Weaving storytelling into your brand’s intranet and social strategies

During Ragan’s Writing and Content Creation Conference last December, William Blair Director of Internal Communications and Employee Engagement spoke on a session with Emilio Marerro, director of content at Baptist Health South Florida, and Tessa May Marr, CEO of Marr Media Group, about how communicators can better apply the principles and techniques of sound story craft to their brand content strategy.

Here’s what we learned.

Feeding the intranet beast

Wylie began by explaining why sourcing for intranet stories is an ‘always on’ exercise. “The intranet is a beast in constant need of feeding because we want people to come there and get the information they need to do their jobs, but we also want them to come there and be inspired or feel more connected,” she began.

This requires a variety of different story types, she explained, depending on where in the site you are and what topic is being addressed. Profiles from leaders might be a bit longer, and William Blair deploys a questionnaire format that can be handed to leaders to fill out for something lighter and more fun.

Then there are the really short posts, like pet stories or a post about a colleague on a hike. Those function to find people and get new people on the site.