Stories Can Work Two Miracles in Blogging for Business

When Speaker Magazine posed the question, “Why do audiences want more stories, regardless of the topic, in the presentations they attend?”  Robert McKee was ready with the answer: Story fits the mind.  It is how the mind absorbs, sorts, and structures reality.”

As a corporate blogging trainer, I was especially interested in a remark McKee makes as he begins his one-day Business Story Seminar:  “In an age of 24/7 information, nothing dates faster than factual content,” he says.  Story, on the other hand, is both emotional and intellectual, he explains, capturing hearts as well as minds.  

Story, to hear McKee tell it, can work two “miracles”.  Each of these, I think, could be applicable to blog content writing.

Delivering what McKee calls “an immersive experience” around your products, services, and brand assets. What McKee cautions professional speakers to avoid is clinging to one “signature story” and including that in every presentation.  The trouble, he says, is that what is your signature story may not be the audience’s signature story. Better to have lots of stories, he advises, with each one designed for a particular audience.

In a very specific sense, the different-stories-for-different audiences idea is highly apropos for blog writing. Most business owners and professional practitioners will tell you they have more than one target audience for their products and services. While one market segment or demographic may be yielding the best results for them, they also have “outliers” who bring in just enough revenue to matter. Taking advantage of the flexibility of blogging, writers can offer different kinds of information, presented in different “tones”, in different blog posts.

Developing a narrative around which you and your employees can rally. As McKee helps organizations such as Microsoft, Nike, and Hewlett-Packard develop their narrative game plan, he uses story to transform the organization “into a united tribe,” explains Speaker Magazine. In other words, the very process of creating a story to tell your “public” (meaning your customers and clients), helps you clarify your story to yourself!