Everyone’s talking about storytelling, it’s the latest trendy buzzword in marketing.

I really hate jargon, and the way ‘storytelling’ has become jargon especially irks me – as a lifelong storyteller, story-lover and fiction writer!

Let me qualify that slightly grumpy statement…

Storytelling IS how humans communicate and make sense of the world.

It’s how we learn from each other.

How we empathise with others.

The way we make real human connections – through shared experience, values, aspirations, and emotional reactions to different situations.

We are, by definition, a sociable species. It’s how we survive.

Sharing our knowledge and lessons through storytelling is how we educate, inform and entertain each other. From telling tall tales of fantastic beasts around campfires in caves, to tuning into our favourite series on Netflix and laughing or crying along with our favourite characters.

Good marketing – successful sales – is simply relationship building.

Millennia of evolution has taught us, instinctively, that telling and sharing stories is how we develop relationships.

Although, these days our camp fires are Social Media threads!

All of which is amazing and wonderful – but what I really can’t abide is when it’s disingenuous.

Storytelling needs to be authentic to be truly effective, as opposed to cynically successful!

Storytelling as a marketing practice is on the rise.

Don’t just take it from me, Linked In completed a comprehensive data study looking at the number of marketers listing storytelling as a skill on their Linked In profile and tracking its increase since 2011.

Read the results and check out the infographic here: ‘The Rise Of Storytelling In Marketing As Told By Linked In Data’

It was this line that struck me…

“Marketers may have liked the buzzword, but they didn’t take storytelling seriously as a skill.”

Telling stories is a serious skill, it’s not a buzzword.

Are you struggling to communicate through stories?

Book a FREE 30-minute Inspiration Call with me and I’ll help you rediscover your creative side.

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