With its power to create meaning, digital storytelling cuts through the noise and clamor and connects your message to your audience. Digital Storytelling allows us to go beyond the obvious, seeking and telling the sometimes overlooked stories, celebrating the daily, championing the unseen. Words paired with images and sound help us to avoid the “trap of PR speak” (Fernando, 2011, p.14), connect art to technology, enable authenticity, and encourage the audience to lean forward, engaging in story rather than passively absorbing it (Miller, 2020, pp. 66, 75). Current technology makes it possible to create microcontent that is tailored to the people your story needs to reach. Blogs, photographs, video, music, and games, all shared in the wide-open world of Web 2.0, tell impactful, meaningful stories rich with texture and meaning (Alexander, 2011, p.30). Ultimately, stories change us, not information. Business executive Karen Eber explains why storytelling is more trustworthy than presenting data for TedxPurdueU.
For the entrepreneur or business owner, effective corporate digital storytelling can reinforce brand. Not only do customers respond, but so do employee stakeholders. Studies indicate that staff who buy into a company’s story are more invested in the success of the organization and will both bring their best to work and stay with the company longer than employees who feel no connection with their workplace, as they are the “foundational custodians of the corporate brand” (Nyagadza, 2020).
For artists and entrepreneurs seeking to engage with a Millennial audience, storytelling is significantly more effective in creating brand engagement and loyalty. Customer trust, satisfaction, and commitment, as well as positive word of mouth and purchase intention are all positively influenced by a digital storytelling approach to marketing over a traditional straight-sell strategy (Fernandes, 2019).
Kimberly Bryant, MA 