Storytelling is a craft that shapes our human experience. As individuals, it allows us to connect with each other, and to understand the world and our place in it. For businesses, storytelling is a way to connect with customers on an emotional level, build brand loyalty, and stand out from competitors.
Small-business owners and their teams need to focus on so much day-to-day that storytelling can easily fall to the bottom of the priority list. But in a fiercely competitive market and tough economy, sparking a sense of wonder and creativity through storytelling is more important than ever.
A flood of AI content means businesses need storytelling to stand out
GPTs – Generative Pre-trained Transformers that create human-like text and images – were launched into the world almost two years ago and, as a result, we’re seeing a shift in the way brands approach content creation.
GPTs (like ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Gemini) are wonderful tools. When wielded well, GPTs can produce reasonably well-written content in mere seconds. While there’s always a job to do in terms of training the GPT, getting prompts right, and thoroughly checking for brand voice, accuracy, and sources (and being able to discern good content from bad), the reality is, when armed with GPTs, brands can create more content, faster.
With more content flooding into the world, standing out has never been more important. How can small businesses do that? Through beautifully woven narratives imbued with imagination.
GPTs are particularly good at hygiene content, such as ‘how-tos’, listicles, and explainers. But at the moment, they’re not so great at creating personal or complex content.
That means there’s an opportunity to stand out with storytelling – rich, personal storytelling that sparks curiosity, creativity and wonder.
Tighter budgets mean you have to get more bang for your buck – and that means getting creative
Let’s face it, the economy’s hitting small businesses hard right now. Consumers and businesses alike are more cautious about their spending. And while in times of stress, it’s easy to keep doing the same old – or put your head down and hope everything will blow over. However, businesses that succeed are those that lean into uncertainty and use it as an opportunity to stand out.
When it comes to content, that means approaching it with a strategic and creative lens. Setting clear strategy and intention for the content you’re creating, and using that as a springboard for originality. Carving out time for you and your team to re-imagine the way you’re approaching content.
Wonder is the key to innovation
Taking an innovative approach to business has never been more important. We’ve seen small businesses create incredible things (don’t forget, even brands like Canva and Culture Kings were small businesses once). Innovation doesn’t come from doing the same thing on repeat; innovation comes from baking creativity into the everyday and having a philosophy of wonder and curiosity, so you can imagine how things might be different.
We changed our content agency’s name to Wonderthink for this very reason. Our clients’ needs are evolving, and we need to support them in the way they need to be supported – with a creative and strategic approach. And that’s exactly what sits at the heart of our business – making time for wonder and creativity, alongside a considered strategy – to create stand-out, innovative, wonderful content.
