Three Ways Social Media and Storytelling are Alike

Published on by David A. Kennedy

Stop tweeting and facebooking for a minute, will you? Yes, it’s popular and the love of many.

So much so that comedian Conan O’Brien predicts that in the year 3000, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook will merge to create the ultimate time-wasting website called YouTwitFace.

O’Brien may be joking, but social media is no joke.

According to statistics compiled by online marketer and “Socialnomics” author Erik Qualman, social media has overtaken porn as the number one activity on the web. Watch a visualization of the statistics here. Many other experts predict that the Internet of future will be much less cumbersome, becoming very portable, allowing people to communicate even easier than they do now.

So how does storytelling and social media relate?

  1. They both have the ultimate goal of connecting to an audience. Without establishing that connection, each becomes irrelevant and pointless.
  2. Both offer the opportunity to follow characters. Admit it, we stick with stories or visit social media profiles because we enjoy seeing what the characters there do next.
  3. Each have the power to inform, educate and encourage debate. All information sources have this in common.

Stay tuned for the next post in this two-part series: How to Use Social Media to Tell Your Story.

This post is the first part in a two-part series on social media and storytelling. Part two will cover [how businesses and individuals can use social media to tell their story](/blog/how-to-use-social-media-to-tell-your-story/’ |).


Tagged Social MediaStorytelling