It's the Little Stories

It was around 6 PM last Monday in Miami.

We were having a pasta dinner with a Sicilian bread I baked.

Watching the news on my iPad,

while, occasionally, glancing up through the windows,

whenever passersby were popping up through our heavy green foliage.

We got used to seeing hikers, bikers, and dog walkers.

It’s a perfect time to enjoy a mild sun, two hours before sunset.

But that day, one detail was quite off.

🌧

It was heavily raining.

Despite the rain, people kept walking by clutching their umbrellas.

That was odd.

I guess social distancing and the long lockdown – have made their impact.

A daily ritual has become more important than ever.

What little stories worth telling surround your brand?

Do you sometimes feel you run out of stories to tell?

That’s normal, but you’d be surprised there is a simpler way to keep your “storytelling fountain” flowing.

As a visual storyteller, you always need to find fresh stories to keep your audience engaged and your brand top-of-mind.

It’s an ongoing exercise of melding together your audience’s current needs with stories that support your larger brand narrative.

I was recently inspired by Matthew Dicks’s concept of “Homework for Life.” 

Ideally, at the end of every day (or pick the frequency that works for you), you document the most important moment that happened in your day.

It could be the silliest thing that left an impression on you. Jut down a few words, the date, and you’re done!

Over time, your journal will have storytelling material you can use on any platform. It will also allow you later to relive important moments with emotional clarity.

It’s the little stories, like the one above, that make people find similar counterparts in their personal experiences.

Why?

Most people didn’t win a Nobel or grow a company into a unicorn ($1B in value).

These stories most people rationalize: “Yea, they made it because they’re smarter, luckier, more connected or anything else I am not.”

As I keep saying, the magic of engagement happens the moment your brand story mirrors your customer’s personal story.

And the shortest route to people’s personal stories, are those little stories of daily routines that carry emotional details anyone can relate to.

For this exact reason, I used ordinary short stories in my book Total Acuity: Tales with Marketing Morals To Help You Create Richer, Visual Brand Stories.

In the book, I share stories that happened to me in real life in order to highlight visual storytelling principles. The opportunity to relive my stories and find common threads to your life makes the visual storytelling lesson much more impactful.

True, there is a time and place for your big winning stories and other story types, but you diversify your visual storytelling strategy by showing your brand’s humanity and authenticity through sharing the little stories anyone can relate to.

In this sense, consider your little stories as if they were B-Roll footage featuring distinct moments that enrich your larger brand narrative.

Need help sharpening your team’s visual storytelling skills to meet your audience’s changing needs and priorities? Feel free to reach out shlomi_at_visual_storytell_dot com