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Storytelling vs. Storydoing: Boosting your strategic communication

children in an urban garden showing the vegetables they have harvested, to show the power of storydoing.

How can you get your audience to connect deeply with your message and engage in action?

Storytelling and storydoing techniques have become essential for those who want to make an authentic impact with their message. Both strategies provide value in different ways, but it is essential to know which one to apply in each context. Whether you are in strategic communications, branding or partnership development, understanding when and how to use them is key to achieving deeper connections and tangible results.

What is Storytelling?

Storytelling is the art of creating and telling stories that connect emotionally with an audience. It is not just about recounting events, but building a narrative that has a clear purpose, conveying values, ideas, and emotions that resonate with the audience. This technique, widely used in strategic communication, allows organisations to generate empathy and understanding in their target audience, making them connect more deeply with their messages.

In the professional context, storytelling is key to simplifying complex concepts, making audiences assimilate information in a more accessible way. Moreover, by telling a well-structured story, the audience becomes a passive recipient, making it easier for messages to be internalised without resistance.

You can find more detailed information in my blogs on storytelling and storytelling for change and policy advocacy.

Benefits of storytelling

  1. Generate empathy: Stories are a powerful tool for creating emotional connections. Storytelling allows audiences to identify with characters or situations, which strengthens the relationship between the brand and the audience.
  2. Clarity of message: Using a narrative makes it easier for even complex concepts to be understood and shared effectively. Storytelling makes messages simpler, while maintaining their essence and increasing their impact.
  3. Humanise projects and causes: Storytelling is ideal for putting a human face on projects. By telling personal stories about the beneficiaries of a project or cause, it creates a genuine connection between the organisation and its audience, humanising objectives and goals.
meeting of an association doing a storytelling exercise

Strategies for effective storytelling

  • Define the purpose of your story: Before creating a narrative, ask yourself: what emotions do you want to evoke in your audience? Define the clear purpose behind your story, whether it is to inspire, educate or raise awareness of a particular issue. This will help you build a narrative with a clear focus.
  1. Connect with the audience through personas: Personas that reflect the target audience generate a stronger emotional connection. Develop characters that represent the challenges, values, or dreams of your target audience. This makes the audience see themselves reflected and therefore more deeply involved in the story.
  2. Three-act structure: Introduction, conflict and resolution: Using the classic 3-act structure helps to capture and maintain audience interest. It begins with an introduction that sets the context, followed by an attention-grabbing conflict or challenge, and culminating in a resolution that inspires or motivates action.
  3. Use sensory details to make the story vivid: Include descriptions that allow the audience to “see”, “feel” and “hear” the story you are telling. Sensory details help narratives feel more real and memorable.

European Commission case study — “EU Protects”.

The European Commission used storytelling in its “EU Protects” campaign to humanise EU policies. This campaign features stories of people who have benefited from EU policies in areas such as health, security, and the environment. The stories create an emotional narrative that connects European citizens to the Union’s actions, reinforcing the idea that policies have a real and positive impact on their lives.

What is Storydoing?

Storydoing is a technique that takes storytelling one step further. Instead of simply telling a story, organisations, brands, or entities invite their audience to actively participate in the narrative. In other words, storydoing turns people into agents of change within the story. This technique involves creating real experiences where the audience is directly involved in the creation of the story and, through their actions, contributes to generating a tangible impact.

Storydoing not only inspires people, but also motivates them to act. It is a powerful tool for those who wish not only to convey a message, but also to mobilise audiences to become protagonists of the change they want to see.

Benefits of storydoing

  1. Active engagement: Unlike storytelling, where the audience assumes a passive role, storydoing invites people to actively participate. This approach generates a much deeper and lasting engagement, as people feel part of the impact.
  2. Measurable impact: While storytelling primarily generates an emotional impact, storydoing allows for concrete results to be measured. The actions taken by the audience, from signing a petition to engaging in specific activities, can be quantified, providing a clear way to evaluate the success of the campaign.
  3. Reinforced authenticity: By directly involving people in the story, actions gain authenticity. Audiences are more likely to trust brands or organisations that not only share their values, but also put them into practice, inviting others to do the same.

