You know when you’re sitting around with a bunch of friends at dinner or over drinks (tea, coffee, or otherwise) trading life stories? When one person shares a story, others want to follow. That conversation is what nonprofits should be striving for with their audience.
Before I get into this post, I want to remind you and let new readers know I did a series of posts on storytelling and took you through the process from beginning to end. I looked at different examples of stories in the news and explained how staff at organizations can write similar pieces. (If you didn’t read the series, you really need to check it out!)
This post is more about how to write a serial story on social media. I’m not finding exactly what I’m looking for online, so I’m going to create an example here. And continued in part two, I’m going to give examples of nonprofits that are doing storytelling well.
I think the best position for this in an organization would be a roving reporter, likely in the communications division but it doesn’t have to be. By roving reporter, I mean someone who doesn’t sit at a desk all the time, but goes around talking to people face-to-face — getting the story out of people who sometimes don’t know they hold one.
So here’s what I think is a great way to go about telling a story on Facebook. You could also write the entire story in a blog post (or series) and promote snippets of that. (This is just an example; I know parts of this might seem a tad unrealistic).