When you sandwich them together, though, it’s an interesting combination. Also, when you try to do it in the digital age, it creates memorable content that attracts customers to your brand.

Business storytelling on social media isn’t a new concept, but when done well, it’s interesting. Instead of people thinking of suits and stock markets when they think of a business, they’ll be able to relate to the faces behind a company.

What is Business Storytelling?

Business storytelling is the practice of sharing a company’s narrative with the rest of the world. Before becoming a successful business operating out of one or more properties, they start from much humbler roots.

Apple, for example, was started in a garage. Since its founding in 1976, in addition to a headquarters, there are more than 500 retail stores, countless products, over 130,000 employees, and a net revenue of more than 50 billion USD in 2018.

The purpose of this kind of storytelling is to help humanize a brand and connect to your audience in a way that isn’t dependent on you bombarding people with ads, or trying to sell them a product. Instead, talk about things like how are you changing the market, and how did you go from an idea to a brick-and-mortar store?

As much as we enjoy hearing stories of success, we also like to hear about the lack of funding, the constant borrowing at the beginning, environmental hazards, and furry critters making their way into your workspace. These sorts of things are relatable to the average Joe.

Most people aren’t business moguls, but they have had an odd encounter with Mother Nature at home. This sort of content is relatable, and if you share it on your social media channels, you can engage customers in a way that makes them loyal to you.

The Five Steps to Effectively Tell Your Brand’s Story

When it comes to explaining your brand and doing it online, there are five things you have to do.

• Have defined metrics.

• Show your brand’s best self.

• Leave the audience wanting more.

• Be consistent across all channels.

• Involve the public.

Through following the five previously mentioned points, and practicing your craft, you’ll be able to effectively tell your story on not only your website but also a variety of platforms.

Defined Metrics

Keeping your content focused on one or several areas is important to keep the attention of your audience. If you’re a restaurant owner, it doesn’t make much sense to share content related to deep-sea diving.

There are several things you can do to make content that works.

• Have a clear narrative.

• Say what happened and the setting.

• Who was involved?

• What were you trying to do?

• What challenges were overcome?

A Quick Example of Some of These Principles in Action

When Joe Smith’s Pizzeria was first opened, there were issues with the wood-burning stoves that were being used. The kitchen staff was burning the pizzas, and the opening was a nightmare. However, over time, the kitchen figured everything out, and the pies now come out perfect every time.

The crust is hard on the outside and soft on the inside, and the cheese is slightly browned on top but still gooey. Come on over to Joe Smith’s Pizzeria and grab a slice today, at our location at 123 Main Street in Anytown, USA.

Highlighting What Went Well With This Post

Joe Smith’s Pizzeria highlighted several of the things that people like to see. We know that this pizzeria makes pizza, and it’s a short story that flows logically. It also tells people of an issue, who was affected and how the issue was remedied.

Something that we liked is that the second paragraph of what will eventually be a post on social media used a variety of adjectives to give the reader a better picture of the pizza. They also gave the location of their restaurant, so you can go and check them out.

Showing Your Best Self

When it comes to posting about your businesses online, it’s important to tell stories that are relatable to everyday people. The story from the pizzeria is a great example of this because we’ve all burnt something in the kitchen.

The post doesn’t have to belong or be complicated, our example was less than 100 words, but when having story time on your Instagram feed, for example, you want to be concise with your words. This is done not to make people feel trapped in your post, sort of speak.

While showing your best self, it’s also important to talk about previous failures. People learn by making mistakes, and if you only highlight the good and never the mistakes that lead to the lessons, you’ll seem less human.

Another thing Joe’s Pizza can do is highlight not only the product but also the ingredients. If he locally sourced some of his ingredients, he could do a social media spotlight on some of his suppliers. Not only does this create an online sense of community, but people are more attracted to places that are farm-to-table because the products are fresher and better for you.

Leave Your Followers Something to Think About

Think of this as the “it” factor of your post, that helps set apart your company from others. This could be the lessons you learned along the way and why they’re important or applicable to situations outside of the business world.

If you’ve had a lot of highs and lows while building and maintaining your brand, consider doing a Spotlight Sunday series. In this campaign, you would share a short story and what you learned from it.

We are going to share two of our favourite life lessons that we learned the hard way. Rather than share the long version, we went for how it would be written on a throw pillow you would see in a Target. Every day may not be good, but there’s something good in every day. The other quote is you can’t control how other people act, but you can control how you react.

