How to tell a story that stands out in the digital age

There are a lot of reasons this story works very well in the digital age. Generalising these into lessons to apply to all stories in the digital age, I find four:

1. The story is really unique and unexpected. Unexpected content is one of the three ingredients for a successful viral according to Kevin Allocca in his great TED talk on what makes videos go viral on YouTube, a lesson that also works for other forms of content.
2. The story is told in the public space, in ‘active communities’. The streets, Facebook, general media: all the places where the story happens are easily accessible for most people and designed to foster discussion. Unlike your own website or Tuesday night discussion group people come to these places for stories and are, therefore, more likely to respond to them.
3. The story is about the audience. The most important lesson I took from Nancy Duarte’s brilliant book Resonate is to treat your audience as a hero whenever you tell them something. People should not only be involved and directly addressed, it should be their story, the thing they are telling, to make it stand out. People usually listen to themselves.
4. The story helps create real life connections, has a physical component. The most heavily discussed issue in Leuven, I believe each great story in the digital age needs a physical element to really turn people from simply interested into highly enthusiastic.

Read more at The Museum of the Future