Stories and social media; At the roots of success

My grocery-aisle encounter with a master of story-telling

by Peter Watts

My shopping list did not include a cardboard carton full of recycled coffee grounds, that if spritzed with the little water-spritzing thingy (included), would yield fresh crops of oyster mushrooms within 9 – 10 days.

Why did I just buy one?

Because somebody told me a story.

Meet Evan:

Evan accosted me as I raced around our local grocery store. After the briefest of product descriptions, he leapt into telling me the story of the company he works for. A company called Back To The Roots.

It was a story of entrepreneurship. Of being a young business with fierce environmental passion and community vision. It was a story that hit just about every button. Not only did Evan succeed in selling me my very own kitchen-counter mushroom kit, he captured my interest sufficiently to get me checking out the Back To The Roots website.

That website has links more intricate than a coffee bag full of mushrooms. Wherever you click there are elements to take your attention. Back To The Roots have designed a web hub that propagates their corporate story and vision across just about every Social Media engine you can think of.

Click here and there is a Facebook contest. Click there and you find yourself on Pinterest. Click someplace else and you’ll find yourself watching TV clips about the product or Video-Blogs from company staff, including their “Office Ninja” and their “Community Happyness Guru”.

Selling, presenting, and social media are all increasingly wrapped-up in each other and Back To The Roots are a case study in the perfect 21st century product pitch.

It’s about story telling and engagement; the ability of company representatives and product ambassadors to be compelling story-tellers in the flesh before handing-off to a Social Media backbone that is captivating enough to convert initial engagement into longterm followership.

An awesome story makes people want you to succeed.