After reading the first quote, most people go, “Huh, I did have a bad day, but x happened, and that was great.” The second quote has a lot of practical wisdom attached to it. If two people are having a disagreement, and one person is yelling, and the other person is calm, then the calm person can work to de-escalate the situation.

Be Consistent Across All Your Social Media Platforms

When building your brand, it’s important to think about how your social media profiles will look across different accounts. You don’t want your accounts to look disjointed, and if we learned anything from the Tidying Up with Marie Kondo show, it’s that when things are organized, they spark joy.

Your brand should use the same colour scheme, and similar profile pictures, and have posts and stories that relate to your interests on the Insta, Facebook, Twitter, and any other social media feeds that are used.

It’s important to note that you may not be an expert at this at first, and that’s okay. With time and practice, you’ll learn how to tell your story consistently across multiple channels in a variety of ways to keep it fresh.

Emotional and linguistic consistency is also imperative. Customers like to have their expectations fulfilled and want their content to be consistent in quality, language, and attitude. There are now many online tools and services like Grammarly, ClassyEssay or TopEssayWriting that can help you maintain your tone and voice throughout all of your content, whether it’s for social media or blogs.

Involve Your Audience

One of the benefits of using social media is you get to take advantage of the wide reach of the internet. Why not take it one step further and build a sense of community while building your brand?

You can talk about things that affect not only your company but also how it affected you personally. If you collaborate with other people and groups, mention them. We briefly touched on this earlier with Joe’s Pizzeria and the social media spotlights.

You can also go to community events, set up a booth, provide some food, and snap some pictures. Another idea is if you’re a car dealership, whenever you sell a car, why not snap a picture of the salesperson, the family, and the vehicle?

You can also say who everyone is and a couple of features about the car. This makes for great content on your feed, and it helps differentiate you from other dealerships in your area because you are adding faces to your story!

Finally, the stories don’t have to always be about you or the brand, talk up collaborations with other people and businesses. Say how they’re changing the game, and highlight the lessons learned from not only that collaboration but about life in general.

The post Business Storytelling: Building Your Brand Using Social Media appeared first on Tricky Enough.

If you don’t like your 9-to-5 job and feel like making a big change in your career, you’ve come to the right blog. The freelance industry gives everyone more than enough opportunities to take a turn, work outdoors, and improve their quality of life.

According to Upwork, the largest freelancing platform in the world, 84% of full-time freelancers achieve the lifestyle they prefer. This is mostly why the number of freelance professionals keeps growing so steadily. Last year, over 56 million people were doing some sort of freelance work in the U.S. alone.

However, freelancing brings a few challenges of its own and some individuals still find it hard to give up traditional career development methods. If you are a member of this group, keep reading our post to learn about the benefits of freelancing and see five real-life success stories.

The Benefits of Being a Freelancer

Before we get you acquainted with our five freelance heroes, we want to discuss a highly practical side of this type of career building. According to content creators at Essay Shark, individuals who decide to switch from traditional to freelance work do it because of the following benefits:

• Flexible work hours: As a freelancer, you get to decide when to work. This doesn’t mean you can work less than before (on the contrary, most freelancers work even harder), but you definitely don’t have to wake up at dawn if you don’t want to.
• Flexible location: This benefit is our favourite. You are free to work from home but you can also find a cozy office that suits your requirements. However, you can decide that working from a local coffee bar is the perfect solution, while no one ever stops you from working while travelling.
• Choose clients and projects: Beginner-level freelancers tend to work with almost everyone, but you will soon start choosing clients and projects much more carefully. There is no need to work with people you believe to be rude or inappropriate in any way.
• You are your own boss: It is another benefit because you don’t have any superiors to tell you what and what not to do. While it does increase personal accountability, it makes you happier and more satisfied.
• A chance to earn more: As soon as you establish yourself as a successful freelancer, you can gradually start increasing revenue. Besides that, you get to keep all the money for yourself.

Real-Life Freelancing Success Stories

You have seen the pros of freelance working, but this section is where the real fun begins. It’s much easier to figure out the privileges and professional opportunities if you see examples of freelancers who already made a breakthrough. We present five such stories here:

1. 
   

