Higher Ed Has Storytelling All Wrong

This Hot Take was written by Kristin Van Dorn

Have you ever had a friend or acquaintance tell you they’re a great storyteller, but you know their self-assessment isn’t quite hitting the mark?

That disconnect comes from being in a certain place in your life where a lot of absurd or interesting things seem to happen - things that are worth telling and that would make a great story. But, raw material by itself doesn’t guarantee a good delivery.

Stories need care and skill. You have to know your audience and what works for them. You have to start off with a hook and develop the details and the pacing. If there’s a punchline or a moral, you have to nail that ending.

If you’re listening to a not-so-good storyteller, you know you’re in trouble when you find yourself thinking, “What is the point of this?” or “Where is this going?” In fact, those types of questions can be directly tied to storytelling elements:

1. “Why do I care?” - missing a hook
2. “Where is this going?” - missing the pacing
3. “When will this end?” - too much detail
4. “Wait, what’s happening?” - not enough detail
5. “Huh…??” - missing a punchline

The great storyteller eliminates these issues by attending to their audience’s needs.

How To Be Great at Storytelling in Higher Education #

In marketing and branding, we often hear that our work is about storytelling. But I think many of us take this advice too literally. We create student and faculty highlights, interview alumni and donors, and build entire sections of websites to display profiles.

I have been saying for a few years now that our websites are not meant to be Lord of the Rings. Our websites are meant to be Middle Earth. Our job is to make our prospective students feel like the main characters. We build a world in which they see themselves. Cluttering the site with side characters or previous main characters doesn’t do the trick.

But if we’re not supposed to put so much effort into telling the stories of current students, how do we incorporate more storytelling into our website content?

Elements of Storytelling #

Instead of thinking about your website as a vehicle for stories, consider how you can embed elements of storytelling into your content design.

• The Hook: How do you write that amazing first sentence that gets prospective students deeper into your content?
• Pacing: How do you provide information intuitively so that people encounter the right copy that supports their goals at the right time, in the right order?
• Details: how do you provide enough information to gather what they need to take an action or make a decision, but not so much information that it feels overwhelming?
• Punchline/Moral: How do you close your content sections with an impactful ending that motivates them to take action?

Show, Don’t Tell #

“Show, don’t tell” is classic and somewhat confusing advice for writers. For fiction writers, it means enabling your audience to experience the details of your story through their senses rather than delivering a set of facts.

Here’s how I mean it when I recommend it for your website. Let’s take an example like inclusivity.

• “Telling” prospective students that you’re an inclusive campus might mean displaying an inclusion statement on your website.
• “Showing” you’re an inclusive campus means providing information about the accessibility of your campus tours.

Here’s another example. You want to be known for having helpful and available faculty:

• “Telling” you have helpful faculty might mean writing copy that says as much and maybe grabbing a quote.
• “Showing” you have helpful and available faculty might mean requiring faculty to post 10 open office hours per month, including remote and evening options.

I could come up with examples all day. The point is that if you want your stories to resonate with your prospective students, you must build trust and a sense of authenticity through demonstration. Percentages, figures, or even quotes—as compelling as they may be—are still telling. Being is showing.

So, what are your next steps? #

The first step is to identify the “punchlines” or the points of your stories that you want to emphasize. What do you want to be known for? What are the 2-3 things you want first-time visitors to your website to remember about you? Often, these are brand pillars.

The next step is identifying ways to show your brand pillars in action. Say your brand pillar is boasting career-ready experiences. Answer questions like this:

• What do new students need to think about in order to take full advantage of our career-ready experiences?
• How can I put them closer to a career-ready experience during a website visit?
• How do I build the theme of career-ready experiences into the recruitment process?

Some content strategies you could adopt based on this line of questioning might be:

• displaying first-year externship opportunities on program pages
• providing behind-the-scenes video of a class with guest panelists from a Fortune 500 business
• holding a career-ready event for prospective students that dovetails with a career fair for current students

The last step is to incorporate some of those ideas into a phased plan that includes consensus building, art direction, asset collection, content strategy, and design.

The Bottom Line #

There’s a famous quote by Maya Angelou that I am sure you are familiar with:

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Making people feel is about pulling them into the spotlight, inviting their participation, and giving them a taste of what it is they will be a part of.

If you want help with building your show-don’t-tell storytelling style, reach out to us. We can help you formulate a plan to create more authentic and brand-connected digital experiences.