How do you cut through the noise online with your content?

Digital storytelling is the answer you’re looking for.

There are many methods to create and distribute content but digital storytelling allows you to create an immersive and interactive way to connect with your audiences. The digital format elevates the craft of storytelling, allowing you to reach a wider audience base.

It helps to have a clear brand story for your business, enabling you to create marketing initiatives centred around relevant brand messages and values that resonate with your audience. This also ensures that your digital story has a strong foundation, increasing brand visibility and awareness.

What is digital storytelling?

Digital storytelling involves creating interactive multimedia content to engage audiences, build your brand and increase lead-generating results. 

These features set digital storytelling apart from the typical story-driven content:

• Immersive storytelling – This type of content is built to sustain your audience’s attention for the story’s duration, which is different from types of content that use distracting side menus and pop-ups.
• Scroll-based animation – This is also known as “scrollytelling” as it uses scroll-based animation effects between each image in the story, producing seamless and evocative transitions as you delve deeper into the narrative.
• Rich digital media – Digital storytelling usually uses rich media, with transitions, galleries, media embeds and attention-grabbing effects.
• Responsive to all devices – A digital story is only as effective as its accessibility to different types of devices. When a digital story is responsive to phones, browsers and tablets, it has a higher likelihood of reaching your target audience.

Incorporating these elements effectively in your content can enable you to create an impactful digital story.

3 benefits of using digital storytelling for your content

Still not convinced? 

We’ve shortlisted three benefits of creating digital stories for your content marketing strategy.

1. Digital storytelling generates highly shareable content

Because there’s an increase in quality and quantity of content, brands need to be competitive about the content they produce. 

Digital storytelling allows you to produce content that is visually compelling and captivating, allowing you to retain your audience’s attention for a length of time. Its immersive environment allows you to share comprehensive and high-quality information relevant or of interest to your target audience.

Most importantly, digital storytelling is now much more affordable and accessible to businesses. The introduction of digital storytelling platforms has allowed content creators and small businesses to easily use templates and no-code creation options to produce high-quality digital stories at scale. This enables you to incorporate digital storytelling as a regular content option in your marketing campaigns as opposed to a one-off initiative.

2. Digital storytelling humanises your brand

Because digital storytelling allows for more space to discuss your key themes and messages, you have a bigger opportunity to personalise your content and show the human side of your brand. 

You can humanise your brand through storytelling by:

• Personifying your brand – A clear brand identity and personality can give you a distinct tone of voice that will be evident in your digital stories. This can help your audience engage with your brand on a personal level.
• Speaking your audience’s language – Even if your digital story has beautiful animations, if the language is obscure or too technical, it can drive away your audience. It’s important to communicate with your audience in terms that are easy to understand.
• Encouraging interaction – Leverage the power of digital storytelling by maximising audience involvement with the animations or the narrative itself.
• Being consistent – Keep in mind that every element of your digital story needs to be anchored to a central key message. Having a consistent theme in your digital storytelling reinforces the messaging you want to share.
• Offering value without the sales talk – Pitching a product or service in a digital story can ruin the immersive experience that you are trying to create in your content. Sharing valuable information with your audience can encourage them to know more about your brand and take the initiative to learn about your offerings. 

Digital storytelling can help your brand become more approachable and personal while ensuring that your audience enjoys the experience as they go through the story you’ve created.

3. Digital storytelling provides valuable content to your audience

Creating customer-centred content with digital storytelling can positively impact your audience. Sharing valuable information with your viewers can help them enrich their lives and alleviate the pain points they are currently experiencing.

Digital storytelling also emphasises the human and personal aspects of your brand, which encourages an authentic connection between you and your audiences. 

3 examples of digital storytelling

Here are three case studies of digital storytelling, and why they were successful in using this medium.

1. Brexit by Numbers by Sky News

Brexit by the Numbers includes all the usual features of digital storytelling: its immersive format and scroll-based animation encourage audiences to learn more while allowing them to read the content at their own pace. Sky News was able to use a good balance of statistics and figures in their report on how the United Kingdom has changed since Brexit.

Source: Sky News

2. The inferno and the mystery ship by BBC

As a journalistic piece, “The Inferno and the mystery ship” by BBC News uses a compelling combination of images, long-form content and key data figures. The images immerse the reader into the story’s setting and give them a clear idea of the location’s milieu.

Source: BBC News

3. Aotearoa in 20 by Stuff

“Aotearoa in 20” by Stuff is a beautiful human interest piece, using a combination of illustrated portraits, numerical figures and graphs and long-form content. This digital story highlights the profiles of 20 people who the Stuff reports believe to represent the nation of New Zealand as a whole.

Source: Stuff

Before you put bells and whistles in your story-driven content with rich media and scroll-based animations, it’s important to know the story you want to tell. Contact us and we will help you develop your digital storytelling for your brand.