Revisit Story Mapping to Keep Up With Social Media Trends
Story mapping is a technique that can be used to create social media content. It’s an effective way of structuring video, audio, or written content ideas.
It follows the logic of “storytelling,” one of the oldest forms of communication in human history. Storytelling in business has been around since before writing was invented, and it continues to exist today as people share their personal stories through books, movies, TV shows, and podcasts.
Story mapping helps businesses understand their audience by identifying what they want from the company’s story. It also enables people to stay on track with their thoughts about the topic so they don’t wander off-topic too much while telling a compelling narrative arc.
How to Use Story Mapping to Keep Up With Social Trends
There are many components to story mapping, so it can be daunting to look at one at first. The good news is that it’s easier than one might think to master the art of creating social media content using this technique. Here are some steps on how to use story mapping in a business.
Identify the Audience
Decide who should hear the company’s story, and create a user persona to analyze them. It could be customers, prospects, or even colleagues within the same company. Knowing who needs to be reached is essential in order for the message to resonate with them.
This is the first step in the storytelling process, and it allows the company to create content targeted toward the desired audience. Targeting an audience is vital for social media because finding the right audience can often feel like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Brainstorm Ideas
Once the company has identified the audience, start thinking of potential topics that they might like based on their interests and needs. Don’t get too caught up with making sure each idea is timely. Instead, think about what the audience likes or what they want to hear about.
Use different sources of information for this purpose, such as social media analytics and social media analysis tools. There are many tools to choose from that can help identify current trends relevant to the audience and create social media content with a high potential for success.
Choose the Top Three Ideas
After brainstorming potential topics, select three ideas that would most appeal to the desired audience. These ideas should be relevant to the company’s overall marketing strategy and pertinent to the specific audience. For example, to target Millennials with an upcoming campaign, the three selected topics should be relevant to this group of people to feel included in the content.
Create Content for Each Idea
After forming an idea of the audience and what content might appeal to them, start creating the actual story map. Each row of the story map will correspond to a section in whatever media the company uses to tell the story (such as a video). It means that there will be more rows on the table for written stories or blogs, while there may only be a few rows for video or audio stories.
Each row will have the following columns: Idea, Benefit, Audience Reaction, and Format. The first column will consist of a sentence that summarizes the idea. Next, include a benefit to this idea in the second column and how the audience might react to this topic in the third column. Finally, include the format for the content (such as written, audio or video) in the fourth column.
Once the story map is completed, mark the favorite rows with an asterisk (*). These ideas stand out to the audience, and they will be used as a foundation to create content. There are multiple ideas selected as the best ones, make sure to link them all together so that the story is cohesive and flows together smoothly.
Follow the Map
Now that the story map has been created, it’s time to create content using this technique. Each table row will be used as a foundation for the content. Include as much information as possible.
Using this technique, the company can tell a complete and cohesive story that satisfies the audience and makes them want more. Be sure to redo the story map regularly to ensure that all content stays up-to-date with current trends.
Keep up with social media trends: conclusion
Remember that the story map won’t tell the company precisely what to write in each row of the table. It’s more like a guideline for using this technique, so feel free to experiment with different ideas or include changes.
Story mapping is meant to help create a compelling narrative arc so that all content is rich and clear. By doing this, businesses can deliver content that their audience will genuinely enjoy and that will keep them coming back for more.
