Introduction
The world is changing at an incredible pace. Our daily routine is being completely changed by new innovations that seem to come out of nowhere. Get Storied CEO Michael Margolis talks about our current age of disruption – and how storytelling plays a role in humanizing these innovative solutions with a broader audience.
Product Marketing Through Storytelling
Today, we’re living in the midst of one of the greatest revolutions of all time. As a cultural anthropologist, it’s been fascinating to see how people and organizations are inventing the future. For instance, I have worked with leading companies (Facebook, Google, Greenpeace, NASA). Each of these institutions is doing things that have never been done. As a result, these businesses face a unique product marketing challenge. How do you create a compelling narrative through storytelling?
The first challenge lies in the fact that these companies are challenging the status quo. By nature, people are not comfortable with moving their boundaries. As a result, you need to craft the narrative in a way that doesn’t create a “fight or flight” resistance from your target audience. In other words, you have to create cultural acceptance for new ideas through storytelling.
Just within the past 20 years, we have seen incredible shifts in the way we use storytelling. In the 1990s, the rise of technology completely changed for companies across the board. For example, business leaders realized that people’s strengths could be unlocked and leveraged by using technology.
Second, the explosion of social media platforms between 2006 and 2009 democratized storytelling for virtually everyone on the planet.
Now, everyone has a story that is shareable on thousands of platforms. In thinking about product marketing, social media has humanized businesses and is connecting more people to products than ever before. In other words, we have a completely different method for consuming content and the ways in which we receive content.
Finally, we are living in an age of disruption. Entire industries are transforming through rapid innovation. For instance, think about the impact of Uber and AirBnb. The way we think about transportation or finding a place to stay is completely different than 20 years ago. Furthermore, disruption is not only for startups or cool kids. The largest companies in the world are talking about disruption in their boardrooms. The number one business goal for any organization is about creating disruption to stand out.
In summary, people are experience-seeking, story-making machines. As a result, product marketing needs to focus on the human experience and build a narrative that resonates with people. This connects your product to people’s lives in the most impactful way possible.
About the speaker
Michael Margolis is one of the world’s leading experts in Narrative Strategy. A 2x TEDx speaker. A strategic advisor to Silicon Valley’s biggest brands. A cultural anthropologist and story philosopher. As CEO of Get Storied, Michael has pioneered breakthrough models to messaging, innovation, and large-scale change. He is the author of the Amazon #1 best-seller "Believe Me: A Storytelling Manifesto for Change-Makers and Innovators." You can find him on Twitter @getstoried where he engages with 250,000 followers.