Community Strategy Insights

The latest insights on community strategy, technology, and value by FeverBee’s founder, Richard Millington

Store Your Stories

Richard Millington
Richard Millington

Founder of FeverBee

Download and install evernote. Make sure you have the Chrome extension in the top right of your screen.

Whenever someone shares an emotive story (fear, anger, joy), clip it and tag it by the emotion (here are 8 to get started).

Save it under an evernote project.

After 6 months, you should have dozens of powerful, emotive, stories. You will have stories of distraught customers and delighted ones. You will have stories about intense levels of frustration and anxiety. You will have stories about mutual respect and trust. You will have some good oddball stories.

Start learning the core elements of these stories.

“Member ‘X’ was really frustrated about ‘Y’, she posted this in the community, member ‘C’ responded…Member ‘X’ was really delighted to find the solution”

Now start spreading the best stories.

Start spreading the ones that will make people in the organisation feel great about the work they’re doing (“thought you all should take a second to read this amazing story by…”).

Start spreading stories that should provoke anger and get people to take notice (“I’m sorry to share this, but we’ve had a member today who wasn’t able to…..”).

Start spreading the stories that provoke fear (“I’ve seen two of our top members recommend our competitors today because….”).

Start spreading stories that spread awe (“Just noticed that one of the key influencers in our field has joined the group…let’s raise our game this week”)

Forget reporting metrics. Your boss probably doesn’t care about the number of likes, shares or active members as you do. Your boss does care when customers explain they’re leaving for competitors or they share their joy in something you did.

Remember that emotion tagged ‘joy’? Make sure you have plenty of positive stories from members there. You will need them to get through the rougher days.

Far too often we let our best stories go to waste. We don’t share with them other members, our colleagues, or even use them to improve our own mood. Don’t let the best stories disappear, tag them, store them, and share them.

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