Story & Social Media: Communicating Brand Experience in the Digital World. From this presentation, attendees will take away: 1. How to leverage storytelling to communicate authenticity of experience in the digital world. 2. How to reach and market effectively to demanding future-leaning demographics, including Millennials, who value authenticity, unique experiences and personalization in travel products. 3. Why communication of experience is crucial to the positioning and differentiation of your brand. 4. How to leverage media, bloggers and brand evangelists as real-world storytelling agents to communicate the depth of your product and the values of your brand.

1. Story and Social Media: Communicating Brand
Experience in the Digital World
Daniel Noll & Audrey Scott, Uncornered Market
UncorneredMarket.com,
QVGlobal.com
facebook.com/UncorneredMarket
@umarket

2. Consumer & Millennial Trends
Story: Business Case & Techniques
Brand StorySocial Media & EngagementBloggers as Storytelling Agents
Y
our
Q
uestions
Tweetable? @umarket #ITBBerlin

3. Close Your Eyes

4. What Business Are We In?
Travel?
Experience?
Inspiration?
Differentiation?

5. Consumer Travel Trends
☑“Authentic + engaging travel experiences”
☑Deeper connections, esp. to people
☑Local approach + unique
☑Transformative journeys
Source:
SKIFT
Reports:
Megatrends
Defining
Travel
in
2015
&
Rise
of
Experiential
Travel
2014,
ITB
Travel
Trends
2014

6. Millennial Travel Trends
• Support brands that do something good for
them…and the world
• 3x more likely to demonstrate brand loyalty,
seek authenticity & 2-way conversation
• Always online, especially on mobile.
• Want “cool factor” and unique over other
features
Source:
SGB
Millenials
Report
&
Boston
Consulting
Group
Traveling
with
Millennials

7. Backdrop: Too many messages
Prospect, 6000 messages. Japan photo
Too
many
messages…!
!
Your
average
prospective
customer
is
enduring
more
than
6000
advertising
messages
every
day

8. Storytelling: Why?
Story Action
Retention
Builds
Trust
Depth
of
Impression
Commodity
! Differentiation

9. Storytelling: What it is NOT
An itinerary
A list of sites, activites,
amenities
A bunch of statistics
A press release
Fiction, making things up

10. What
is
Story
and
Storytelling?
An
account,
a
telling
of
an
experience
Demonstrates
via
characters
and
their
changes
Does
NOT
need
to
be
long-­‐form

11. Storytelling
Techniques
Show,
don’t
tell
Involve
characters,
find
one
person
Seek
emotion
Crux
and
conflict
Multi-­‐dimensional,
multi-­‐sensory

12. The New Brand Story
◎Connect
what
you
do
to
why
it
matters
◎Transparency
&
Authenticity:
real
and
raw
◎Customers
are
the
heroes,
part
of
the
journey
◎Humanize
the
brand
◎Think:
brand
as
values
in
action

13. Experience: Go Beyond the Brochure
Transformative
journey,
come
back
different
Sense
of
personalization:
I
create
my
own
story
Uniqueness
Consume
à Participate
à Create
and
Impact

15. Connection
with
Place…

16. With
People…

17. And
with
ourselves…

18. Digital and Social Media Strategies

20. Digital
Media
&
Storytelling
Source:
Euromonitor
International,
The
New
Online
Travel
Consumer,
February
2014

21. Inspire AND Inform
Become an authority
Be helpful first, be human
DON’T be spammy
Develop trust -> Build Relationships
Demonstrate your values
Social Media: Engagement & Branding
Engagement
&
Relationship
>
Numbers

22. Empower
and
engage
your
staff
&
customers
to
be
your
storytellers

23. Video
Content:
Not
Just
for
YouTube
Short,
mobile
videos
effective

24. Encourage Your Customers to Share!
◎People trust people,
especially family and friends.
◎“If they can do it, I can do it.”

25. Content Creators
Videographers
Social Media Mavens
Digital Storytellers
Photographers
Writers
Story
Business
Consultants
MarketersAdvocates
Speakers
Twitter
Destination Ambassadors
Quality
Personal Voice
FacebookInstagram
YouTube
Adventurers
Bloggers – Influencers - Ambassadors

26. Personal voice and tone
REAL experiences, REAL people
Authority from independence & trust
Engaged community, follows blogger
Your story à part of blogger story
Multi-Platform, versatile
“People don’t trust entities. People trust people.”
- Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek
Why Can Bloggers-Influencers-
Ambassadors Be Effective Storytellers?

27. EXPERIMENT!

28. Upshot & Take-aways
New travel currency = experience and connection
Story = differentiator
Social Media = storytelling tool
Digital = human exercise

29. Thank You!
!
!
Let’s continue the conversation. Connect with us on:
UncorneredMarket.com & QVGlobal.com
Email: dan@QVGlobal.com
Twitter: @UMarket
Facebook: /UncorneredMarket