Want to grow your creative business audience? Take a break from looking at numbers, and shift your focus to people. In this article, I’ll share some tips on forging meaningful connections with our creative audiences through storytelling. Prepare to elevate your brand, while hearing some heartfelt tales along the way!
Storytelling may be a buzz word right now, but the concept is as old as time. It is the vehicle that creatives have been using to effectively communicate with their audiences, to forge connections, and to make an impact on our world. Your ability to grow your creative business rests on creating a spark between you and your audience.
If we, as creatives are crafting work without meaning— without a purpose and a story behind it, its significance is diminished. Our audience doesn’t just want to look at something pretty, but we as humans want to feel something. To be moved. To see something in that piece of art that we can relate to.
A couple of weeks ago, my co-host Steve and I decided that we would focus an entire episode of A Podcast for Creatives on the power that emotion plays in our creative work.
LET STORYTELLING DRIVE YOUR ART
Preparing for our podcast episode forced me to confront my methods. I’m often guilty of churning out designs without much thought, just because I need a quick piece of content.
“I ran out of time, so here’s what I came up with,” is not how you want to present creative projects to your audience. No good story starts with that sentence.
Since Steve was away on a work trip this week, I took the opportunity to take over our @podforcreatives account that he usually manages and challenged myself (and our audience) to get into the practice of telling stories all week.
Thanks to Instagram’s new archive feature, you can still catch our entire week of prompts! I hope that you’ll enjoy the stories that I shared, but more so, I hope that you’ll challenge yourself to host your own storytelling week!
START THE CONVERSATION
You don’t even need a big Instagram following to do this. MHD Community member and friend, Jamie shared that she had been prompting her family members with our questions. Any opportunity you can take to ask, share and learn, will be beneficial to you as a creative!
STORYTELLING PROMPTS TO HELP GROW YOUR CREATIVE BUSINESS AUDIENCE
Here are the prompts that we presented over the course of the week:
MONDAY: Share the story of how your parents met (or how you met your partner)
This is explains my sweet tooth.
You also need to check out my friend Kalyn’s super sweet love story in her Instagram Archive.
TUESDAY: Where were you on 9/11?
As a native NY-er, this was an intense day for my family.
WEDNESDAY: Which recent campaign has moved you in an emotional way?
Apple fan girl alert.
THURSDAY: How would family and friends describe your character?
I share a not-so-appealing side that I don’t always make evident on social media.
FRIDAY: What is the story of how you met your creative bestie?
In our first Instagram Live, Steve and I share our origin story. If you didn’t catch this one in the 24 hours that it was available on Instagram, we’ll try to make it available to you on another platform— stay tuned!
If none of those are speaking to you, here is a link to an article with 500 more storytelling prompts.
YOUR KEY TO COMBATING SOCIAL MEDIA CHANGES
With Facebook’s recent algorithm adjustments, it has become imperative to find ways forge meaningful connections and spark conversation. Storytelling prompts are an easy, and fun way to start!
Want to spark more ideas? Have a listen to Episode 4 of A Podcast for Creatives, and be sure to share your thoughts and opinions with us on Instagram, Twitter, or FB!
