Ever wondered why a brand story is such a popular approach to engaging with your audience? 

What really interests a person in listening to or watching your stories? 

Science says that the release of chemicals such as dopamine in the brain while hearing tales keeps humans engaged. Also, the compelling plot evokes emotions in the audience. Companies have leveraged this technique for years to captivate customers through narratives, which is popularly known as brand storytelling. 

Let’s take the example of Spotify. The company brings a narrative based on the recap of each user’s ‘music journey’ towards the end of every year when they publish ‘Spotify Wrapped’. More than 90 million people watched and listened to the feature in 2020, and the app downloads saw an increase of 21% in December 2020 following its release. Similarly, Google has its own ‘Year in Search’ review, presenting trends from the search history of customers. It is obvious that the formula works and the implementation of storytelling can be game-changing for marketers. 

A strong narrative alone is insufficient to achieve satisfactory results. The execution must be flawless. Many tools can help, but identifying the best ones might be tiresome. Hence, we researched around forty of them and have shortlisted the 10 best platforms that brands can use to publish great stories. Check them out:

Canva

Canva offers many features and is primarily used to create visuals for presentations, social media posts, and more. This can be your answer to a sudden request for a video to upload on Instagram. Did you know that they have about 100+ million multimedia samples like photos and audios in their library and around 600k+ templates for various dimensions and formats? You can animate elements such as images and texts and collaborate on projects, making teamwork and remote work more enjoyable. One of their recent uploads on YouTube is an excellent example of storytelling achieved through the tool, and it features a woman who perfected the craft through Canva as well. Watch it here:

Apester

Apester offers tools to create an interactive brand story, and its value lies in integrating social media applications. The platform helps make posts that encourage audience interaction, share them across platforms, and keep track of the engagements and other stats. An example is the ‘Apester Story’ feature, where you can convert articles into the ‘Story’ format of Instagram. Visuals appear in a slideshow format by including interactive elements that users can tap through or click on (like polls). Cool, right? And pretty useful too! Watch this example of how Apester Story works to increase engagement:

Storify

Influencers are stakeholders in branding and marketing, with the industry set to reach $16.4 billion in 2022. At Storify, they are story makers who assist brands in narration. All you have to do is search for creators on the website based on their field (like fashion, entrepreneurship, and many others) and location. You can narrow down on the person you want to collaborate with by accessing their insights. The content these influencers create and post will be accessible to you for use on websites or social media handles. Watch this video to know more about the process:

 

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Powtoon

According to Powtoon’s stats, a client makes a video on the platform each second. It is undoubtedly one of our favorites, with over 30 billion videos made using the tool. Animation is one of the popular features on the platform, and you can choose the template depending on your needs – explainer or marketing videos, company guidelines, etc. Users can also select the format based on the tone they want the project to convey, whether professional or more informal. If you want to learn more about how the platform can help in conveying a brand story, watch this webinar by Powtoon:

Ceros

Producing web content can be difficult for marketers without prior coding knowledge, but Ceros makes it possible. You can easily make visually engaging designs, such as infographics, e-books, and websites, animate them and include social media plugins and pop-ups. An interesting feature is how you can insert research or content into templates, making it interactive for improved user engagement. Wonder how to use it for your business? Find an example of a visual created using Ceros, where they took statistics-rich research and made an infographic that is easy to understand.

Watch this video of a hover micro-interaction made without any coding:

 

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Infogram

Infogram is another tool similar to Ceros for creating infographics. You can use it for data visualisation so that the content is less complicated and more engaging with the help of graphs, images, etc. Brands can share these infographics on social media. You can also make interactive maps, where you click on different areas to get more information. They have tools to create videos too. Ready to know more? Watch this video:

YouTube and YouTube Video Editor

YouTube might seem like a redundant mention, but you will be surprised to know that some features often overlooked can help with your brand story. Promoting content seems like the obvious choice, but did you know that users can develop GIFs from YouTube videos and translate the title, description, and subtitles to multiple languages? With the right boosting, you can considerably increase video reach and bring strong brand awareness through a compelling narration. Curious to know more? Watch ‘The Art of Storytelling and View Retention’ here:

Camtasia

Looking for a tool that helps screen-record websites, software, conference calls, and even more? Camtasia can definitely do the job, and help you out with editing as well. The software makes web camera capture look better with crisp audio and visuals and the Audio FX reduces background noise and adjusts the pitch and gain to ensure high quality.

It is an excellent service for creating explainer videos. The platform offers many features such as templates, themes, transitions, annotations, and audio. If you can get a bit creative, Camtasia can help you make stories surrounding customer relations by connecting the client and the business. Through a PowerPoint integration, users can also create videos from slides. Learn more about some new features like cursor path editing or the TechSmith Audiate integration that will help you edit videos like texts:

Thinglink

Interactive visuals are another hot trend for business, and this is where Thinglink can help. It applies to images, videos, 360/VR, and 3D models. In the future of metaverse, where Facebook has recently invested $50 billion, services like these can come in handy for companies. The editor is easy to learn, and the platform offers support for managing audiences. You will get insights on each view, click and hover to help see how people interact with the content and what captures attention. You can also use websites like Canva or Google and LMS (Learning Management System) such as the one from Microsoft to embed Thinglink. Create tours and presentations for your brand story with Rich Media Tags that link to videos, products, and more. Watch the video below of an engaging media example created using the platform. If interested, see more examples of campus tours, and infographics here.

 

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Placeit

Placeit supports users by making visuals in realistic environments. If you want to promote a new product but do not have the resources for a photoshoot, you can just upload images of the item to one of the many templates available. Try one out here! The Logo Maker helps make logos that will solidify the brand image, and Placeit’s Design Templates help create flyers, social media images, and labels, with the option to customize the elements. Watch this tutorial on creating videos using the platform and learn more about how to leverage it for your business as well.

………

Brands are increasingly moving marketing to the virtual space, and storytelling can achieve success here. The tools listed above can help your company out bring out an effective and engaging narrative in the future of the metaverse, where investments touched $10 billion in 2021. Companies have started offering such experiences, like Fashion Week’s debut on Decentraland and Burberry’s B Surf game. 

Impactful execution of narratives through the brand story will be a crucial factor in this future to which companies will have to adapt soon. To start with the process, feel free to use the tools listed here. Hope they will help you achieve the desired success and engage your customers in the fast-changing digital landscape!