Human-to-human connections are the heart and soul of business. At the end of the day, you’re dealing with people — your company is solving problems, alleviating pain points, and providing delightful customer experiences.

Storytelling is a powerful technique for building relationships. It’s an age-old concept that brings people together and keeps them engaged. It doesn’t matter where in the world you’re based or how much funding your startup has.

What is Brand Storytelling?

Brand storytelling is:

• The reason why your company came to be
• What motivates your team to wake up and come to work everyday
• How your product came to be
• What types of customers find value in working with your brand and why
• A transparent view into the people behind the company
• A relationship-building tool
• More subtle than you realize
• A concept that underscores your entire web presence
• Something that your entire team, at organizational levels, embraces
• A look into who you are as a company
• Direct

Good examples of brand storytelling

Nike – equality campaign

Nike has always excelled at brand storytelling. One of their best campaigns is Equality. It makes a strong statement about the company as a force for positive social change, offering something more to today’s athletes than just a pair of sneakers and branded workout gear.

This is an example of using brand storytelling to connect with the audience, inviting them to become a part of a collective movement by wearing Nike products, or at the very least, engaging on social media, such as sharing one of the brand’s always inspiring videos.

Airbnb

For New Year’s 2015, the company told its story through an animated video, announcing that approximately 550,000 travelers had spent New Year’s Eve in one of their many rentals across 20,000 cities – a jump from just 2,000 guests 5 years previous.

Highlighting the most popular choices for AirBnB guests to ring in the New Year, New York topped the list with 47,000 travellers.

Just one example of how the brand uses data to tell engaging stories, AirBnB’s stories consistently resonate with its audience by bringing to life the things they care about – travelling and new experiences.

IBM

Every 6 hours, one person will die from melanoma in Australia.

This insight sparked global technology company IBM’s mission to use AI to “outthink melanoma” and champion early detection of the deadliest cancer down under.

Watson, the cutting-edge AI that was created, can detect melanoma with 31% more accuracy than the naked eye – something that can make all the difference for survival.

Launched in Bondi Beach during peak season, everyday Australians stood in front of a mirror and were analyzed by Watson, who determined and examined elements like age, gender and sunscreen coverage. If any risks or irregularities were spotted, the participant saw an on-site specialist for further treatment.

Short conclusion

Don’t overthink this process. Storytelling is something that we do naturally. More often than not, we don’t even realize that we’re doing it.

This may sound counterintuitive, but it’s the key to successful marketing. Stop thinking like a marketer. Stop trying to sell your product, and instead, focus on developing human interest. Answer the question of why people should care about what your company has to say.