Brands are increasingly hiring “storytellers,” shares the Wall St. Journal. These storytellers are using social media, podcasts, and other novel marketing approaches to share a business’s story. Ironically, earned media, such as the WSJ newspaper (where I read about this trend), is not seen as a leading medium. Print newspaper subscriptions have fallen by 70% since 2005. (I'm a lone holdout: I still get the Times and WSJ each week; I used to get four print papers each day. My poor newspaper deliver person!)

What Is Your Story?

Is your business's story simply a list of benefits it delivers?  I believe it's more than that. I asked Google for examples of brand stories, and it shared that brands tell their stories through:

• Origin narratives
• Shared values
• Customer heroes
• Social missions
• Unique product journeys 

They transform products into symbols of identity, purpose, or community, making customers feel part of something bigger.
 

Examples: 

"Patagonia's environmentalism, Nike's athlete empowerment, TOMS'"buy-one-give-one" model, Coca-Cola's "happiness" theme, or Apple's showcasing user creativity."

I found Google's answer helpful, but I posit that a company's story can be viewed as two things: 

1. Your Big Picture Vision (The 'Macro' Story)

This is what you're doing on a macro level. It's what is industry-changing.  

For example, my company Shop Local has these big picture missions: 1) Reduce website work for indie stores, and 2) Bring the bridal registry business back to brick-and-mortar, Main Street indie stores. 
 

2.  Your ‘Small’ Story: Anecdotes and Success Stories

This consists of examples of how you've helped a client. A company's website and socials may share small, repeatable, memorable stories of client success stories.

Our Story at Shop Local--According to Our Team
I asked my co-workers to come up with our macro and micro story.  I'm proud of their wonderful insights below.  If I were tasked with giving us a slogan, it may be: "Small Team / Big Hearts". Thank you, Builders. 

My team's submissions:

Macro Story

These are Shop Local vision statements submitted by my co-workers: 

• Help small shops beat Big Tech.
• Restore balance between local shops and tech behemoths.
• Crafted for corner stores, not corporate chains.
• Make digital success easy.
• Offer all the business tools one needs in one place.
• Created and developed in USA to serve USA.
• Bridge indie retailers, brands, and consumers.
• Power local retail online.
• Keep ecommerce human.
• Eliminate duplicate work for independent retailers.
• Power Main Street with smarter technology.
• Give local shops great tech.
• Strengthen local retail in a digital world.
   

Taglines

From the macro visions, the team created some taglines:

• Small Store ~ Big Site.
• Prosper Locally, Compete Globally.
• The Indie Advantage.
• Amazon Power, Local Soul.
• Big Tech Power. Small Town Spirit.
• Retail Simplified. Community Amplified.
• 1 software, 1000 business functions.
• Run your store. We'll run your software.  
• Built for Main Street—not Big Box.
• When local businesses win, communities do too.
• From Local Shops to Limitless Reach.
• Spend less time managing products and more time selling them.

Micro Stories:

The team submitted these personal narratives explaining how we help clients:

Origin narrative:

• Bridge began with a simple idea: independent retailers shouldn’t have to do the same work over and over again. In 2007, Jason Solarek saw stores across the country manually uploading the same products—wasting time, money, and opportunity. He built a better way: one system where brands enter data once, and it flows automatically to every retailer who carries it. We made a ‘magic box’ where brands put stuff in once, and it zips to all the shops.   
  Shop Local is like a superhero for small stores!  
   

Testimonials from Customers: 

• "Shop Local enables the small retail store to participate in e-commerce without devoting massive time and resources." ~ Matt Hullfish / Costa Nova.
• “By moving to Shop Local, we cut our website maintenance costs by 86%.” ~ Kenny Cohen / Contemporary Concepts.
• “Shop Local doubled the number of registries at our store and doubled our registry sales.” ~ Jeffrey Bannon / Jeffrey Bannon Ltd.
• "Due to Shop Local, I have more brides registering at our store...Shop Local is boosting our bridal sales." ~ Sera Alioto / Alioto's
• "I let brides know that the Shop Local will show the brand's full catalog so brides can add products that we may not have on display in the store...As recently as yesterday, a bride went home and was able to add a crystal vase that we didn't have in store."

‘Shared Values’ Story:

• We rebuild the connections between brands, retailers, and customers so local commerce can thrive in a digital world. Indie retail gets hurt because software scales faster than people to. Big platforms, like Shopify, are centralized on commerce, optimized for volume, and treat stores as interchangeable endpoints. We offer software that removes friction and complexity. We make it possible for independent retailers to compete—and win—online without giving up what makes them special.
• We get members of the retail industry to team up and share resources. This is  'we commerce' and differs from traditonal retail’s solo, 'me commerce' approach. (Details: https://www.shoplocal.org/news.cfm/24188/Shop-Local-We-Support-We-Commerce.)

Our team member Aimee wrote the following. These are testimonials that we aim to elicit from clients:

• Bridal registry story:  
  • Before Shop Local, my registry felt clunky and hard to manage. Now it’s built right into my store—easy for couples, easy for guests, and effortless for my team.
  • My couples don’t want another big-box registry. They want something personal—and now I can give it to them.
  • I spend less time managing registry logistics and more time helping couples celebrate their love.
• Product update story:
  • I used to spend hours updating product listings. Now everything syncs automatically—so I can focus on styling tables and serving customers.
  • My website finally reflects what’s actually in my store. Accurate.  Effortless.
  • I didn’t open my shop to manage spreadsheets. I opened it to create beautiful tables.
  • Before Shop Local, my website took hours to update. Now my products sync automatically—so I spend more time helping customers find the perfect gift.
  • My store finally runs as smoothly online as it does in person.
  • I get my time back—and my business grows