The power of stories

A simple story is worth a thousand earnest words, as my colleagues in Marcom PR are constantly reminding me.

But is it true in general marcoms?

Perhaps a simple anecdote would best illustrate how effective they can be:

Addressing a conference recently on social networking strategies, I was struggling to explain how twitter could be used effectively by people in the business to business world. “Surely serious businessmen don’t tweet, or read them,” they said.

So I pointed out that I had tweeted the fact that I was going to be speaking at that conference (which incidentally was about marketing, not social networking).

I had had three responses: one from a delegate, with whom I had met over coffee and exchanged business cards, and two from existing clients – both of whom were impressed that I was going to be speaking there, and in whose opinion I had therefore been elevated to that of a ‘social networking guru’.

As a result, nearly all those delegates are now tweeting regularly, as part of an integrated marcoms strategy.

Good huh? That’s the power of stories.