Musings from a New Age AdMan

Guest post written by Jamie Tedford Jamie Tedford is founder at CEO of Brand Networks, a social branding consultancy. Jamie Tedford As anticipated, Facebook Timeline for Pages was announced Wednesday.

All right — I’ve had it today. I’m burning through the articles and am getting annoyed at all of the blog posts on storytelling and branding. Why? Here’s the tone of them all: push push push your stories! Find them. Craft them. Push them out to your customers. Whether it’s about the new Facebook timeline, or finding and telling your brand’s stories, it’s still the same old advertising/pr/marketing paradigm of ‘telling.’

Yuck! These folks are totally missing the dynamics of engaging content through stories which includes listening, conversations, and story sharing back and forth.  Oh, and where’s the conversation about authenticity??  It seems like brand storytelling is all about morphing and shaping stories to hook customers. Danger, danger! That sounds more like manipulation than authentic storied conversations.

OK, I’ll get off my soap box now.

Here’s what you can take away from this article that I like: tips in this article to use storytelling elements for your Facebook timeline.  

Your thoughts?

Nike sells shoes but it’s not in the shoe-selling business. It’s in the business of selling emotion and aspiration. Nike sells achievement, Nike sells perseverance and Nike sells Victory. Nike also happens to sell running shoes and athletic wear.

Nike’s power to sell comes from deep-rooted yearnings for cultural inclusiveness and individual athletic accomplishment. This started when American record-holder Steve Prefontaine became the first major track athlete to wear Nike shoes.