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TED style PR storytelling

3 top tips to TED-style storytelling for PRs

TED Talks – whether on Technology, Education, Design or anything else – are the epitome of storytelling: compelling, inspirational and mesmerizing. If you’re a public relations professional or marketer, you’re a storyteller too. But how do you tell stories for your client that successfully use the TED-style laws of communication?

Here are 3 top tips:

Be passionate

When I teach PR for Small Businesses Workshops, I go around the room to see why someone is starting a new business. The answer is NEVER: I want more money. The answer is ALWAYS a good story. The story of bringing a grandmother’s recipe back to life, helping a relative overcome a disability, composting trash to clean up a neighborhood or simply realizing a new talent. Let’s face it: if you can wake up every day not only solving a problem for a person or a community you love, but also making money and employing people, you’re way ahead of the rat race. You’ve got passion for your business, or your client’s business, and how you can tell the world about it. And passion is the fuel that lights the rocket.

Be emotional

Which press release headline would you rather read? “New Brewery Opens on 1st Street” Or “Local Entrepreneur Overcomes Disability to Launch City’s First Brewery”? Same story. Different levels of emotion. If the definition of emotion is “a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, mood or relationships with others,” it’s not a bad way to connect with the publics you want to influence. TED talks stir peoples’ emotions, and so should your PR storytelling.

Be different

How does your client’s story differ from everyone else’s? Find that one thing that sets your client apart from others within that industry and tell the passionate, emotional story of how the business solves problems. Liz Elam started Link Coworking out of frustration after she found herself “jockeying for cord position at Starbucks, speaking in hushed tones and looking over her shoulder” while trying to conduct important business meetings. She saw a need for professional meeting and working space and built a very successful business from it. Tell your client’s story by finding that one thing that that stands them apart, and use your passion and emotion to tell a good story, TED-talk style.

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