Supercharging social media with storytelling techniques: #5 Show, don't tell

Show, don't tell, is one of the most important things a writer has to do, to build a story people will want to read.

Instead of saying the main character is a good man, we are urged to show him taking an old lady across the street, helping children, saving people's lives.

But how can you do that in social media?

The first way is through case studies, the classic business way to show the impact of what you do rather than simply say it. A case study will focus on a real life example of someone using your product or service.

The second way, if your social media is more personal, is for you to give examples of what is happening in your own life, describing how you tapped your fingers on the table as you waited to hear news of a big sale, rather than saying you were nervous.

The third way is to add depth to the showing by providing additional detail. If you won that big sale you might say you jumped higher than you ever had before the moment the news came in.

Showing, not telling, is a critical part of storytelling. If you are looking to build social media engagement it is one of the techniques you can use to supercharge your output.

Twitter & Gmail changes are on the way!

Does this look like a Facebook profile? It does to me, but no, this is a new Twitter profile featuring bigger profile pictures, customisable headers. We will also, by the end of this month, be able to pin Tweets, which are important to who we are, near the top of our profiles.

Popular Tweets will also appear bigger & we will be able to filter Tweets with pics & replies, indicating whether we want to see these or not.


Facebook is being challenged by Twitter. That's what it looks like to me.

Google, after the relative failure of Google+, is also changing. The Promotions tabs in our Gmail accounts will soon look like this:

This looks a bit like Pinterest. It certainly is a classier way to display promotion emails we receive. One thing it does mean though is that if you are sending promotion type emails, make sure you have a representative image included.

Featured image for the new grid must be at least 580px x 400px. The thumbnail logos are pulled from a brand’s verified Google+ page. This layout should be in place for us all by the Summer. No confirmed date has been given yet by Google.

If you want to stay up to date on the big changes in online marketing make sure you follow this blog by putting your email address in the box above right. You can unsubscribe any time.

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The Tipping Point Strategy

The music business gets social media. Lady GaGa had 49 million Facebook followers in 2013 and Rihanna 50 million. Rihanna is the second most popular music star on Facebook behind Eminem.

In the last few months of 2013 Rihana's label, Universal, used a tipping point strategy to leverage her followers in the run up to the launch of her new album and single.

Followers were encouraged to visit a new site, post content and like a new page and go on missions. Only when a certain number of likes had been achieved were rewards released. Rewards included song lyrics, a release date, cover image and videos This strategy has been used before, but it hit the jackpot this time. They achieved:

+ Over a 100,000 Tweets a day during launch month

+ 420 million Facebook wall posts

+ Triple platinum success for her single and a No 3 debut for her album.