Strategies for successful storydoing

  1. Define a cause that mobilises your audience: Make sure the cause around which you are building the narrative is relevant and meaningful to your audience. The more they identify with the cause, the more likely they are to participate actively. A social, environmental or cultural cause can be the driver of effective storydoing.
  2. Create clear incentives for participation: Motivate your audience by providing incentives for them to participate. These incentives can be emotional (a sense of belonging or personal satisfaction), social (public recognition) or financial (tangible rewards).
  3. Facilitate participation: Make it easy for your audience to get involved. Provide tools, platforms, or channels that allow them to participate without friction. A successful example of this is the use of mobile apps, social media or events that simplify the collaboration process.
  4. Measure and share the impact: Make sure you have a system in place to measure the impact of storydoing actions and share the results with your audience. Seeing how your actions create real change will increase their engagement and strengthen their attachment to the cause.
two young girls with a ‘Save the Planet’ poster as part of a storytelling marketing campaign.

United Nations Case Study — UN Women’s “HeForShe”

A clear example of storydoing is UN Women’s global “HeForShe” campaign. This campaign is designed to tell stories about the struggle for gender equality, while inviting men and boys to take action to support the cause. Participants register as advocates and take active steps to promote equality in their communities, reinforcing their commitment to the cause.

Differences between Storytelling and Storydoing

Although both approaches aim to generate impact, the differences between storytelling and storydoing are notable. Understanding these differences is crucial to choosing the right strategy according to the objectives of the campaign or project.

  • Participation: In storytelling, the audience assumes a passive role; they receive the story. In storydoing, on the other hand, the audience actively participates in the creation and development of the narrative.
  • Impact: While storytelling seeks to generate an emotional connection through stories, storydoing goes further and seeks to mobilise the audience to act, which produces measurable and tangible results.
  • Objective: Storytelling focuses on inspiring and educating, while storydoing is primarily aimed at moving people to action. The latter is used when the goal is to mobilise audiences and bring about concrete changes.

With these differences in mind, organisations can determine which technique to use depending on the results they want to achieve. In awareness-raising or educational campaigns, storytelling may be the best option. But if the objective is to engage the audience directly and generate concrete changes, storydoing is more appropriate.

When to use Storytelling or Storydoing

  • Storytelling: It is most effective when the aim is to raise awareness, educate or inspire. If you are working on a campaign that needs to convey a clear and emotional message, such as branding or awareness-raising campaigns, storytelling may be the best option. An example of this is the EU’s Cohesion Policy campaign, which uses personal stories to show how EU cohesion policies directly impact the lives of European citizens. You can see the report on the future of these policies here.
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  • Storydoing: It is ideal for projects that require the active participation of people. If your goal is to generate tangible change and mobilise audiences, storydoing will help you create a narrative where everyone is part of the impact. Projects such as Plastic Bank, where vulnerable communities actively participate in recycling plastic waste in exchange for essential goods, are a clear example of successful storydoing.

Storydoing in internal communication

Storydoing is not only valuable for external communication, but also for internal communication within organisations and projects. Applied strategically, it can:

  1. Encourage collaboration: Actively involve employees or volunteers in internal initiatives, such as the implementation of sustainable policies or corporate social responsibility programmes.
  2. Improve engagement and motivation: Storydoing campaigns motivate employees by showing them that they are part of something bigger and that their daily actions contribute to the goals of the company or organisation.

Conclusion

The real power of strategic communication lies in knowing when to use storytelling to generate empathy and understanding, and when to activate audiences through storydoing to generate real impact. In a context such as corporate communication and the development of international partnerships, both tools complement each other. While storytelling helps to convey values and humanise causes, storydoing drives action and ensures that these values are translated into concrete results.

As a communications professional, knowing how to balance both techniques will not only allow you to connect emotionally with your audience, but also inspire them to be an active part of the changes you want to see in the world.

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