Story as Strategy: How Social Storytelling Leads to Business

Do you use storytelling in your business?

Are you wondering how to use stories in your social strategy?

To learn how you can use stories to sell, I interview Gary Vaynerchuk for this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast.
More About This Show

The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner.

It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting).

In this episode, I interview Gary Vaynerchuk, author of Crush It! and The Thank You Economy. He's also the CEO of VaynerMedia. His newest book is Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy World.

Gary shares why storytelling is important for your business.

You'll learn how to discover deeper data and why analytics are an essential part of your social strategy.

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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Story as Strategy
The story behind Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook

Gary explains how he had an epiphany that he might have let people down by over-indexing the act of giving in The Thank You Economy. Although he knew his readers would understand that to give is great, they wouldn't necessarily understand that at some stage you have to ask.

The book title, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, stands for Give, Give, Give, Ask. You have to remember to give value, which eventually leads to putting out a good call to action, which leads to business. Gary says that even some of the best social media people don't know how to ask for business.

The idea behind the book was for it to be a utility for people. It looks at individual pieces of content as case studies.

You'll hear why Gary wanted to write a how-to book and why the title is a boxing metaphor.

Listen to the show to find out why Gary looks at social media as a science.

What boxing teaches us about social media marketing

Gary explains that it's the crossroads of the analytics and being creative to create business results.

He feels like a lot of social media experts don't put enough effort into analyzing data. Gary didn't put in the effort either until he started VaynerMedia. Now he has seven full-time analysts. This has given him a much deeper insight into the black-and-white of it all.

There are also people who think it's all algorithmic. They underestimate the value of the human touch and creative, which is the art. Analysis is the science. It's the crossroads of the two.

Most social media marketers don't look deep into their analytics because of time or capacity. Most are consumed by speaking, consulting and selling content. Gary feels that it's time and money that hold most people back. This is why he wanted to share his ideas.

Gary recommends that you use Facebook analytics to test for deeper data. It's a great tool that has a ton of uses.

You need to think about and test what you put on your Facebook page and Twitter.

Listen to the show to find out why Gary likes to isolate himself into 'doing' versus 'consuming.'

Common traps marketers fall into when it comes to social media

Gary advises that you need to be careful and be able to back up what you say.

He believes that he gets away with a lot of stuff because of the huge success he has had with Wine Library TV. Plus VaynerMedia is an eight-figure business already, where the number of employees has grown from 25 to 300.

You'll find out why self-awareness is important and what else you need to consider when you want to help people.

Listen to the show to find out why execution matters.

Why storytelling is important

Gary says that storytelling matters because stories are powerful and everlasting and they are what turn a commodity into a business.