From caveman drawings to silent movies, #visual storytelling has been used to educate, engage, and motivate audiences for centuries.
What is #visual storytelling?
“#Visual storytelling involves the use of graphics, images, pictures, and videos to engage with viewers in an effort to drive emotions, engage intercommunication, and motivate an audience to action.”
#Visual storytelling should include five core elements
Tension: Motivate people to keep consuming the story.
Entertainment: Hook them in the first eight seconds.
Education: Give information so the viewer is better educated on the topic.
#Micro-interactions: Ensure that even the seemingly small and discrete aspects – the movement of objects, the page’s dynamic adaptation – provide a good experience.
Call to action: Make sure your team is clear on what you want the audience to do after consuming the story. Then work backward to design the #visual storytelling to achieve it.
Now, let’s go through 3 Stunning Examples that Show #Visual Storytelling at Its Best

Why Is Simone Biles the World’s Best Gymnast? (The New York Times)
The New York Times produced a set of video profiles of athletes representing Team USA in the 2016 Summer Olympics, including Why Is Simone Biles the World’s Best Gymnast?
Through this almost three-minute video, viewers get an in-depth explanation of Simone’s brilliant gymnastic moves.
What gives this piece such impact?
“During that story, the audience is not inundated with too much information, just a few facts that are brilliantly translated through #storytelling with multiple mediums using live motion, infographics, typography, and short interview segments.”
Takeaways:
Use editorial and sound design to provoke emotion (tension).
Don’t shy away from mixing multiple mediums to make your point (entertain).
Limit information to valuable facts to aid in recall (education).
Use infographics to explain the complex in a digestible manner (education).
Population Healthier (Athenahealth sponsored content on The Atlantic)
Population Healthier, a microsite on The Atlantic sponsored by Athenahealth, tells the story of “[h]ow one radically diverse, mid-sized American city has managed to make its communities healthier while winning the fight against skyrocketing costs.”
The subject matter is thought-provoking. “This is not superficial. This goes into depth. There is an understanding of the complexities of the health-care system, as well as complexities inherent to this community. It’s good journalism

Takeaways:
Deepen the readers’ understanding through meaningful visual elements (educate).
Don’t just inform, challenge the reader to understand (tension).
Always move the viewer to the next desired step (call to action).
Areas of Focus (Nikon-sponsored content on The Atlantic)
The Areas of Focus microsite is a single-page, interactive photo gallery. It tells the story of photographer Jim McNeill, who was given a Nikon Z 7 camera and asked to spend time following a street musician and a speakeasy club in New York City.
The site takes you on an engaging and visually captivating journey through New York City with the Nikon camera as the co-star.

Takeaways:
Move the reader through conversational storytelling (entertain).
Identify what’s most important to your audience and make it simple to engage with (micro-interactions).
Drive to an integrated product page where it makes sense (call to action).
What visual story do you have to tell?
You don’t need a big budget to apply the concepts outlined to create great visual stories – create tension, entertain, educate, facilitate #micro-interactions, and issue a clear call to action.
Almost everybody is publishing text-based blog posts and articles these days. Far fewer are doing visual storytelling. Take advantage of the opportunity.


---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/aleph-global-scrum-team/message