This blog was originally posted on Mind & Ink, a website I used to own that has since been let go.
It’s no secret that humans love stories.
We love to see what our friends are doing on our Facebook and Instagram feeds, and we’re no strangers to Netflix marathons of our favorite shows. Humans are inquisitive, and stories fill our need to know, to learn, and to explore.
Telling stories is in our nature. We tell stories in order to be known, in order to teach and make others understand. Everything we know about our ancestors and, in turn, ourselves, we know through stories that have been passed down, generation to generation.
Storytelling is vital to everything we are and do as human beings. Stories influence how we behave, how we raise our kids, how we treat others, how we function as a society, and even how we do business.
FOR ENTERTAINMENT
Almost everything in the entertainment industry is based on storytelling. Every movie, every TV show, and every video game tells a story.
It’s what draws the viewer in and leaves them wanting more. You know the sensation. The feeling of excitement and frustration when the last episode of the season ends on a cliffhanger, leaving you to wonder what next season will bring. The memories that bubble up when a particular scene hits home, or the feeling of being understood when the words of a song resonate with you. Stories have the power to move us, and the power to change us.
If your purpose is to entertain, there is no way to get around telling a story, but there are many different ways to do it. Words aren’t always necessary. Images alone often are just as moving as a verbal story.
A lot of what we do is entertainment, whether or not we realize it. In both marketing and education, we entertain our audience in order to hold their attention. We use stories to entertain our students, our colleagues, our clients, our prospective customers, and ourselves.
Good storytelling is entertaining, and entertainment is vital to business and education.
FOR BUSINESS
Storytelling can help businesses thrive.
More and more, younger generations are looking to truly connect with the brands they trust. People no longer just want a good product; they want a product they can believe in. They want products and services that fit their modern lifestyle — products and services they can be excited about enough to share with others.
Using storytelling in marketing is the best way to connect with the young consumer. If you look on Instagram or Facebook, brands everywhere are connecting with consumers by using words, pictures, video, and audio to tell an engaging and interactive story.
Telling a story to market a brand is not a new idea.
Take Super Bowl commercials, for example. The few that are lauded as the best commercials of any given Super Bowl all tell a story.
The Super Bowl commercials that always come to mind are the Budweiser Clydesdale commercials. These Budweiser commercials all evoke an emotional response that stays with the viewer and connects these feel-good emotions to the brand’s logo in the viewer’s mind.
Success in marketing is success in storytelling.
FOR EDUCATION
It may seem obvious that storytelling would be important to education. After all, reading and language arts can’t be taught without literature, and every student is eventually tested on their ability to tell and comprehend a story.
Even so, there are many more uses to storytelling in the classroom than just reading comprehension.
As a teacher and a tutor, I’ve used storytelling to teach a variety of skills and subjects. Nothing gets a kid to understand Meiosis and Mitosis like a story they can relate to.
Storytelling in the classroom goes much further than academics. Hearing and telling stories helps kids understand and exercise empathy and kindness. With the current cultural and political climate in regards to schools, it is becoming more and more important for teachers to help students be aware of and understand the feelings of one another.
When kids learn through storytelling, they learn how to listen and they learn how to care. They also learn how to tell their own stories, and they learn how to make themselves heard.
CONCLUSION
Storytelling opens up countless opportunities for everyone, from students to business owners and everyone in between. It’s the one thing that connects us to each other and makes every human advancement possible.
If you’re not using storytelling in your business, educational, or social ventures, then you’re missing out on a world of opportunities.