Brand Storytelling, when done properly, allows marketers to build personality and associate emotion with a brand to create (or, at least, attempt to create) a personal connection with the consumer.

The prevalence of social media today has driven an interest in leveraging the convergence of content creation and technology to tell the story behind a brand.

As a founder and chief creative officer at Innovation Beyond, I’ve helped many budding brands socialize their brand story using engaging visual content and build engaged communities. Here are five dos and don’ts to creating your social brand campaigns, and hopefully, inspiring your community.

DO use imagery that’s meaningful and custom to your brand.

It’s often said that a good scene in a movie is one that takes the viewer on a journey, hopefully leaving it feeling motivated and inspired. Leveraging the power of beautiful photography coupled with the right message is one of the most powerful ways to tell your brand story across all social platforms.

• Be original. Storytelling is most effective when it’s original. Cut paste will never do your brand story justice. Make the investment and create original visuals that tell the exact story in your brand voice.
• Be specific. With the number of social platforms consumers are using today, it’s safe to say that one size does NOT fit all. Facebook cover page size would be different than that of a Twitter and the Twitter profile pic will not fit well in the google+ profile pic. So follow the specific size guidelines and create different visuals that work within the confines of the different social platforms.

DON’T misuse hashtags.

Use hashtags as a way to a kettle and enhance your content’s visibility with others who are interested in the same topic. The hashtag should tell the brand story but should not be your brand story.

DO encourage the community to explain YOUR story through their words.

Tactically, we can do this in two ways:

• Relatable content: Leveraging the common subjects in the brand story so that consumer relates it to their lives and in turn, bring the story to a viral board.
• Social listening: Utilize social tools to identify and listen to your brand advocates and engage with them on a one-on-one basis to amplify the story further.

DON’T be socially niche so that your story becomes unattainable.

The greatest stories are those that are broad and relatable to a wide group of people.

The best stories are relatable to the average person. Telling your brand story on social media means that you have to be unique yet still attainable by the average social media user.

DO allow your words to become bigger than your story.

Storytelling on social media is ultimately driven by words. Whether we are looking to inspire, motivate or galvanize the consumer and community, the copy that we use as standalone text or captions to our visuals will dictate the brand story.

Great brands rely on stories to define their brands. With society driven by social media and an “always online” culture, today’s brand journey must begin, build and extend onto social. Approach your storytelling with an authentic yet broader lens than your brand-specific filter, and you’ll give your consumer the social authority to make your brand story into their personal folktale.