   Nicolas Cole: Freelance writer

   
   

Nicolas Cole used to be a gaming fanatic and a copywriter at an advertising agency with a regular 9-to-5 job. Writing a book on gaming was his extracurricular activity for over four years, but he felt like it was time to change as soon as the book was released.

Nicolas decided to take a short break and visit a friend in Los Angeles. As he was running out of money, he started freelancing as a ghostwriter for all sorts of senior executives. Soon enough, it turned out to be an amazing business opportunity that allowed Nicolas to launch a company together with his friend Drew.

These two friends proved that assignment writing service plays a major role in modern business, particularly for CEOs and other senior managers who want but don’t have time to build their self-brands. The opportunity has been waiting for years, but it took Nicolas courage to leave his job and start doing what he does best.

2. 
   

   Paul Clarke: Freelance photographer

   
   

Here is another example of a person who uses his creativity to evolve and start doing something he really loves. Paul Clarke was an interim director working on government technology projects who turned into an event and portrait photographer.

The reasons for leaving his old position were standard: Paul wanted to get out of the rush and create a business he could really call his own. What we like about this story is that Paul admits there was not a single moment when he decided to become a full-time photographer. Instead, he calls it a long-term process that lasted for a few years.

Christopher Hudson, a content creator at “6dollaressay reviews†agency, says he has seen a lot of freelancers like Paul: “It takes a long time to make a decision and part ways with the old way of life. But the year is 2019 and I believe modern-day professionals should not be afraid of experimenting with freelancing anymore.â€

3. 
   

   Kelly Vaughn: Freelance web developer

   
   

Kelly Vaughn quit her government job to run her own digital freelance business in Atlanta. She is a professional web developer with dozens of successfully completed projects, but what makes her case so interesting? Well, it is Kelly’s determination to share her insights with other freelancers.

First of all, Kelly believes future full-time freelancers should spend some time working both jobs simultaneously. In her opinion, a freelancer might need up to a year to build a portfolio and grow a client base.

Secondly, Kelly recommends finding a convenient coworking space because new freelancers can hardly afford a solo office. It allows you to work in a relatively peaceful environment, but you can still meet new people and perhaps even grow your network of professional connections.

The third piece of advice is to scale your business cleverly. As time goes by, you will probably start working with many different clients, so don’t let it jeopardize the quality of work. Feel free to form your own team if necessary and hire one or two freelancers to help you.

4. 
   

   Brandon Cowan: Freelance mobile app developer

   
   

The story of Brandon Cowan is also very interesting. Back in 2010, Brandon was only a 19-year-old guy when the whole world started revolving around mobile apps.

Brandon always enjoyed playing with smartphones, while iOS coding has never been a stranger to him. This is why he decided to create the App Making Guide to help users learn how to develop their own iOS-based platforms. It turned out to be a huge success for a solo developer, so Brandon made a few more apps, including iParkedHere and PetRescue. His projects were getting better, so Brandon eventually decided to launch his own company called Crazy Dog Apps.

The thing we like about this story is that Brandon never even bothered with traditional employment. He started as a freelancer because he believed in his skills and ended up running his own company.

Our fellow colleagues claim that the ultimate point of the story is to focus on freelancing exclusively: “If you are a youngster with enough knowledge and potential, you might as well try your luck with freelancing straight away.â€

5. 
   

   Susanne Peng: Freelance designer

   
   

Susanne Peng is the last but certainly not the least interesting freelance success story on our list. Like many other freelancers, Susanne did not even consider making a career out of it. Instead, she engaged in a couple of extracurricular projects just to accumulate some money.

But the wheel kept turning faster and faster, so now Susanne is a super-successful freelance designer. One could say that it is the most common situation since most professionals don’t never plan to dedicate themselves 100% of the time.

Susanne’s message is clear – freelancing offers you tons of opportunities to make a career while choosing the lifestyle you want. The pressure grows, but so does the privilege of living the life you’ve dreamed of.

Conclusion

The freelance economy is far from perfect, but it creates a brand new world of career opportunities. It allows you to become your own boss, choose clients carefully, and work from wherever you want. On the other hand, it does force you to work twice as hard because you have to earn a decent living.

In this post, we showed you five stories of freelance success you should look at when deciding whether to make a career change or not. These are definitely not the only success stories out there, but it should be more than enough to give you that extra push and encourage you to try out new possibilities in your life. Good luck!

The post 5 Stories Of Freelance Success You Should Look At appeared first on Tricky Enough.