Over the past few weeks I’ve been conducting a social media experiment. Having lost my mojo and gone through a phase of posting hardly anything for months, I re-engaged by setting the intention of finding and sharing stories on Facebook and Instagram rather than just posting pictures with short captions or random updates.
My hope was that sharing stories that made a point would create more engagement than other types of post. And this is what I discovered.
I wrote my first post using a classic story structure:
At the beginning of this week I was feeling stressed and anxious. I was facing an unusual confluence of events: an interview for a TV documentary followed by a day-long shoot filming storytelling tutorials. Being on camera. Having to be visible. Needing to be a bit…. jazz hands, metaphorically speaking.
Then I realised that, unless I wanted to feel under pressure all week, I’d have to make a decision: feel fearful or be open to the possibility that I might enjoy myself. Thankfully I chose the latter.
So on Tuesday I was interviewed for the forthcoming BBC4 documentary about Soft Cell. And I really enjoyed it – making connections and coming up with insights in the moment while reminiscing about the 80s.
And yesterday I embraced the experience of shooting videos and discovered I have a hidden talent for reading the autocue. A career as a newsreader beckons.
I emerged with a feeling of achievement and a lessening of my discomfort at being in front of a camera.
I really did enjoy myself. It reminded me of one of the lessons of the Course in Miracles (I’m not an expert, just happen to know this one): the power of decision is my own. If I choose to feel stressed and fearful, that’s my choice. If I decide to feel joy, that’s what I’ll get. And I did.
I had some good photos to go with it, which obviously helps, but I know that if I’d just said ‘Here I am shooting a video’ I wouldn’t have got such a reaction.
RESULT: 100 likes and loves, 40 comments – by far the best response I’ve had to a post for months
Encouraged by this, I carried on. The next experiment was an exercise to see if I could tell a story about an object that caught my eye. At the time I was at my friend and collaborator Nicky Moran’s house. I saw her acoustic guitar and wrote a story about that, using a photo of the guitar.
Nicky’s acoustic guitar sits in the corner, in silence. I’m not going to pick it up – I can’t play. In fact, I can’t play any musical instrument. But it reminds me of the awe in which I held (most) musicians when I was a music journalist in the 80s. How in my mind the ability to make music was magical – because the only keyboard I could play was (and still is) a typewriter. I elevated the art of playing an instrument far above anything I could create as a writer. But only now do I realise a story well told can elevate the emotions in exactly the same way as a beautiful piece of music. The guitar is still sitting in silence. But my keyboard is singing.
RESULT: 35 likes/loves, 11 comments – not as big a deal as that first post but still much better than usual
Post number three was inspired by an unusual teapot and ended with an invitation.
What an imposing teapot. I like the shape, the design and the colours. It reminds me of the teapots my mum used to put on the table when I was a child. They made a statement – signalling that taking tea was a significant part of family life. It was the focus of connection – a gathering point. And then the teapot became old-fashioned – so last-century. Now we have different gathering points – many of them virtual. This teapot was presented to me at my private members’ club in London, The Library, in St Martin’s Lane. This teapot is reassuringly old-fashioned – solid, reliable, functional. It still signals connection and gathering. So it got me thinking: who would like to join me for tea at The Library? We can chew the fat. Tell stories. Do that old-fashioned human connection thing over an imposing teapot. Who’s up for it?
RESULT: 24 likes/loves, 34 comments, 12 potential tea dates
All very healthy responses given that I’d practically disappeared from Facebook and the algorithm would probably not have been working in my favour. During this time I’ve also posted more factual updates to test my theory, and they haven’t had as much response.
I know this is not exactly a scientific experiment but the results bear out what I believe to be true, which is that telling stories on social media leads to greater engagement, and therefore raises your profile and makes you stand out from the crowd.
If you want to hear more, I spoke about storytelling and marketing in an interview with my friend Tanya the Communication Doctor. You can watch that HERE.
It’s official: stories rock.
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