iStories doesn’t have a trademark on insightful, data-fuelled storytelling – in fact we’d encourage every business to embrace it for themselves to create team and customer facing narratives that take audiences on a journey beyond your products and services.

So, to help business owners to get started, here are ten tips to get you started on creating and sharing interesting and engaging stories unique to your business and in doing so, convey your identity, purpose and individuality to staff, stakeholders and customers.

If you’d like to use these principles to guide your own internal or external communications strategies then we’d love to hear how it goes, but if you’re already stretched doing whatever cool stuff it is you do, then istories would love to come and lend a hand.

1. Skip to the end

The first step getting started with your story is to have a clear idea of what you would like your audience to do, think or feel when they reach the end.

Every story can be told in countless different ways, and while the subjectivity of storytelling means there is not necessarily a right or wrong answer among them, being mindful of what thought or feeling you want your audience to leave with will play a big part in those key decisions about tone, style, length, language, structure, perspective and cadence.

2. Unhide and seek

Stories are hidden everywhere within organisations. Some require proactively searching out, but others may need to be unearthed through a gentler, more passive approach. Find ways to create forums and conversation platforms that can be contributed to by anyone over a sustained period of time and incentivise people across your organisation to share stores that bring to life the people behind the functions they perform.

3. Shine and glow

Not everyone is a natural sharer. Some people baulk at the idea of guarded information being thrust into the public domain, even if it is something to be celebrated. Extroverts and introverts within organisations respond to very different kinds of opportunities and incentives for sharing their unique experiences and perspectives on work and life. It’s easy to simply allow your extroverts to occupy the limelight given that’s where they love to be; but provide a platform for that kind of expression alone and you’ll overlook a huge range of unexpected and equally valuable stories from people that don’t seek the spotlight but glow just as brightly in the comfort of the dark.

4. Find your threads

Every business, from a single-handed start-up to a multinational corporation, has a history all of its own; something that is entirely unique from any other company in the world. We are all the sum of each decision we make divided by everything that happen to us along the way; the same goes for the businesses we create.

If you are able to look closely enough at the tapestry of your business to see the individual threads from which it has been woven, you’ll find an entirely new, human, real and relatable opportunity for storytelling.

5. The extraordinary everyday

We are well accustomed to brands and businesses celebrating ingenuity, innovation and invention, but the everyday and ordinary can be just as intriguing and diverting. From our own perspectives, the course of events that led us to where we are may not seem extraordinary or interesting, but if social media and reality TV have taught us anything, it’s that we are constantly fascinated by the experiences of others, no matter how ordinary they may sometimes appear to be.

6. People power

Stories about ‘things’ will only carry our attention spans so far; what keeps us engaged are people.

While your business may have a product or service to share that blows the rest of the competition out of the water, don’t overlook the human element; from the stories of the people behind your innovations to tales of the ways in which your customers stand to be affected.

7. Inside out

In so many organisations teams are often the last to hear company news. The bigger the company usually means the worse it is at keeping its staff in the loop. There is nothing likely to make your teams feel like they’re unimportant than picking up news about their own company from an outside source.

Of course, the moment information is released internally it’s potentially only seconds away from making its way into the outside world. However, knowing that makes it easy to incorporate that likelihood into your comms strategy from the outset and plan your message distribution and timing accordingly.

8. Your story as a headline

It’s amazing how effective this simple technique continues to be, in everything from major announcements to social media posts and internal comms. When it comes to any story, you need to be able to articulate a short, compelling summary behind the essence of what you’re looking to convey. You don’t need to start with your headline but if you haven’t been able to find one by the end, then the chance is that what you have to say simply isn’t interesting enough, or you’ve not found an interesting enough way to say it.

9. A healthy relationship with data

Insight-based stories can be from data without being about data: cold, hard numbers don’t have to lead to cold, dry stories. The storytelling component of data analytics is a subjective field. Numbers may provide a bedrock of facts, but the insights we derive and the narratives we build are constructed through a human framework and perspective.

Learning to love your data will power and propel your storytelling potential to new levels, but the moment you start to feel like it’s restraining your creativity, it’s time to reassess your relationship with the numbers that are there to serve you and not the other way around.

10. Set your stories free

Storytelling doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Plenty of talented, creative and successful people have no time or taste for their own storytelling: they’re too busy getting the job done! If that’s the case then invest in and support those who do have the talent and time to bring stories to life. That means more than financing the resources, it means actively supporting and championing internal and external storytelling as an opportunity for team-building, community spirit and morale boosting.

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