What Is Business Storytelling?

Business storytelling refers to the use of story structure for the purpose of internal and external communication, collaboration, and marketing. Storytelling can be used to persuade colleagues, to sell to customers, to develop new marketing narratives, and even to reposition the company in the competitive marketplace.

The science of storytelling can be a powerful tool in the hands of business professionals, as it empowers them to transcend the boundaries and tropes typical of business language and begin using a powerful narrative to support their message.

What is storytelling in business communication?

Storytelling for Business can be particularly powerful when used in business communications. The narrative arc lends itself to the polished form of advertising formats. A storytelling structure can also be used to design conferences, lectures and meetings. The typical three-act schema can also provide powerful communication within the organization and can be used by managers engaged in change management and in human resources.

Storytelling for Business plays a role in institutional communications and PR, where a well-constructed narrative can change the views of legislators and influence the public. Great leaders are also usually great storytellers because they know that ideas stick better when they are communicated in the form of a story.

How can storytelling help in the corporate environment?

A deep knowledge of storytelling is an essential attribute of the modern manager, the innovator, the savvy marketer, the communicator, and the human resources department.

Storytelling in the corporate world can be used by companies when writing press releases, preparing corporate presentations, creating content for end users or for employees. The outcome of an ad, article, presentation or video is enhanced by using the right storytelling knowledge.

Why is storytelling important?

Storytelling is as important as language because it allows us to connect facts and ideas in a coherent, digestible way that helps us spread our agenda.

Storytelling is the most widely adopted and spontaneous form of human communication because it taps into our natural curiosity and instinctual desire to follow a story to its conclusion. It also taps into our desire for coherence. In addition, storytelling plays an important role in helping us remember what we understand not only rationally, but also emotionally.

How do you do effective storytelling?

Mastery of storytelling comes from studying the basic three-act structure of most human narratives. This pervasive structure, when deeply understood, allows us to construct any kind of narrative. It's like having an infinite set of Lego bricks to build a story.

Once you understand "traditional structure", you can also learn how to freestyle and create your own structure for any medium.

How can storytelling be used to communicate ideas?

Ideas don't get far without a compelling story to support them. Storytelling can help find the right structure to tell an idea in a way that audiences can relate to both rationally and emotionally.

Storytelling structures also suggest that the new idea should become commonplace for the target audience, implemented into their daily lives and, if necessary, become a habit.

When you tell your idea through a story, you also increase the chances that your audience will use your story when they share your ideas with others.

Why are stories powerful communication techniques?

From an evolutionary standpoint, not much time has passed since the only form of entertainment was listening to stories around a campfire. Even today, the ads that captivate us, the Facebook updates we remember, the Instagram stories that make sense to us are all centered around a story.

The most popular social format adopted by all companies is also called "Stories." This should give pause to anyone who denies the importance of storytelling in communication.

As long as we remain as human as we are, we can trust stories to be an almighty powerful communication tool.

How Do You Become a Good Storyteller Technique?

Let’s rephrase: how do I become a great storyteller? What techniques do I need to learn?

There are two ways you can proceed: you can start from your favorite stories, presentations, and ads, and try to deconstruct the principles and learn the formulas of these stories.