Story telling on digital platforms

Story telling on digital platforms has become a part of regular routine by every section of the society and let's see what stories journalists, entertainment, brands, non-profit organisations, government and academia are telling successfully online.

a) Journalists, using digital media, introducing new topics into the public dialogue and giving stories longer life cycles than before.

b) Entertainment industry has increased competition and decreased funding for the production of compelling stories about social impact.

c) Brand strategists are creating an organisational strategy and a culture that empowers every staff member to create and value the role of stories in their work. d) Non-profits and business are telling stories coming from the people impacted by the work with best ideas on the best digital tools to capture and share stories with a wider audience.

e) Government and academia are using digital skills gap in social impact organisations and the need for training services and metric-driven.

For the purpose of today's article, let's concentrate more of storytelling from the non-profit organisations perspective and the most important elements are approach, capacity, digital content, digital platforms and assessment.

A) Approach

Non-profit organisations often directly jump into digital storytelling without articulating clear mission and goals, understanding the interests and motivations of the audiences, or setting assessable goals and objectives. Effective stories inspire people for non-profits by creating human connection and emotion attached to it.

Non-profit organisaton mandatorily needs to builds a community of support to expand its reach and resources. They must offer content, connections and opportunities for action. Supporters should get inspired to spread the word and engage others and resulting community offering support in the form of ideas, energy and resources.

Ultimately, you must be able to capture what they need, what they care about the cause and do they understand the problem and solution or feel a sense of urgency and do they know how to help.

B) Capacity

The most meaningful digital stories come from people with authentic and insightful experiences, even though they may not be skilled storytellers.

• Develop processes and tools to help all members assess their needs for storytelling talent.

• Provide resources to connect non-profit organisations with content-producing talent, technical assistance and training.

• Establish thought leadership forums to elevate the practice of storytelling in the non-profit sector through awards, conferences and public discussion.

• Educate all members about the impact potential of organisational requirements for effective digital storytelling by sharing examples of storytelling that helped organisations achieve meaningful goals

C) Digital content

In millennial world of hyper-competitive media environment, only the most captivating content gets noticed and shared.

• Provide processes and tools that guide content creators through the steps of crafting stories that motivate and engage people, and issue a call for action.

• Share best practices along with motivating case or studies that has persuasive digital content on a variety of topics you work or operate.

Ultimately, every non-profit organisation must be associated with a cause which has a solution, and people are benefited with goals that we have and everyone has a call to action.

D) Digital platforms

Many processes and tools enable storytelling on digital platforms for non-profit organisation, and the important are those helping with the creation, collection and curation as well as processes and tools to help connect experienced storytellers. All non-profit organisations have different needs based on target audiences, capacity and resources, and should make choices accordingly. There's no one size that fits all solution.

Develop a process or a tool that helps all to determine which digital platforms will help them reach their target audiences and learning how to engage with those audiences. Some of them are:

(i) For CMS/Blogging, Word press could be of best choice and you can go for php or other technologies just in case you have enough budget and people in place

(ii) For Email, you could use Mail Chimp or Constant Contact

(iii) For Social Media, you could use Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn

(iv) For Video & Audio, you could use YouTube, Vimeo and TikTok

E) Evaluation

Non-profit organisations that evaluate the impact of their digital storytelling accurately can learn what is working, and strengthen their digital storytelling. Google Analytics is a good tool and enables one of your active member check through it on a regular basis and review the results in the board meets.

Facebook, Instagram and all other social media platforms have Insights that make it easy to experiment, and that process may help you learn about what will perform. Constant Contact is another great tool that a lot of non-profits don't use effectively for evaluation.

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