Final Police Report
Evidence
The End
How did you do? Were you able to solve the crime by analyzing the social accounts of the suspects? If you enjoyed this experience, please let me know in the comments.
Author: Jennifer
Initial Police Report
Evidence
Suspects to Investigate
- Josephine Callace – Dance Instructor and Theatre Director at Edmonton Academy Dance and Theatre School
- Blake Shelly – Victims boyfriend
- Cassidy Ridden – Victims best friend
Part 2
Think you’ve solved the crime? Check your answer with A Multi-Media Murder Mystery: Part 2
Categories
Storytelling For Your Brand
Storytelling for your brand is key to developing a relationship with your audience and potential customers. The emotions you portray and the image you establish in the mind of your audience affects their perception of your brand and products, and their decision to purchase. But how do you tell your brand’s story and create these emotions? There are five elements that should be included in your story.
Setting
This is your opportunity to set up the story and explain to the audience what your products do, when they are used and most needed and any features they have. This part of the story is really like a show and tell, where the audience gets to see the products in all their glory.
Character
Think of your product as a character in the story you are trying to tell but your audience is the main character. How does your product support the main character? How does it fit in to the main character’s story? Shifting our thinking, to how our product plays a role in the life of a customer, will help develop the remaining elements in your story.
Plot
Customers need a reason to spend their hard-earned money. Set up a problem or issue that is common among your brand’s customers. Maybe your customers didn’t even know this was a problem. But guess what? You have the answer.
Conflict
Now that we have a problem, show that you understand your customer and their needs. Create a fire and make your product the hero. This is an opportunity to show your product in action and how it can be the hero in your customers’ story.
Arc
The arc in a story creates a rise in tension, a climax and an ending. The arc adds the drama to the story and helps develop the emotion and feeling in the story. Every part of the arc is equally important to creating a story that customers become emotionally invested in. The setup, the plot, the rise of conflict, the climax and the ending, together, equally, create a memorable story that will be associated with your products and your brand.
Memorable stories with emotion and a great arc are key to engaging with your customers and creating new customers. Great brand stories drive conversions. If people love your brand’s story, they are 55% more likely to buy your products in the future, 44% more likely to share your brand’s story and 15% more likely to buy immediately. Make sure to consider all the elements when you’re creating your brand’s story. Create a setting, make your product a character, find a problem, be the hero and present it in an arc to your audience. Now, go tell your story!
Looking for more social media marketing tips, follow me at focuspocus.ca
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A Monster Mini Golf Sunday
I remember when I was younger and I was excited about the Family Day long weekend because it meant no school or it meant time and a half pay if I had to work. I was missing the entire point of the holiday which was created in 1990 by Premier Don Getty for two reasons: to celebrate the family unit, and to lead the war on drugs. So, in my efforts to be a good citizen, I asked my family if they wanted to go out and have fun as a family. This is where the lesson is. As you will see, the idea that something will be fun and what is actually fun are so very different. Of course, there are many factors that play into the “having of fun”. Some of these include: the activity, the demographics of the people partaking in the fun, and the time of day the fun occurs. During all this “fun” I was live tweeting the events as they were folding.
Beginning
After I convinced my husband and five-year-old son that it would be a good idea for us to do something for Family Day, we had to find something, safe, age appropriate and available. While all the ideas put forward were fantastic ideas, especially the all-inclusive vacation my husband suggested, we ended up going back and forth between bowling, mini golf and swimming. The deciding factor was the amount of effort required for the activity. This final factor led us to mini golf.
Middle
If you haven’t been to Monster Mini Golf in Edmonton, check it out! The entire place is glow in the dark. It includes an arcade, live DJ and 18 holes of mini golf with moving monsters. We were given our clubs and balls and set off to hole number one. Not so bad! This is going to be so much fun! Until about hole four, then reality set in. My husband and I both looked at each other knowing exactly what the other was thinking…yes, we were only on hole four and had another 14 holes remaining.
As we are making our way through the course, it becomes apparent that no one showed our son how to play mini golf. I think he may have even been using the club backwards at some points. No one was really “playing” anymore. I think we were in the “let’s get this over with and get the hell out of here” stage. That’s when, we weren’t paying attention, and our son decided to drive the ball instead of putting. Well, that ball went flying! It bounced off a fake tombstone, jumped the glowing barricade, narrowly missing the head of a girl waiting to putt on the next hole, hit the wall behind her and landed by her feet. I notice my husband, who seen the entire event occur, do what husbands do. He casually walked away trying to act like he didn’t see the whole the thing. I send our son over to apologize while receiving dagger stares from the girl’s parents. Thankfully, no one was injured, and we reluctantly continued on.
