“Authentic” was the top word of 2023, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. The interest was “driven by stories and conversations about AI, celebrity culture, identity, and social media.”
Over the years, we’ve seen AI-driven content explode. We’re constantly faced with content that looks the same, feels impersonal, or doesn’t show any emotion.
Faced with increased fake, impersonal AI content, telling authentic stories from a first-person perspective will be essential.
If you’re looking for a silver bullet to break through the noise, you may be surprised to find out that employee posts outperform company pages by 561%.
As discussed in the “You’ve Got Comms” podcast by Staffbase, authentic content that isn’t perfect and tells real stories has the potential to strengthen the collective voice of your organization.
Here are the five key takeaways from the podcast interview “Turning Employees Into Advocates: Employee Storytelling in Internal Comms“:
1. Employee advocacy is your secret weapon
Employee advocacy is an untapped because many organizations often overlook the expertise and potential that exists within their own walls.
As my friend and communications consultant Jacques Foul says, “The Gold is in the House.” Essentially, your employees are your most valuable asset.
Emotionally, people connect with people, not logos. That’s what makes audiences stop scrolling and start engaging with your content.
For example, when I was working with the Global Partnership for Education, we gave the mic to our youth leaders collaborating with the organization. Young activists from around the world shared their challenges and explained what they wanted to do to transform the education system. It was eye-opening and helped everyone to appreciate the importance of education funding on a real, personal level.
2. Create a virtuous circle of sharing
Look into developing an employee advocacy playbook that provides some guidelines for everyone to build on.
Yet while you want to share best practice, you also want to give some leeway and freedom for staff to express themselves.
While working for an association, I organized regular lunch bag presentations for colleagues interested in social media. We discussed how to become a thought leader, how to stand out online, and how to share relevant industry trends.
Then, once others saw their colleagues sharing online, they were less scared and it created a virtuous cycle of sharing. People weren’t doing it because they had to, but because they enjoyed it!
The idea is to give everyone the tools to speak up – if they choose to do so. The comms team should be like a resource that everyone can tap into.
From behind-the-scenes stories to expert insights, your staff has the potential to enrich the organization’s content strategy in authentic and impactful ways.
3. The C.A.R. sequence helps everyone become a storyteller
One of the challenges of storytelling is finding the right stories.
But what if everyone becomes a storyteller? If you teach colleagues the C.A.R. sequence, everyone can tell their story:
- C = Challenge. What’s happening? What challenge are you facing?
- A = Action. What are you doing to face this challenge? What are the solutions?
- R = Result. In the end, did it work? What was the impact? What did you learn?
For some clients, I helped develop a clear, concise template for impact stories that followed a consistent narrative structure: introducing the challenge, explaining the solution, and showcasing impact.
Thanks to training workbooks, case studies, interactive exercises, and step-by-step storytelling instructions, everyone could participate. We trained hundreds of employees to tell their stories (find out more in this case study).
My message is to keep it simple and collaborative, if people are included and feel involved, they will feel proud and take ownership of the storytelling process.
There’s the famous saying: “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” It’s the same with storytelling: by giving people the knowledge and tools to tell stories, they become an integral part of your organization’s communications efforts.
4. Be real and don’t try to compete with AI
While organizations rush to automate their communications, they’re missing the most powerful content strategy available: empowering employees to share authentic, first-person stories that no algorithm can replicate.
Faced with increased fake, impersonal AI content, telling authentic stories from a first-person perspective is essential. This means that we need to be more creative and find the employees, clients and advocates who can give life to the work of our organization.
That’s how you break through the noise—by telling authentic stories that a robot couldn’t have written.
Let me share a story that illustrates this point perfectly. In “Engage with Impact: Five Steps to Transform Your Digital Communications For Social Impact“, I write about communications during the wildfires in British Columbia, as told by communications consultant Tim Conrad. The teams initially created polished, professional videos, but what got results from the media were low-quality videos from mobile phones showing firefighters in the heat of action. These rough, honest videos got people’s attention and stopped them from scrolling.
The lesson here is that your communications should showcase your uniqueness and personality, even if the editing isn’t perfect. Being authentic means being imperfect, warts and all, and talking about your challenges and how you’re dealing with them.
An example of the real, raw footage of wildfires by Tim Conrad of Butterfly Effect Communications Inc.
5. No one is perfect!
In digital communications, things are moving so fast. Social media algorithms are constantly changing, with new platforms or formats emerging every couple of months.
We need to experiment to succeed online. By nature, experimenting means you’re going to make some mistakes along the way…
When I lived in Brussels, there was a series of events called “Fuckup Nights“, which celebrates the mistakes of entrepreneurs. It’s like a TED Talk on the topic of failure.
Yet, while the startup community is open to failure, I have found that many international organizations aren’t open to it, and for this reason, they do not evolve. In effect, being authentic means accepting that we aren’t perfect, and as long as we accept our vulnerability and show progress, we can stand out in a sea of perfect social media posts.
You can find out more in my blog post following the event “Epic Fails: Turning Communication Missteps into Mastery” aimed at enabling EU communication teams to share their stories and lessons learned from failed campaigns.
My message is simple: if we can learn from our mistakes and adopt an open dialogue that doesn’t always present the perfect side of things, we will be more innovative and authentic in the long run.
Find out more on the Staffbase website and watch the full podcast interview below:
Ready to boost your storytelling potential? Get in touch with me to shape employee anecdotes into compelling stories for your organization.
