Social media has over 4.48 billion users combined across all channels. If you’re an accounting firm or professional services firm trying to gain traction on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or other platforms, it can seem daunting – almost impossible. However, through brand storytelling on social media, it’s possible to:

• Build trust and connection
• Gain followers
• Stand out in a crowd

Plus, you can help tell your story the way you want. You control the narrative with storytelling, which is vital for your firm’s success.

What is Brand Storytelling on Social Media?

Stories aren’t just for books. Your brand has a story, and storytelling is super important for any practical marketing plan for an accounting firm.

Why?

It helps make your business “real.” When you create a story, you’re trying to do a few things:

• Convey certain messages
• Communicate with your audience

On social media, you’ll be telling the story of your firm’s services, how you help customers and explain what your firm is all about. However, you don’t want to use social media only for selling. Instead, let’s assume that your firm helped a local animal shelter reduce costs, save money and, in turn, help more animals.

You can create a story, telling the world of these events through social media.

The best part is that you get to tell the story in the way that you want. Use videos, photos, or even text to connect with your audience.

Why Storytelling on Social Media is Important

Storytelling works. We’ve had great success helping brands tell their stories, and what we’ve found through our experience is that this form of communication is very effective.

73% of marketers agree that social media marketing is effective for businesses. But when you add in storytelling, it propels your social media efforts because it:

• Triggers emotion to create a personal connection with followers that keeps them engaged and builds trust.
• Encourages users to take action and reaches a deeper psychological level than text. Let’s use the local animal shelter as an example. A brand’s story can be so powerful that people donate their time or money to help the shelter.
• Creates a sense of value and trust in your business. Stories are real and hit on emotional triggers that add value to your firm.
• Embeds your story in followers’ minds so that there’s a deep connection between your firm and the follower. 

Firms that simply show a picture of tax savings on Instagram will not build trust and brand value in the same way that a firm telling a story will.

The best part is that you can use brand storytelling on social media in conjunction with your other social media marketing strategies. Let’s see how to tell your story the right way.

How to Properly Tell Your Brand’s Story – Storytelling on Social Media 101

You know it’s important to tell your story, but how do you properly tell your story? We recommend a straightforward approach that will help you create stories on all social media platforms.

• Research your audience. Before you create your story, you need to know who the story will touch, what may seem compelling to the audience and what engages them the most. You can use your past posts to see what already works best with your audience and use this data to create your story.
• Create a long story. Build a long story for your business, which may include the entire story of your business and numerous smaller stories.
• Write your story. Either write the story yourself or work with someone that can create an authentic, interesting story for your business. You might use video marketing to tell your story, but if it’s engaging to read, it will be even better in video.
• Create meaning. Judge the story subjectively and be sure that it’s meaningful and filled with emotion.

Once you’ve worked through all of these steps, you’ll need to choose the formats that you want to utilize to tell your story.

Formats You Can Use to Tell Your Stories

You have your story, so, now what? It’s time to tell your story the way you want. Telling your story can be done across multiple formats, or you can choose a single format – it’s up to you. There’s also the option to repurpose your content and utilize the same content across all formats.

A few formats that you can use are:

Written

Written text is a great option, and it’s also accessible for potential clients that may use screen readers or can’t listen to the video. Text is also a great way to tease about videos being posted in the near future.

Images

Image posts are a great way to tell a story. Create a series of image posts to help build a story through imagery. You can also create images like swipe files, which you’ll commonly see on platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn.

Video

Using video to tell your story is advantageous because 81% of businesses prefer video marketing because it works so well. Even on Instagram, videos get 21% more engagement than photos.

And video gets 1200% more shares than photos and text combined.

If you use video and want to maximize its usefulness, add text to the video, too. Text helps people watch your video and gain context because many people have their sound muted, especially on Facebook. If you want help using video marketing, check out our article here.

Your story is your own, and it’s important to tell the story using a format that you like and enjoy. 

Final Thoughts

Social media has a significant impact on the way that your target audience perceives your brand. If you’re not controlling the narrative and at least using storytelling in a small capacity, you’re missing out on the actual benefits of social media.

Since 54% of social media users use platforms to research services, don’t you think it’s important to control the narrative?

We do.

If you follow the advice above, you can start implementing stories into your marketing strategy to build your client list and gain the trust that your accounting firm needs to build its client base.

Do you need help storytelling on social media? If so, book a call with us today to see how we can help your firm with brand storytelling.