Content marketing is about telling a story that builds relationships and identifies you as a potential guide to solve problems.  Telling stories can transform information into solutions and show we care about helping our audience. 

“Developing the content in our content marketing strategy is developing the stories of us. It’s the big ideas that we represent. It’s the differentiated experiences we want to create. It’s what we REALLY do for a living. For better or worse — it’s that simple.”  Content Marketing Institute

Not all of us are storytellers.  I had to go out and find help.  The best resource I found was from 
 https://www.mystorybrand.com/ created from the book “Story Brand” by Donald Miller. 
The story brand template on the website offers a great way to get started with storytelling.  Fill in the blanks with his prompts and it will make you think creatively and start to generate a story from your ideas.

Key Points I learned from using the Story Brand Template

• You are not the hero the audience is. You want to be the guide to the story.
• Don’t sell to early provide a process to create trust
• Show Don’t Tell
• Be patient you will not create a story in one sitting
• Explore different mediums like video, infographics, Facebook live, Instagram stories
• Start to create your story AFTER you have done research and created your buyer personas

Here are some examples of effective brand story telling
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 Airbnb - https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10153215613209727
A rather massive brand that has taken the world by storm settles into an amazingly powerful bit of storytelling, and shows the rest of the world how it’s done. Airbnb felt that telling a story that was simply inspirational was surely the best way to get people feeling emotions and buying into the brand it had created. And it worked.

Honorable Mention: Google is Telling a story, literally
Google don’t really have to market anymore, they are simply working on ways to keep their fans happy. And this video is a perfect version of that.

Good luck with your storytelling and please let me know if you have any other ideas or resources to help create stories on social media.
Dr. Kellie Emrich @thesocialprof

After reading this article take a shot at creating your own Buyer Persona.
blog.hootsuite.com/buyer-persona/