Humans have been telling stories since the beginning of time – and for good reason. Stories captivate our attention by bringing ideas, opinions, and emotions to life in a powerful, memorable way. However, as time, technology and consumers have evolved, how do companies tell stories that resonate today?

Follow these five tips to jumpstart your brand storytelling efforts:

1. Telling Great Stories Comes From Knowing Who You Are

Before you dive into storytelling, you need to define who you are. Regardless of your industry, size, or whether you are a B2C or B2B company, your brand’s mission, values, and personality lay the foundation to how you build your brand storytelling strategy and, ultimately, the stories you bring to life.

Key starter questions to ask yourself include:

• What is your purpose – e.g. why does your brand exist?
• What does your brand stand for?
• What is the culture you want to nurture?
• How do you define your brand values?

A company that has a strong sense of self is Zappos. For Zappos, its purpose is delivering happiness for its customers and employees. The company formally defines its purpose as, “To live and deliver WOW!” While Zappos does very little marketing, the campaigns they do activate are tied back to their culture and values.

For example, during a recent Leap Year, Zappos developed a Change.org petition to make Leap Day a national paid holiday and led by example, giving its employees the day off. What truly hit the point home with this campaign were the real stories from Zappos employees on how they spent their extra day off. From completing their bucket list items like bungee jumping, to two employees getting married, officiated by CEO Tony Hsieh, Zappos truly lives its purpose through employee and values-driven storytelling.

2. Maximize Your Macro & Micro Storytelling Moments

As you’re building your brand storytelling strategy, companies typically have two main types of stories to focus on: macro and micro stories. Macro stories are at the core of your organization’s DNA. They highlight your company’s story, its founding myth, while micro stories are the lifeblood of your storytelling strategy. They are an “always-on” approach to continue building on your macro story.

Back when I was the social media lead for Dunkin’ Donuts, macro and micro storytelling was an important part of our content and consumer engagement strategy. Dunkin’ Donuts’ macro story is around keeping its busy, on-the-go customers running. During my time at Dunkin’, we launched campaigns like #mydunkin, where we used social listening to cast real customers – and their stories – in an ad campaign showcasing how they rely on the brand to keep them going during their busy days.

However, equally, if not more important, were the brand’s micro storytelling moments. Every company wants to talk about its products and services, but how often do you take fans behind the scenes into the secret DD Test Kitchen to interview the person behind the product on its inspiration? Or, what about maximizing holiday occasions for brand storytelling? Leading up to Halloween, we launched the #dresseDD contest, asking fans who Dunkin’ should be for Halloween by transforming their coffee cups into wicked, wonderful and downright wacky costume creations. From a 1920s flapper, to Frankenstein, pirates, ladybugs and more, each cup became a character – with a story to tell!

3. Embrace Different Visuals To Bring Stories To Life

Did you know that 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual? Or, that visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text alone? As you’re developing the stories you want to tell, think strategically about the right visuals to bring your stories to life. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a well-placed meme or GIF can put an exclamation point on the story you’re trying to tell. Videos bring in more immersive experiences through the use of sound, motion and overall cinematography, while infographics are the go-to for visualizing data-driven stories. Also, don’t forget about SlideShare’s abilities to transform your story into a snackable, highly searchable eBook!

A clever example of how you can use visuals to bring even the most boring of stories to life comes from H&R Block. Leading into tax season, the company declared that American millennials were suffering from a Hipster Tax Crisis. Bold and a bit cheeky, right? But, the point was to position H&R Block as an expert in the space through stories and memes inspired by wacky questions the company has been asked while preparing taxes over the years.

To bring this story to life, H&R Block curated a series of “Hipster Tax Facts” from campaign spokesperson Kenny Mayne, who is well-known for his work with ESPN. The “Hipster Tax Facts” were packed into nice, shareable meme-style visuals and toggle the line between useful and obscure, with zany one-liners such as, “You must report your income, even if you think it’s such an obscure number that no one else would truly understand.” A supporting microsite and supplemental social media content presented the facts – with a healthy splash of sassy storytelling.

4. Where You Tell Your Story Shapes How You Tell Your Story

While the right visual or narrative may bring your story to life, it’s the channel that gives your stories a home. Simply put, where you tell your story, shapes how you tell your story. Too often, companies create their social media content or supporting assets for a brand story en masse. Instead, why not look to channels for inspiration as you’re sharing how you tell your story?

Whether it’s print, out-of-home billboards, online communities, product packaging, social media channels and more, each channel has its own spoken and unspoken rules of engagement. For example, the Calgary Zoo issued its 2012 annual report on Instagram. Instead of only issuing the report in a traditional PDF format, each image on Instagram served as a different page in the report. Packed full of the stats, financial figures and even a welcome note from their President & Chief Executive Officer, the Instagram posts tell the Calgary Zoo’s story in a unique, highly visual way. A true first of its kind, the Calgary Zoo’s creativity in issuing its annual report in a new way were celebrated far beyond Canada. So much so, that the annual report generated millions of views around the world, helping the zoo to attract more individual and corporate donors.

5. Great Storytellers Put The Customer Experience First

Imagine this. You’re hiking the Pacific Northwest trail in Oregon. The scenery is incredible, but you cannot enjoy it because you’re in agony over too-small hiking boots from REI. Also, you’re in the middle of nowhere, incredibly far from the nearest outdoor apparel store. What do you do?

As fate would have it, the customer called REI for help and get this – the company actually sent her a new pair of boots in the correct size – mid-hike. Interestingly, REI has an incredible customer service policy that allows for items to be returned and re-delivered mid-hike, provided that the issue goes beyond ordinary wear and tear. However, what REI couldn’t predict was that this seemingly ordinary customer would later go on to write a best-selling memoir about this very hike, called Wild. REI ended up getting free placement in the movie, which starred Reese Witherspoon, all for delivering a remarkable customer experience.

This example underscores a critically important point for brand storytellers and company executives alike. In the age of the empowered consumer, your brand is not what you say it is. It is what they, your current and prospective customers, say it is. If your customer experience is not up to par, it can and will undermine your brand storytelling and overall marketing efforts. Brand storytelling is not a band-aid that will fix problems with your products or services. Instead, brand storytelling is a tool best leveraged to shine a spotlight on genuine elements of your company. Bonus: by prioritizing the customer experience, not only will your stories be more meaningful, but new stories will emerge.

Are you ready to tell your brand’s story?

If you have any brand storytelling questions that you would like to see covered in a future blog post, please leave it in a comment below!

For more information on how to jumpstart or fine tune your brand storytelling strategy check out our book The Laws of Brand Storytelling! I had the incredible honor of co-writing this book with my dear friend and inspiring marketer Ekaterina Walter.