stage that you need to learn how to tell your stories on. To really innovate you need to get rid of old practices and develop your own narrative language.

So, now is the perfect time for you to experiment. Educate yourself on metaverse basics, try out different metaverse platforms, avatars, NFTs (learn how to create your first NFT), digital assets, and mixed realities.

In the process you’ll start seeing what stories, places, and assets make sense to your brand, audience and business goals.

Need help crafting your metaverse storytelling strategy? Feel free to reach out by booking a chat.