Social Media and PR Strategies

1. Social Media and PR Strategies • Week 10 • Thursday, April 10

2. Story strategy • What is a story?

3. Story strategy • An account or recital of an event or series of events, either true or fictitious.

4. Story strategy • Why do we tell stories? • Why are they important?

6. Story strategy • Story is about meaning, not truth.

7. Story strategy Culture “A matrix of shared mental maps that define how we collectively create meaning and understand the world around us. Inevitably, popular culture is an ever evolving, contested space of struggle, where competing voices, experiences and perspectives fight to answer the questions: Whose maps determine what is meaningful? Whose stories are considered true?”

8. Story strategy • What is mythology?

9. Story strategy • A sacred narrative explaining how the world and humankind assumed their present form. • Any traditional story, “ideology in narrative form.”

10. Story strategy • Mythologies have narrative power:-Greek myths-Thanksgiving-Santa Claus-Tooth fairy-Mother nature

11. Story strategy

12. Story strategy • What is control mythology?-It is the web of stories and ideas which define dominant culture’s sense of normal (including limiting our imagination of social change) and make people think the system is unchangeable.

13. Story strategy • “As certain ideas, practices and world views become normalized over time, they form a dominant or popular culture that disproportionately represents institutional interests and perpetuates the stories that validates certain agendas.”

14. Story strategy Some stories need to change *Humans can dominate and outsmart nature. *Women are worth less then men. *Racism and war are part of human nature.*There will always be crime and poverty. ...Control mythologies

15. Story strategy Designing stories for the branded world

16. Story strategy • Product + mythology = message campaign.

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21. Story strategy • What are both positive and negative mythology, culturally associated with your client or client’s products? • What narratives do their target audiences follow? What are their beliefs and value systems? For you consideration...

22. Story strategy • What is a meme?

23. Story strategy • Memes are units of self-replicating cultural information such as slogans, iconic images that can easily be referenced, catch phrases, symbols or rituals. Memes can act as capsules for stories to spread virally through cultures.

26. Story strategy • Popular memes:-Death panels-Black is beautiful-We are the 99%-Nanny state-White people problems • Effective memes are memorable, easy to spread and sticky. They linger in our consciousness, connect with our existing thinking and are easily passed on through communications andactions.

28. Story strategy • Conflict • Characters • Imagery (Show Don’t Tell) • Foreshadowing • Assumptions Narrative elements of a story

29. Story strategy • Conflict-The backbone of the narrative. It defines the drama and point of view of the story and makes it interesting. There can be no story without conflict. It defines what is at stake. What is the problem your client is trying to solve?

30. Story strategy • Characters-All stories have characters to which people can relate—we see ourselves through the characters of the story. They can also be the messengers of the story, putting a human face to the message. Who are the characters that will help solve the problem?

31. Story strategy • Imagery (show don’t tell)-Good stories use powerful imagery to capture the imagination with metaphors, anecdotes and descriptions that speak to the senses. By showing and not telling, we offer the audience the opportunity to use their own values to draw conclusions.What images illustrate the problem and the solution?

32. Story strategy • Foreshadowing-How does each story show us the future? What is the vision that the story offers of how things will be if the conflict resolves successfully?What images or ideas will guide audiences towards the resolution of a problem?

33. Story strategy • Assumptions-What are the unstated assumptions? What does someone have to believe to accept the stories as true? What values are reflected in the story?How do audiences already frame the conflict?

34. Story strategy • Break into small groups and choose a client to analyze. • Discuss mythologies related to your client’s business, industry or services. • Using the ideas of memes, mythology and elements of a story, create an idea for a narrative campaign through social media.