Visual inspiration for storytelling

When you’re stuck trying to find a story to share with your audience…

Look no further than the photos you have in your portfolio.

For many speakers, authors, trainers, consultants and other expert business owners, they share stories from the stage, on a screen, in printed form, and from the front of the room. 

But when it comes to their online content…uhhhhh…

What the hell am I supposed to say? 

And I get it - it can become quite a challenge, especially when you factor in how busy you are with work and life. 

But, maintaining a presence online with valuable content that nurtures relationships with those that you serve on a consistent basis is a critical part to gaining attention from the people whose problems you solve.

So how do you cut through the writer’s block?

Rather than staring at a blinking cursor that hasn’t moved in 45 minutes, start by looking through your portfolio of photos. 

Why? 

On their own, your photos are a goldmine for inspiration to storytelling. 

Between your facial expression, body language, location, other folks in the images, and activity exhibited in front of the camera, that gives you a ton of ammunition from which to work when sourcing ideas for creating relevant content for your audience. 

The next time you find yourself cursing at a blinking cursor, go through your portfolio and select a photo that immediately catches your eye.

Don’t just pick anything. 

If you just eenie-meenie-miney-mo it, that’s not going to excite you to do this. Choose one purposefully based on your excitement level to share it. 

Once you have your photo, then ask yourself three questions:

1 - What is the activity in which I’m engaged in front of the camera?

2 - What is the sentiment of the photo?

3 - What is the teachable moment for your audience?

These three questions are pivotal as they will define the scope and tone of the story you share. Let me show you what I mean. 

Recently with a client, we sat down to put together some content for his social feed. 

I pulled out this image from his portfolio:

I asked him the three questions and his answers were:

1 - Reading a newsletter to which he’s subscribed.

2 - Curiosity and hunger for knowledge

3 - Finding inspiration wherever we can get it

With that foundation, he then went on to share this insight for the story in the caption:

Where do you go for inspiration?

People complain all the time that our cell phones make us too easy to reach and give us a feeling that we’re always at work. That may be true, but there’s also power in that little gadget. 

Whether we’re in line at the supermarket, or waiting at the doctors office, our phones are a great tool for finding inspiration, for learning. If we choose to see them and use them that way. Maybe it’s a great podcast, an interesting book or just some music that lifts you up.

We have so much battling for our attention, how are you carving out time for true inspiration? 

Short, sweet, and to the point, while also offering an opportunity for others to actively engage the question based on the question to close the story. 

While he and I create a wide variety of content - much of it longer, more involved pieces that flesh out high-concepts from his contextual models and frameworks - we complement the heavier posts with short, food-for-thought stories like this to balance it out, while still offering relevant content to his audience.

And if you’re struggling to put ANYTHING on social, a post like this is a great way to kickstart the creative juices. And, it illuminates an effective way to leverage this photo from his portfolio.

Keep this in mind the next time you want to share a story online and come up empty on inspiration.

Pick a photo that excites you and ask yourself the 3-question foundation to get the process started. And then, see where the ideas take you. 

While you might end up at the end of the process in a much different place than where you started, it’s a hell of a lot better than staring at the blinking cursor!

For more information on visual storytelling, I won’t shut up about it on my blog - sign up here to save yourself the commute to my website to read it.