By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Develop audience personas to guide social media content creation

• Turn standard updates into engaging stories

• Build emotional connect ion using simple narrative techniques

• Use interviewing techniques to uncover authentic voices and stories

• Adapt stories for platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook

• Edit and refine content to meet platform requirements

• Develop a consistent social media style guide

• Use AI appropriately to polish and refine social media posts

Introduction

• Why storytelling matters in social media

• The power of storytelling compared to presenting facts

• How the brain remembers stories more effectively than information

Finding the story

How to spot a story potential

Interviewing techniques : preparing, questioning and listening for the heart of the story

Crafting compelling messages

The five-step storytelling process

Creating short-form stories

• Micro-narratives and relatable anecdotes

• Writing stories that fit short social media formats

Define your goal

• Informing, engaging, persuading or entertaining

• Aligning the story to the desired outcome

Know your audience

• Identifying and understanding different audiences

• Using personas to guide content decisions

• Tone, word choice and relatable content

Hook immediately

• Writing attention-grabbing openings

• Capturing attention in the first line

Tell a clear, authentic narrative

• Structuring a story for clarity

• Tailoring tone and voice

• Choosing an appropriate style: professional, conversational, persuasive or playful

• Optimising content for specific platforms

Persuasion and engagement techniques

• Emotional resonance through humour, inspiration or urgency

• Calls to action that drive clicks, shares and comments

Writing clearly and concisely for social media

• Sentence length and structure

• Leading with the main message

• Active versus passive voice

• Plain English and appropriate word choice

Formatting for social media

• General formatting rules

• Use of hashtags, emojis, line breaks and bullet points

• Pairing text with images, video or infographics

• Using AI to polish content

• Dos and don’ts for AI use

Writing to a word count

• Ideal word counts for social media posts

• Platform word limits

• Techniques for removing unnecessary words without losing impact

Editing and refining

• Applying learning to real examples

• Peer review and constructive feedback

• Assessing whether content speaks to the intended persona

• Measuring engagement and success