Online brands today have so much to consider when building and maintaining their presences. There is an inherent need to deliver content to the masses that appeals to their specific tastes. In order to be seen in the first place, search engine optimization tactics and social media strategies must be used carefully. For brands that deal in e-commerce, there is an added need to provide descriptive and alluring details about products and services. Many brands, regardless of involvement, need to master the art of story-telling in order to succeed with a given audience. Below, we’ll discuss how to best formulate the basis for telling a story in order to be successful in any web-based environment.

Feature the Audience’s Wishes

Before you can be an adequate – let alone successful – story-teller, there is an inherent need to understand what you audience wishes to hear. To begin, it is necessary to conduct comprehensive analysis on your audience through analytics and demographic profile assessments. This will provide the basis for further analysis that will be successful. Next, you’ll want to actually interact with your audience in order to determine what they enjoy hearing. This can be done through online surveys, community forums, comments on blog posts or email campaigns. Pinging users for more information about what they enjoy – alongside analysing engagement rates on various forms of content published to your blog and social media – will help you determine how best to feature your audience’s wishes in any story.

Maintain Specific Story-telling Venues

If your brand provides services or products to the masses, then it may seem difficult at first to build a story-telling powerhouse that integrates seamlessly with your brand. However, many different brands and businesses online have been quite successful at doing so by creating split-off ventures that connect with the brand but function independently of it. This type of venue provides businesses and brands with the opportunity to feature customer stories and experiences in a completely new context. From product reviews to questions and comments, there is ample opportunity here to combine these experiences with a creative writing approach that intrigues your audience while also driving one particular narrative or another about your brand.

Incorporate Outside Stories

There will undoubtedly be sooner or later other entities that begin pinging users and talking about your brand. Earned media, for instance, is a dream come true for many brands that have made the news due to one type of action or another. Another platform through which brands should be constantly be looking for stories is through online review platforms. The basis for creative writing and story-telling often can be found in the opinions and stories that others have expressed about you in honest, open third-party outlets. It is through these portals that you will be able to find new and exciting ideas for driving attention to your brand and giving potential visitors and customers more of a reason to engage with you further. These outlets – being independent from your own website – can be used to provide an authentic basis for any claims or narratives driven in your story-telling process.