Once upon a time...
Photo by Zakaria Ahada on Unsplash
According to so many sources, a good content specialist needs to be a storyteller. In words, in images, with video — whatever the medium. Whatever the content, to find the emotional hook, the resonance, the story my target audience needs to feel engaged.
I have never been able to join the dots between the idea of this “storyteller” and what I do everyday: editing content, creating summaries and meta descriptions, solving people’s content issues, making sure the reading level is at a place where everyone can understand the content.
When people talk about "storytelling" in content of business-as-usual web content management, I hope they're not talking about traditional narrative structures, but rather about:
Creating a clear progression of information that follows the user's thought process. For example, with university fees (I work at a university btw), I might structure it as:
Starting with the basic question students have "How much will I need to pay?"
Address their next likely concern "What financial support is available?"
Lead to the natural next step "How and when do I pay?"
Using real-world context and examples rather than just dry facts. Instead of just listing graduation ceremony times, I might include: "The ceremony takes approximately 90 minutes, giving you plenty of time to take photos with family afterward before joining the reception at 2pm."
Making abstract concepts tangible such as when creating meta descriptions for pages that search engines will display, instead of: "Information about university fees and payment options" I might write: "Find out your tuition costs, payment deadlines, and available payment plans - everything you need to plan your university finances in one place."
The "story" here isn't a narrative - it's more about understanding and reflecting the user's journey through the information. I’m not telling tales, I’m organising information in a way that matches how people who read the information think about and process it.
As is so often the case when words are appropriated from one concept to the other, they can be confusing. And I think this is the case with the term “storytelling”. I wonder if it’s time to tell this term, in the context of web content, to get in the bin.
