Example Reflection – Storytelling Tool

Challenge:

I work in the communications area of an organization that promotes the rights of the Latino community, especially the Puerto Rican population that lives in the Humboldt Park area of Chicago. One of the main objectives of this organization is to promote and enhance self-sustainability through business initiatives (support, training and

accompaniment for artists, entrepreneurs and artisans). Although the initiative began more than a year ago, new entrepreneurs need to arrive to expand the offer because visitors always find the same, but it is also necessary to promote product sales, not only on the physical site, but also through networks social services to provide a more personalized customer service (and at the same time increase the followers not only in social media, but also improve the traffic of visits to the official website)

Selection: Storytelling tool

“Every great brand has a story and that story connects to the emotions, the characters, the values of the people that live that product every day. Storytelling always been a part of business.” Isaac Maldonado, Global leadership Development director, Mars INC (Video, week 2)

Application:

Goals: We needed to find a way to improve several strategies at the same time. 1. Promote the project. 2. Improve sales. 3. Attract new clients and new entrepreneurs 4. Improve website traffic and increase followers on social networks.

It seemed like a difficult challenge, effective and quick solutions were needed, I went back to the class documents, I remembered the storytelling strategy, the importance of storytelling, first I spoke with the entrepreneurs, I got to know in depth the products it offered and its target audience. Also about his life story and details about the creation of the business, the creative process of the artists and the challenges they faced. After meeting with the entrepreneurs, I made a list of the organization's official information distribution channels. It contained the following: a. Social networks (instagram, facebook, twitter, youtube) b. Official website. C. Weekly bulletin. D. Monthly local newspaper. E. Databases (emails) then I defined the weaknesses: the communications area was very small (2 people) with no possibility of expansion.

I had to optimize the information to the maximum, so I identified and selected a story from one of the entrepreneurs I met, I wrote a short chronicle, a successful story of overcoming, full of nuances (joys, sadness, difficulties and finally solutions) with this I wanted to move the emotions of the people who read the story, and connect reality. I took photographs of the protagonist and his products, edited the article and published it in the

newspaper, at the end of the article I reflected on the importance of supporting entrepreneurs and local businesses, followed by their social networks and an invitation for people who had ideas business and would like to receive information and help to make their business a reality. We use the same story published in the newspaper for the website, the newsletter and we also send the link to our database.

Insight:

The weekend following the publication, the entrepreneur reported that many people had been impressed with his story, they approached the point of sale, he improved his sales by 25% and that week he increased the number of followers of his social networks . We also began to receive emails from people interested in starting a business idea. When we saw the results we decided to be “stronger” with the next publication. We recorded the interviews on video, we used the interview to write the article for the newspaper, then we edited the most important parts of the interviews and uploaded small video clips as an expectation on instagram, facebook, twitter, youtube, with the following slogan “for to know the complete story, visit our website "this helped us improve the traffic of visits to our website.

Approach:

I think the strategy is working well, it has been "refined" however it is a very small team and it is a lot of work, and although we are in the initial stage and it seems innovative, more and more details must be included and more frequently in the publications to not to lose its validity, it is a collaborative exercise of persistence and effort to continue innovating.

