See a photo of Casey, her bio, Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.
Q: The culture is abuzz about Web 2.0 and social media. To what extent do you participate in social media (such as through LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Second Life, blogs, etc.)? To what extent and in what ways do you feel these venues are storytelling media?
A: I do participate in social media (blogging, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and online communities specific to my field). However, I’m still exploring how story fits into this new development.
They all have the potential to be storytelling media but in different ways. Some formats are more suited to telling a complete story in a single serving, such as blogging and YouTube. Others are more about building a story about yourself, your business or your brand in bite-size pieces, such as on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
What’s fascinating is that they’re all interactive. Stories are not just told, but people can immediately comment and add to the understanding, or share their own similar stories. In my realm of marketing communications, this is unprecedented access and communication between an organization and its audiences. It’s part of a greater movement of authenticity and bringing down barriers. They’re letting go of control of every single word, and the result is impressive. Many companies are also now creating their own online communities that foster relationships and storytelling between their customers.
I think organizations have to find ways of weaving story into social media without sounding too contrived. A company can share a story on its blog or link to a YouTube video from Facebook, but ideally their customers are the ones freely sharing the stories and links in social media venues. The most compelling stories will be ReTweeted and shared again on any of a number of other sites like Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc. That’s when the real momentum starts to happen.