If you’ve read Why Your Story Counts – Start a Blog for Your Business then you’ll know the importance of telling your story in your business. Personalising what you do and building deeper connections to your audience are more critical than ever when it comes to longevity, loyalty and retention.
Johny Vynes of Grow Hard Garden Centre Bomaderry embraced the concept of story and began telling it even before his business had launched. Through various stages of planning, construction and putting the finer touches on the Garden Centre, Johny made a real effort to include the community every step of the way.
There were many reasons why this approached has worked which includes having some public accountability, but one particular benefit was to get feedback from the local area and the readers/viewers before launch day even came. By including the local community in the businesses pre-launch phase, Johny was able to pivot at various moments to ensure that his business would meet the needs of the local area rather than simply guessing or assuming.
While it can be a daunting process, its a great cost-effective way of getting a valuable market survey from the local populous that gives you far more realistic data that you can build your business around.
So let’s make this practical! Here’s 4 really simply ideas that could help you create your story and build your support from the ground up.
1. Live video feeds – Johny is a pro when it comes to utilising Facebook live video. In fact, it’s how I knew about the Garden Centre long before it opened! Johny gives viewers on social media the opportunity to have a sticky beak into what’s happening behind the scenes and to also ask questions and interact in real time. Live video can be best harnessed (as at the time of writing this) through platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, and these are still under utilised by businesses.
2. Updates with a general question – There’s nothing better than giving your opinion on a topic. We all do it. So why not harness that urge that we all have by asking general questions to your followers via social media platforms to have them interacting with your page and ultimately your business. Build your question into an update about what you’re doing and you’re not only getting the interaction from the public but you’re also informing them on what you are doing. Many will interact purely to give their opinion, but they will still learn about what you are doing whether that was their original intention or not.
3. Photos – Who says that creating your story needs to be written only? Document your journey visually with various types of photos. They don’t always have to be related directly to your business or journey but they can influence emotion from your audience and heighten the engagement. Having a mixture of photos showing behind the scenes action, day to day business, you and your team, your products/services as well as various things that you are passionate about will build incredible loyalty. Do this via your website, Facebook page, Instagram, Twitter and more.
4. Blog – The traditional blog is still as important as its ever been! You don’t need to write anything that has a high level of professionalism. A series of simple 1 paragraph blog posts could be the initial boost you need to gain traction, create a good habit and give the readers and easy way to quickly receive updates on how you are doing day to day, week to week, etc. Just make sure you use a spell checker!
Out of the four above, what do you think is the most effective way of documenting and telling your story? Is there a better way? Let me know in the comments!