I Am User Generated

This interaction of orator and audience that is essential to oral storytelling is again resurfacing in the participatory nature of social media. The ability to chat online through forums and message boards was one of the founding functionalities of the Internet long before Web 2.0 was coined, but this was reserved for serious computer users and early adopters. It has not been until recently that the net of social participatory engagement has widened. This is best seen on customer review sites. Brand are used to telling their story or their product messaging through print ads, radio spots, television commercials and website homepages, but as more communities grow online the trust is put into the audience or consumer not the orator or brand. In this case the story has to change and adapt to audience participation. However, this new form of audience participation in brand storytelling has not been without its learning curve. Chevrolet introduced a viral campaign effort that asked consumers to insert their own slogan for the next Chevy Tahoe campaign. Copy that read, “our planet’s oil is almost gone, you don’t need GPS to see where this road leads,” and “like this snowy wilderness? Better get your fill of it now, then say hello to global warming,” was not Chevy’s ideal brand story but it did give them an insight into how consumers saw their brand.

Brands now have to been empathetic and participatory with their consumers, gone are the days of being objectively distant and telling consumers what they want. The whole nature of social based media is an interactive participatory conversation, a sharp departure for traditional media storytellers.