2 Tips For Telling Good Tech Stories

Storytelling for Tech Content

Whilst I am still doing my PhD research at the University of York, I am going to use my access to high quality, peer reviewed journal articles to pass on what I can about the art and science of content writing.

The research I'm looking at today comes from:

"The neuroscience of influential strategic narrative in storylines" written by Gregory S. Seese, Psy.D. & Kendall Haven, Ph.D.

Thanks to my University library access, I can get hold of this article easily but I think you should be able to read it here.

Storytelling is all communication

Storytelling is not specific to content writing, it is the bedrock of all human communication.

Stories are so important that some anthropological theories argue that it was our desire to share stories which paved the way for the development of our comparatively huge brains. I think this is really cool.

Our innate desire to connect through storytelling could be one the main reasons we are here today, wearing clothes, curating our social media presence, and learning highly developed skills like writing about tech.

All of which is to say that if your content is not telling a story, it will be a huge turn off for your readers.

Written language is recent, storytelling is ancient

People are evolutionarily primed to make sense of experience by making up stories about these experiences.

This is true whether they miss the bus:

"Gosh, I'm always so unlucky."

Or whether they are signing up for your newsletter:

"Emily seems really honest and trustworthy, I want to know what she thinks about alternative asset investments".

A tremendous amount of our neural circuitry is dedicated to these internal storytelling activities.

Based on this, here are two things that I keep top of mind when I am writing for my clients.

1. Clear is better than cute or clever

Confusion causes chaos.

Our brains are working to simplify every experience we have to minimise the general chaos of existence.

Help your reader by simplifying the story you tell in your copywriting and content. 

When you tell a story in a simple 'A does B because C' format, you will make it easy for your reader to understand and evaluate your offer. Like this:

"Alternative asset investing (A) can help to diversify your portfolio (B) because alternative assets to behave in very different ways than traditional assets like stocks and bonds (C)."

The second your reader feels confused, they will stop reading and go elsewhere.

2. Context, relevance, understanding 

Think of these as setting the scene for your story.

By themselves, they are unlikely to convince anyone to take action. But by ensuring context, relevance, and understanding frame the story you tell in your content, you give yourself a head start.

• Context lets your reader know what you are writing about and why.

• Relevance lets them know why the story is a good fit for them personally.

• Understanding means that they will read your copy and feel smart not stupid.

Like this:

You might want to invest in something that is unusual, profitable, and has excellent ESG credentials, like a solar farm, but you don't have £250,000 to invest up front. Fractionalisation is a process where big assets, like a solar farm, are divided into pieces - like many slices of a pie. You can then buy just a single slice of this solar farm pie and be part of the fun, fruitful, and environmentally friendly investing journey.

This is a very quickly drawn up example, but even here you can see how I have been direct about the context - It's about investing.

Relevance - it's for someone who wants to invest in something unusual or eco-friendly but who isn't looking for huge lump-sum investments.

Understanding - I have explained fractionalisation in the simplest possible terms.

Tell stories. Tell them simply.

I use these two basic but crucial points in all of my content marketing work. I use it in my journalism too, and I use it more sparingly in my fiction. All bets are off when it come to my poetry.

Do go back to 'The neuroscience of influential strategic narrative in storylines' if you're interested in this kind of thing because it is a fascinating read.