That is why we’ve got to humanize content material now

People have a deep relationship with stories. Some stories have lasted for millennia – old myths and archetypes repackaged as the latest superhero movie or best-selling book. Stories can help people connect and learn in ways that no other medium can. But now we are at a digital roadblock. A constant need for content has watered down the art of storytelling. In order for us to reconnect with our audience, we need to humanize our content through more personal stories.

Today, and even here in this magazine, we see titles like “5 Ways To Be Optimistic At Work”. While these are fine and can provide valuable insight, if you want to write something memorable and worth reading, you can use the tips to parallelize your own story. The reader will have a very different emotional experience.

Reclaim the art of storytelling

Life is made up of human experiences. Anyone can write a general list of do’s and don’ts on any topic, from medicine to business management. However, the typical reader’s eyes glaze over when they read a wall of unreliable text telling them what to do, think, or understand. Unfortunately, too much online content is focused on a detached, impartial repository of knowledge.

Instead, it is time to delve into the roots of that knowledge. Writers are not robots. There are stories behind their ideas, philosophies or leadership methods. Humanizing content means tapping into those stories and using them to build a relationship with the reader. People have an innate desire to connect with others, but this is not cultivated by accident. It is good storytelling that makes a text easier to relate to.

Related: The future storyteller of our world is you

The power of anecdotes

For example, eight years ago I was at the London Institute of Marketing with a generic PowerPoint presentation on marketing. I was scheduled to speak for 30 minutes and after about five minutes of my slideshow I could feel I was disconnected from the audience. They paid me nothing but the most polite, indifferent attention. It was as if in their silence they were telling me, “OK, thank you for telling us what to do.”

Finally, I told a room full of marketing experts how they do their job and what developments there have been in marketing. Fortunately, I realized my mistake pretty early on and immediately gave up the slide show. I stopped going through a list of bullet points for marketing. Instead, I have proven these rules through my own history.

The painful first lessons I learned, the long hours and the grueling work involved in building a client base and marketing agency from the ground up – all of these experiences flowed into my story and I felt the atmosphere in the room changed. Suddenly the audience woke up and saw how humanized content can create a deep and lasting bond with the viewer.

I achieved the maximum fascination of the audience by telling them the story of how a certain customer had deeply impressed me by telling me their personal story. It was a client who built a medical research and development company after a family member died of a rare form of cancer. That story made this customer human to me, and I knew they were motivated by something much deeper than profit. We could completely rebuild this company’s branding strategy and focus on the people and family element rather than the business. Suddenly, even a big, cold medical company could feel like a close friend of the family.

Related: Democratized news is the future for keeping up with the times

Reflections after the Epiphany

After flipping my 30 minute presentation and feeling a real connection with my audience, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. As I lay awake in bed that night, I remembered the times I talked to customers. When they took the time to tell a personal story about their journey, I immediately felt a surge of empathy and love for this person. I got a glimpse of their inner workings and it was fascinating. Captivating stories can turn a boring, generic presentation into a powerful way to teach a lesson. It’s just that you can build a strong bond with the listener while on the go.

Related: 8 tips that will help your storytelling

It may seem obvious when we talk about it, but humanized content is becoming increasingly rare in the digital world. Too many leadership articles are impersonal lectures. Instead, there is a more effective way of conveying knowledge to the reader and that is through humanization.

Let’s go out there and share our story with the world.