SOCIAL
How The Power Of Storytelling And Authenticity Is Disrupting Traditional Marketing Tactics

Team discussing marketing strategy at conference table
Since the beginning of time, humans have connected over stories, which provide a means of entertainment and a method of teaching. While stories date back millennia, they have their place in modern society—and not least in business. When business leaders leverage the power of stories in their marketing strategies, results and loyal customers will follow.
Use the Science of Storytelling to Connect With Your Audience
There’s a reason why you can forget a person’s name but can recount your conversation with them line-by-line. It’s not because you’re rude or simply bad with names. It’s because your brain is wired to learn through stories, recognize patterns and retain information thanks to a neatly packaged narrative.
If a story is good, it doesn’t matter whether the brand is well known—the story will carry the message forward. This is great news for emerging brands and those with smaller marketing budgets. Plus, with more owned communications outlets and native marketing channels, brands can share their stories without relying on traditional gatekeepers.
Nativo, a content marketing platform I’ve worked with, has unlocked the potential of storytelling by focusing on more than just native ads. Instead, with the help of machine learning and artificial intelligence, the company highlights the importance of creating authentic content and messages to meet consumers in the trusted environments where they’re already engaged. Meeting consumers where they’re at, with authentic and quality brand content, allows brands to tell stories that build genuine connection and drive bottom-line results.
Implementing the practice of creating powerful, relevant stories, creates the opportunity for lesser-known brands to rise to the top and compete against legacy brands.
Leverage Established Storytelling Principles to Tell Tales That Stick
Aristotle’s “Poetics” highlights the six elements of drama: plot, character, thought, diction, spectacle and song. These elements create the backbone of stories that your audience will connect with. But you don’t have to head back to school to become an expert storyteller.
Marketing leaders regularly reference what’s known as the “Pixar Pitch” when developing compelling, persuasive content to gain buy-in or shift understanding. Leveraging Pixar’s simplified approach to storytelling, marketers can create stories that draw audiences in and leave behind messages that stick.
Take your audience on a journey, starting with identifying the status quo, the inciting incident, and the actions that follow. Use your company’s origin story as a template for a compelling conversation. What may seem old hat to you may be a relevant, relatable story to your audience.
Consider the time-consuming, weekly task of grocery shopping. Instacart founders acted on a shared pain in an otherwise tech-friendly world and developed an affordable solution. Simply marketing the fee-based service as a handy convenience isn’t enough to bring the message to the top. However, telling the story of a family gaining treasured time together thanks to eliminated trips to the grocery store hits home. Focus on the result your business can deliver and craft stories that connect your customers’ pain points with your solution.
Swap the Corporate Armor for an Authentic Narrative That Resonates
Outdoor outfitter Patagonia does what many retailers will not. In their marketing messages, they regularly discourage customers from buying their clothes. Instead, they urge their customers to reuse and repair their Patagonia items, vividly demonstrating their commitment to sustainability. Over the years, the company has added used resale and exchange programs to further underscore their sustainability message. By living their values and integrating them into their customer experience, Patagonia has become one of the most well-loved outdoor retailers today.
Learn from Patagonia’s approach to authentic marketing, even if your product is less tangible. Focus on your company’s values, innovation and people to craft an authentic message that relates to your customers’ needs. If your researchers worked day and night to test your products’ effectiveness, share the story of their diligence. If your product helps customers live better, happier lives, use stories to tell how that happens. When you connect the “why” behind what you do and share it in an authentic story form, customers listen.
Cut Through the Noise With a Great Story
Stories put your customer’s experience in the forefront, enabling them to relate and connect with your offering. Whether you’re developing code to encrypt sensitive financial information or selling home essentials, you have a great story to tell. Dig into what makes your company, mission and values unique to craft compelling stories that rise above the competition. When you do, you’ll gain loyal customers and establish your standing as an industry leader.
SOCIAL
TikTok spends $1.5B on Tokopedia JV to get around Jakarta social e-commerce ban

