How to curate your brand community with Storify

1. Design guidelines
How to curate a brand community
Presented by Kai Turner – 08 January 2012

2. Why Storify?
Own your brand
conversation
Storify makes it quick and easy to
consolidate user generated content about
your brand (across multiple channels) –
and publish it centrally.
Discussions in context
Whereas discussion on Twitter and other
social media forums can be fragmented
and fleeting, Storify allows you to put
everything in context.
Many media outlets already see the value
in using Storify as a news channel.
We believe there is a great opportunity for
brands to follow suit and begin using the
service to curate their online community
discussion.

3. Multiple channels, one conversation
Curation made easy
Storify allows you to consolidate
conversations across multiple channels
and republish a single ‘story’ on the main
website, as well as reposting to your
company blog.
How?
These design guidelines will walk you
through a typical workflow.

4. Track notable conversations
On YouTube
Keep ‘favorites’
As part of your social media engagement
plan, keep track of important
conversations – especially regarding
topics that capture the attention and
interest of your online community.
On Twitter
Tell a story
Rather than just posting a collection of
your favourite tweets– pay attention
to themes which you can use to find an
overarching narrative thread linking the
various comments together.
This is where your insight and expertise as
the brand curator can add value.

5. Build the story
First, choose a hero
image
Avoid the generic default banner by
choosing a lead image to represent your
story.
Make sure you choose a larger image (at
least 502px wide) so that when it fills the
banners on the homepage or the listing
page it will not be enlarged and blurred.

6. Use a variety of content
Make it visually rich
Alternate between tweets, videos and
images to keep the story visually rich and
interesting.
Provide more context
In addition to quoting a selection of
comments, search for and include
additional content related to the
discussion.
For example, did a fan comment about
a recent advert? Add the comment from
Twitter and then follow it with a YouTube
video of the advert.

7. Share the story
Mention and give credit
your fan community.
Storify’s sharing feature give the option
to mention the names of the contributors
whose content was used in the creation of
the story.
It’s an easy way to give fans of the brand
an official endorsement and to encourage
their continued participation.

8. Our summary
Get started today
We think Storify is another useful and
valuable tool in your social media arsenal.
It’s a low effort, high reward means of
engaging your brand community.
We recommend that you incorporate it
into your social media planning today.
Follow me on Twitter – @kaigani