What story are you telling your audience

Written by Gemma Walsh Woodcock

In 2005 I started university in Manchester studying filmmaking. It was very much a creative and hands on degree. We made films from the moment we arrived.

Storytelling and audience

The course placed real emphasis on storytelling and narrative. Music videos were banned as a storytelling format. Staff stood firm in the belief this restriction enabled us to become better at engaging our audience by limiting our resources.

We became better storytellers because we had to think about the story and the audience in parallel.

iphone Creators

19 years later and now the whole world is telling stories through moving image. We are all “creators”. We can make reels in the moment, edit on the fly and we can build an audience from our pocket.

While we have storytelling technology at our fingertips often great story telling is simple.

If you are creating lots of content but you aren’t getting the right results maybe now is the time to get back to basics with your communication. Instead of making content for the algorithm - make content for your audience.

Get back to basics

Ask yourself:

who are we talking to?

what do they want to know?

how do they want us to communicate it?

If your audience is watching reels and you are only making webinars there’s some food for thought about diversifying how you communicate. If you want to lead the industry conversation but you aren’t writing articles there is no better time to get started. Think about how your audience wants to be engaged before you start.

We know that audiences want the option to listen, watch and read. As storytellers we need to get back to basics, to understand our audience, their problems and speak to them in multiple ways. Don’t over complicate your communication by using every tool available, keep it simple and aligned with the audience.