Just two months ago, ByteDance-owned TikTok abruptly closed its shopping platform in Indonesia to comply with surprise regulations from the Southeast Asian country’s government. Jakarta ordered social media companies like TikTok and Facebook to stop selling goods on their platforms, demanding a separation of social media and e-commerce services.
TikTok now seems to have found a way to revive its e-commerce dreams in Indonesia by spending billions to start a joint venture with Indonesian tech giant GoTo. On Monday, the two companies announced that TikTok Shop will now be available on GoTo’s Tokopedia platform.
“Tokopedia and TikTok Shop Indonesia’s businesses will be combined under the existing PT Tokopedia entity in which TikTok will take a controlling stake. The shopping features within the TikTok app in Indonesia will be operated and maintained by the enlarged entity,” TikTok said in a statement Monday.
TikTok will invest over $1.5 billion into Tokopedia, taking a 75% stake in the platform. GoTo will remain an ecosystem partner to Tokopedia and receive an “ongoing revenue stream from Tokopedia commensurate with its scale and growth,” but will not be required to continue funding the platform. Further funding from TikTok also won’t reduce GoTo’s remaining 25% stake.
Getting back into the Indonesian ecommerce market will be a win for TikTok. Indonesia, which is the platform’s largest market outside of the U.S., is key to Tiktok’s online shopping aspirations. In June, CEO Shou Zi Chew pledged to “invest billions in Indonesia and Southeast Asia over the next few years.”
ByteDance wants to replicate its Chinese e-commerce successaround the globe. Last year, consumers spent in China 1.41 trillion yuan ($196 billion) on products sold on Douyin, the version of TikTok for the Chinese market, The Information reported in January. ByteDance, through TikTok, is expanding its online shopping services in both Southeast Asia and the U.S. Yet the company is struggling to win over American consumers: The Information reported in August that U.S. shoppers are spending just $4 million a day, equivalent to $1.4 billion over a whole year, on goods sold on the social media platform. (TikTok officially launched TikTok Shop in the U.S. in September, though sellers have complained about a flood of low-quality products on the platform).
Before Indonesia imposed its ban in September, the country’s president, Joko Widodo, complained that social media platforms were threatening local micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises. Government officials also accused TikTok of engaging in predatory pricing.
GoTo’s deal with TikTok means the Indonesian tech giant is giving up its majority ownership of Tokopedia . Tokopedia started in 2008 and grew to be one of Indonesia’s largest e-commerce platforms. The company merged with ride-hailing startup GoJek in 2021, becoming GoTo Group. The company debuted on Jakarta’s stock exchange in April last year.
Yet the company has struggled to wow investors since then. GoTo has yet to make a profit since becoming a public company. The tech firm reported 2.4 trillion Indonesian rupiah ($147 million) in net losses last quarter, significantly less than the 6.7 trillion rupiah ($428 million) it lost this time last year.
Investors do not appear to be thrilled by the news of GoTo’s TikTok partnership. Shares fell by over 19% by 2:30pm Indonesia time on Monday, erasing gains made late last week as rumors began to build of the new partnership.
SOCIAL
How to Train ChatGPT to Write in Your Brand’s Tone of Voice [Infographic]
![How to Train ChatGPT to Write in Your Brand’s Tone of Voice [Infographic] How to Train ChatGPT to Write in Your Brand’s Tone of Voice [Infographic]](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/1702266964_How-to-Train-ChatGPT-to-Write-in-Your-Brands-Tone.jpg)
Are you looking for ways to improve your ChatGPT output? Want to train it to write in a more unique tone of voice, in order to better suit your branding?
The Creative Marketer shares his ChatGPT prompt tips in this infographic. To enact these, add “Write like [INSERT CHARACTER]” at the start of your ChatGPT instructions.
TCM breaks things down into the following categories:
- Innocent
- Sage
- Explorer
- Ruler
- Creator
- Caregiver
- Lover
- Hero
- Everyman
- Magician
- Jester
- Outlaw
Check out the infographic for more information.
A version of this post was first published on the Red Website Design blog.
SOCIAL
Elon Musk reinstates far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on X

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been reinstated on X, formerly known as Twitter, by company owner Elon Musk – Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File Joe Buglewicz
Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, on Sunday reinstated far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on the social media platform, a year after vowing never to let him return.
Jones, who claimed that a December 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut that killed 20 children and six educators was a hoax, was banned from the platform — then still known as Twitter — in 2018 for violating its “abusive behavior policy.”
He was also sued by families of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting and ordered by a judge in the case to pay up more than a billion dollars in damages last year.
Musk had himself promised never to let the Infowars host back on the social media platform, which he bought last year for $44 billion.
But following a poll Musk conducted on X asking whether Jones should be reinstated, to which some two million users responded, he flipped that decision.
“I vehemently disagree with what he said about Sandy Hook, but are we a platform that believes in freedom of speech or are we not?” the SpaceX founder said on X.
But Shannon Watts, founder of the group Moms Demand Action group which pushes for tighter gun laws, said that “defamation is not free speech.”
Musk’s decision comes the same week that the Sandy Hook families commemorate the 11th anniversary of the December 14 shooting, which Jones alleged was staged to allow the government to crack down on gun rights.
Jones’ followers harassed the bereaved families for years, accusing parents of murdered children of being “crisis actors” whose children had never existed.
It also came a week after Musk had responded to advertisers pulling out of X because of far-right posts and hate speech, including an apparent endorsement by Musk himself of an anti-Semitic tweet.
Asked whether he would respond to the advertising exodus, Musk said in an interview with journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin that the advertisers could “go f*** yourself.”
Jones, who has a million followers on X, returned to the site with his first post re-tweeting Andrew Tate, the controversial former kickboxer facing rape and human trafficking charges in Romania, in which he hailed Jones’ “triumphant return”
US media reported that as of Sunday, the account of Jones’ controversial show Infowars was still banned.
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