PBL Trigger 4

How to communicate the brand through storytelling and social media?

1. What is a brand story and what makes a good brand story?

• What is a brand story?

Brand story is a sort of campaign realized by businesses. The brand stories are experienced and felt. They're not just told by the company and heard by consumers.

A brand story is a cohesive narrative that encompasses the facts and feelings that are created by your brand or your business. Unlike traditional advertising, which is about showing and telling about your brand, a story must inspire an emotional reaction. In this type of ad, you're not putting your product forward but more your company.

The brand story is the complete narrative that surrounds a business. It shows not only how you do business, but why you're there in the first place, and how you're uniquely qualified to help solve your customers problems.
The brand story brings heart to a business, which facilitate more meaningful connections between the brand and the customers.

A brand story is more than what you tell people, it is what they believe about you based on all the signals your brands sends out.

• Why do companies need it?

- People make buying decisions based on emotion and use logic just to back up their choices

- Emotional connection with customers inspire trust and loyalty

4 things why companies need storytelling:

https://miscmagazine.com/storytelling-important-business/

- Stories sell

- Stories provide relevance (pertinence/intérêt)

- Stories set context

- Stories create purpose and drive action`

2. What is storytelling and how does it affect people?

• What is storytelling for brand?

Storytelling for brand can increase the engagement and the interest in you and your business. 

• How does storytelling affect people?

• Can you think of any good storytelling examples?

Nike: "The chance" ad: following the story of an aspiring (ambitieux) young soccer player in NYC: this as remind us there is a possibility for every one of us as long we persevere and wear Nikes

VIDEO : https://vimeo.com/40035962

3. What is the role of community management in brand building and how to engage customers?

• What is community management? What are the benefits of it?

Community manager: 

"The community manager is a person in the company who's acting on the web. He builds and monitors communities in blogs, forums, social networks etc. He's the "voice" of the company.

The community manager has to take decisions regarding the company's image or brand because he's posting contents."

"A community manager is the person in charge of the development and management of the presence of a brand in Social Networks or other communities spaces. He's considered like the guarantor of the reputation and the engagement of the brand on Social networks. He can also implement animations, competition games..."

Community management: 

So, regarding the definition above it: 

"The activity of community management means the activity of management of the presence of the brand or the company on the social networks other community spaces."

"Communities seem ideal for companies as you can bound your audience to your organization, keep them close to you and at the same time respond to their needs."

Objectives of community management/managers:

- Reputation or e-reputation of the brand/company

- Promote the brand, offers and events

- Establish a conversation with its clients and prospects

- Favor social engagement

- Ensure a support on social networks

Benefits of building a community:

- Gaining a deeper understanding of your audience

- Receiving valuable with individuals

- Building a relationship with persons

- Creating content for SEO/receiving more traffic to your brand

Source: Site "Ecommercewiki.org"

Other source for the benefits:

- Humanize the company: create powerful relationships with the customers

- Customer service: issues are find efficiently because you can help your client as quick as possible

- Product improvement: patterns (modèles) are identified and communicated to development and quality assurance

• How to engage customers?

Ways to engage your customers:

- Develop emotional connections: introduce yourself when you post a message, use the word "team", make someone your "brand ambassador", the "face of the community"

- Build a community forum

- Make your customers a part of the team

- Share exclusive content or offers

- Host an event

- Inspire people: share your brand vision

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnrampton/2015/09/14/8-ways-to-engage-better-with-your-customers/#7a226a7551f3

• Do companies need a community manager?

Yes, of course ! This is thanks to the community manager that the company can have all the benefits writing above this.

He builds, grows and manage a company or a brand online. So, he can influence the trends. For example, if there is a bad buzz for the brand of for the company on a social network, a forum etc, the CM can, in the minute after, can answer to the complaint or the comments and understand what's wrong for the company.

4. Analyze or design a brand story for a chosen company.

The example of Apple in 1984: the Super Bowl spot. It marked the beginning of Apple's brand narrative: innovation and free-thinkers.

VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I

• What do you like the most?

• Is it successful? If not, what could be improved?

A big success because it was the first video like "Storytelling", the ad didn't talk about Apple in a objective way, but in a subjective way. They are telling a story, very successful story. 

If Apple's company is so good in it it's because they know what they want to sell to people, what they want to tell to their consumers.

5. How could the chosen company build the brand in social media?

• What are the steps in building the brand in social media?

1st step: Choose network that support your brand image
- Facebook: best plateform to promote brand awareness, promote virtually any brand because users are very heterogeneous.
- Instagram: brands that rely on images (clothing companies for example)
- LinkedIn: promote business-related content and connecting with other corporate influencers

2nd step: Provide valuable and shareable content
Create useful content that viewers will want to share:
- Every single piece of content your share should support your brand image
- Figure out which content is most likely to gain visibility on your social network
- Use visual content!!! (94% more views when there is a photo/video or something else)

3rd step: Leverage influencers
You can do this by:
- Mention names of the influencers or cite their websites in your content
- Tag any influencers you've referenced when sharing content
- Email influencers 

4th: Use social campaigns to promote content
- Use contest, challenges etc.
- Be sure that the campaign are valuable for your customers

OR:

Other article:
1: Pick the right social media platform
2: Be active on it
3: Engage customers
4: Be visual
5: Be consistent
6: Get influencers to help you

• Can you think of any good examples?

Starbucks on social media: one of the biggest social media brands ever
http://welikeyou.social/2017/02/13/5-ways-starbucks-can-inspire-your-social-media-strategy/

1°: Starbucks is relatable
- They get excited about their products like their customers would
- Social media strategy focused on relatable content

2°: They really know how to use their social media channels, they can adapt their content to each
- Facebook: 
Multilingual to reach every consumers y every countries - they show you how their products are made, they share their favorite product and they know the important of personalizing their brand with content.

- Instagram: 
King of brand in Instagram (13M followers) - high definition of their photos and videos, create animations and focus on presenting their product to the public.

- Twitter:
They post about their product and they use it to engage with their audience. Can be also their customer service tool. They answer all their customers.

- Pinterest:
Showcase their products, tea rituals etc.

3°: Using social media as a customer service tool

4°: Different Starbuck's campaign
- Meet me at Starbucks: a campaign which help customers/people aware of Starbucks values and missions because they focused on "a day in the life of working for Starbucks"

- Pumpkin spice latte: Competition on Facebook app where people had to gather points for giving city shout-outs and being creative

- Non profit campaign: Partner with non-profit companies. They have donated a significant amount of money to organisations like RED etc.

5°: They are working with influencers

6°: They focus on the product

SOURCES:

http://lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=community-manager

https://www.definitions-marketing.com/definition/community-manager/

https://www.definitions-marketing.com/definition/community-management/

https://www.ecommercewiki.org/Community_Management/Community_Management_Basic/What_are_the_benefits_of_community_management

http://conniebensen.com/2008/03/30/benefits-of-having-a-community-manager/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnrampton/2015/09/14/8-ways-to-engage-better-with-your-customers/#7a226a7551f3

https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/five-ways-to-authentically-engage-your-customers
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244677
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/278628
http://welikeyou.social/2017/02/13/5-ways-starbucks-can-inspire-your-social-media-strategy/
http://www.echostories.com/whats-a-brand-story-and-why-does-my-company-need-one/
https://www.customfitonline.com/news/2017/2/7/brand-storytelling/