End
Around hole 13 was when it got tough. At this point we were really debating the necessity of actually finishing the game but I’m always trying to teach my son that he needs to finish what he starts and there were really only five more holes. So, when we got to the last hole, it felt so good, almost like we were free. Don’t get me wrong, looking back, it was a fun evening with the family, would it have been better with a group of friends? Probably. Would it have been better in the evening with a babysitter? Probably. Would have been better with some pre-game cocktails? Probably. But will I do it again? Probably!
Live Tweets
In the live Tweets, I did my best to create a timeline of the events by mentioning which hole we were on. I was able to take some video and pictures throughout the experience which I included in the tweets to help give more context to the post and create a feeling. The posts were also short and concise, written how I would speak and included only the relevant details. I tried to make the posts relatable to anyone with young kids.
Storytelling Principles
Great Stories Are Universal
The mini golf story I was telling on Twitter would be relatable to many people with young children. They can relate to the pressure of trying to plan a family outing, the anxiety of a new activity with a young child and the relief when the activity is over.
Good Stories Have Structure
I set up my Twitter story to have a beginning, middle and an end. In the beginning, I introduce the situation and the characters. In the middle, there is tension and surprise. And at the end there is relief.
Good Stories Are Simple And Focused
This story was documenting events as they unfolded. It was simple since the subject matter was easy to understand. The story had an arc which kept it focused.
Good Stories Give you a Character to Root For
With the audience being parents, I would hope that they were rooting for me and my husband. I hope they would relate to the story and understand the predicament and challenges we were facing.
What family activities have you planned? Were they a success? Would you do them again? Let me know in the comments.
One of the best storytellers is Dolly Parton. Yup, you read that correctly! What makes her songs so good are the stories she’s able to tell. Her song, “Coat of Many Colours”, released in 1971, is a perfect example of storytelling through music. Even if you are not a fan of old country music, I’m talking about the original country music, you must admit most of the songs of this genre fit all the parameters for a great story. Great stories are universal. Great stories resonate with the audience by being relatable or emotional. Great stories have structure and purpose but are simple and focused at the core, and great stories have good characters, particularly a character the audience wants to see succeed. So, let me show you why “Coat of Many Colours” is truly a great story!
Great stories are universal, relatable, or emotional
Country music has evolved over the years and has become a mixture of many types of music, but it originated in the deep south among the poor working-class trying to survive off the land. Country music stories, like all other good stories, are relatable or emotional. “Coat of Many Colours” is a song about adversity and love, both relatable emotions. In this story, the little girl has a loving family and although she is teased for being poor, she doesn’t feel poor because of the love she gets from her mom. Most of us have felt love from a parent or guardian, most of us were probably teased at some point in our life. The descriptions Dolly uses in her story evoke emotion in the listener because they have been in a similar situation and, through the story, they relive those emotions helping them feel the story.
Great stories have structure and purpose but are simple and focused at the core
While “Coat of Many Colours is told through music, it still has structure and a purpose. Dolly starts by describing how their family was gifted a box of rags and because they were poor and fall was coming, her mother used the box of rags to make her a coat. Dolly watched her mother make this coat and put her love into it. She was very proud of her coat and while their family didn’t have money, she felt rich wearing this coat made with her mother’s love. At school, she was teased by the other kids because of her coat made of rags and for being poor. At the end of the song, Dolly tells the listener how she dealt with the bullies. The ending reveals the purpose of this story. We see a little girl unphased by the teasing, full of love from her family and proud of where she comes from. This story has a structure, a clear beginning, a middle, and an end. There are also events throughout the story that create difficulty for the character and in the end, we see the resolution.
This isn’t a long song. Dolly’s stories are simple and focused while still including details that draw in the listener and paint a picture for them. The music that accompanies the stories also helps to shape the mood and emotions that go with them.
Great stories have good characters
The main character in “Coat of Many Colours” is a sweet innocent little girl. She explains that she knew her family was poor but never felt poor because of the love she always received. Her innocence didn’t allow any of the adult stresses to bother her. She is a character you feel for at the beginning of the story because of her situation. You then feel for her again when she is teased. But, in the end, you feel proud of her for how she handles herself and for what she can see despite her family’s financial situation. She is a great character that is endearing and lovable.
While music isn’t necessarily the first medium you think about when you think about a good story, country music has always been based on telling stories and many of the songs of this genre tell great stories. Examining “Coat of Many Colours”, the storyline is relatable and evokes emotion which is enhanced through the music. Although the song is short, it is focused and follows a structure. Lastly, it has a great character that we can easily fall in love with. Using the principles of great storytelling, Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colours” is truly a great story.
What is your favorite country music story? Let me know in the comments.
EXSM 3989 - Digital Storytelling Class Blog 