Relevant Stories are Important. But This is Even More Critical.

May 8, 2019

Storytelling seems to be the topic de jure lately. And that’s fantastic because Mythos is all about telling more stories, to more people, in more ways.

It makes sense that it’s a hot topic–storytelling has been proven to have meaningful impact on engagement, directly affecting the brain in measurable ways.

Even more importantly, constituents and consumers want more stories and stories increase the likelihood of engagement dramatically.

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“You don’t have to make someone cry. You just have to make them see the story and imagine themselves in it.” —Kindra Hall

That quote by Kindra Hall is great and we wholeheartedly agree. What we’ve found in working with our customers is that to really make a lasting connection, and as a result, a fruitful engagement, you have to go beyond “generic” or broad-based storytelling and make stories individually relevant. But at this point, with the number of media channels and messages that we are exposed to on a daily basis, that’s just table stakes in a storytelling strategy and the core reason we created Mythos.

What makes the difference is narrative. And not just any narrative–narrative sustained through a story told over time.

What does that mean? It means starting with connecting your constituents with individually relevant stories–stories that you know they care about. You have the data, even if it’s as simple as the area of interest a donation was made to support. But you probably know more that can be used to align stories even more relevantly–like telling a story about someone of the same ethnicity, for example. Anything to help increase the likelihood that the recipient of your story will be transported by that narrative and see themselves in that story. But, like I said previously, table stakes.

So the way to really raise the bar is to then capture that story as it evolves over time and weave a narrative of the progress or impact or challenge that the story hero is experiencing. The beginning of the story is important because it makes the initial connection with your constituent but that narrative over time is what will keep them connected and, more importantly, engaged with your organization.

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