In a recent post, I offered an expanded definition of currency that includes social currency…the way you interact with the people that touch your organization.
How do we know when we’re dealing with social currency?
Stories. The telling of our collective stories.
It’s a Basic Human Need
Stories of how our products or programs have changed a life. Stories of inspiration, struggle, perseverance, joy or advocacy. Why are these stories important? Because the most primal of human needs is to be part of a story that matters. It’s the way we communicate and understand the world.
We’ve all heard this before. Stories humanize our mission and our message. Capturing the stories of our organization is of the utmost importance in marketing, community building, internal communication, sales and/or fundraising. Entire PR firms are dedicated to helping clients capture their stories and share them with the world.
Why are social media, cause marketing and crowd sourcing on the rise? Stories. We all want to be part of a bigger story and are looking to companies, causes and our own social networks to insert ourselves into a meaningful one.
Taking Stories a Step Further
Don Miller wrote a spectacular book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years that I highly, highly recommend you read. It’s a poignant tale of Don’s own journey to more intentionally create and live his life’s story. It’s about learning to make the ordinary meaningful by making the extra effort to do so. It’s about deciding to create a meaningful story. Don’s take is highly personal, but I think organizations can learn from his message also. Here’s what it takes:
A Meaningful and Memorable Story
It’s one thing to create a special event, campaign or product. It’s quite another to create a memorable one. When you reflect back on the things in your life that have been most memorable, what stands out to you? Perhaps it was a unique location, an unexpected twist in the ordinary, or something new and novel. Maybe a feeling you felt for the first time. I can’t tell you how to create a memorable event or campaign for your organization because you are the only one uniquely qualified to do so. But give it some thought: what unique approach, twist, bent or variation could only be pulled off by your organization? Can’t think of anything? Give it some space – it’ll come.
Participation
Want to make your next event, product, program or campaign memorable and story-worthy in a way unique to your organization? Then figure out a way to include your people. Your job as an organization is to make your vision accessible to as many of your stakeholders as possible. Although they’re currently on the rise, slacktivism campaigns (where consumers vote on their _______of choice with a few mouse clicks) won’t last in the long run because they only access the most basic levels of participation (you can read More is More for my take on this consumer engagement trend).
Co-Creation
Here’s the most challenging piece of creating a memorable story for you as an organization: allowing your people to co-create alongside you, to co-author your collective story, if you will. This necessarily implies a release of control, something that can be hard to do for many organizations.
Remarking on the process of collaborative creation, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said,
Really successful businesses and organizations build something so that people immediately know what they’re about. You’re building a level of trust so that people know what they’re getting.
And herein lies the holy grail of the meaningful story. Is it easy? Nope. Is it important to your long-term viability? You’d better believe it.
What aspects of story are most important to your organization? How do you create meaningful stories? And by all means, what have I missed?
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Image credit to dhammza.
Great post, Megan. Co-creation is key, especially in the nonprofit sector. We need the people we are serving to share our story in their words (often less technical than ours) and through their experiences.
I work with a highly specialized health care company. What they do is so complex; many employees have difficulty explaining it. But when we put what we do in our patients’ word, people get it. More importantly, they remember it.