Sxsw 2011 the role of social mediums as a narrative platform

The Role of Social Media in Interactive Storytelling
Esther Lim
Founder, The Estuary, LLC

Social Media as a narrative/engagement platform
Summary
Social Media is a content layering tool to provide extra content to fans
When used as an alternate narrative platform, Social Media can:
Enrichthe primary story through greater character/scenario details
Extend the primary story through exploration of additional standalone yet related story universes
Engage audiences by bringing the fictional world into the real world through social interaction, shared experiences and co-authorship
Page 2Developed by: The Estuary, LLC

How do you use social media as a narrative platform?
Character/Scene development with social profiles/blogs
Illustrate the character’s socialgraph (friends, interests, interactions)

Use status updates and photos to deepen the plot or introduce sub plots/back stories

Use threads to introduce secondary characters, augment character dialogue

Use blogs to shift story perspective, highlight internal dialogue

Activate audience participation
Use micro blogs like Twitter or Tumblr to capture real time events unfolding and tweet call to actions
Use social mobile media to drive readers to specific locations for more content discovery

Benefits of using social media in your narrative
Audience Connection and Engagement
Emotional Connection: Audiences can form “friendships” with the character
Community Building: Friendships and community forms around shared experiences
Engagement/Co-Authorship: Opportunity for readers to share ideas about the story that can later be integrated into future story development

Benefits of using social media in your narrative
Marketing and Promotion
Story Awareness and Discovery: Bring your story to where people play online
Content syndication/sharing: Good stories create social cache and are shared across friend/fan networks
Improves search engine discoverability: More mentions, hyperlinks, tags and discussions drives better search engine visibility
Audience acquisition: Multiple storytelling platforms create more entry points for entering and engaging with the story and its community of readers

Getting started with social media narrative
How do I know if social media is right for my story?
Understand your audience and how they consume content
Design the level of reader participation you want to build
Identify the best social media platforms for your story/character
Build natural entry points (“rabbit holes”) in the story that lead to alternate supporting narratives
Leverage platform features to augment story experience
Write the experience for all three tiers of content consumers:
Passive Consumer
Occasional Participant/Lurker
Die Hard Fan
Allow enough ramp up time (4-6 weeks) for character integration into a community. Relationships are not built overnight.

Esther LimFounder, The Estuary, LLC
esther@theestuarysf.com
www.theestuarysf.com
@geekgrl or @theestuarysf

http://lanyrd.com	12
http://www.linkedin.com	8
http://www.speakerfile.com	1

Sxsw 2011 the role of social mediums as a narrative platform

by Esther Lim

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

3 Embeds 21

Statistics

Sxsw 2011 the role of social mediums as a narrative platform Presentation Transcript