Storify is a wonderful tool for curating references to phrases, websites, Twitter handles or hash tags or almost anything else. It’s intuitive and pretty easy. A search pulls up posts, comments, websites or videos on the topic selected. And any of the items the search retrieves can be dragged over to a main area and turned into a curated story.

Several aspects make Storify an especially powerful tool for social sharing.

• Storify allows users to scan for content on about 20 different popular social media sites, such as You Tube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, in addition to URLs.
• A story built on Storify cleverly incorporates images, video, comments and Tweets.
• When a Storify story gets published, all of the authors whose content is included can be notified, giving an automatic list of people who are primed to share your story.
• A Storify story can be liked, commented on and even embedded on a site. This offers explosive options for engaging with your audience and inviting sharing and conversation.
• It’s fun, it’s social and it lures viewers and readers into a story that is curated to specifically show the topic selected.
• It’s free!

Promoting an event with Storify

This summer, for a client holding a big event, I created a Storify story as the promotion and buzz built. And the evening before the day-long event began, I published and shared the story.

I also blogged about promoting this event on Twitter, here.

Powerhouse brand promotion

And it got me thinking, recently, about the many amazing uses Storify has for brands to accelerate and spread their conversations and engagement with customers. After all, a significant element of turning willing and happy customers into brand ambassadors is making sure they feel appreciated and special. So I took two brands I really like and created Storify stories to achieve different purposes.

(I don’t have any connection to these companies, other than I use and like their products.)

Case Study #1:

A product primer with tips and how tos

The first example is about a cleaning product that’s been around more than a century: 20 Mule Team Borax.

Boring, right? I think until the past year or so, it had the same packaging since I was a girl. I’ve never seen an advertisement for it. Or a coupon to entice me to buy it.

But it works really well. It’s cheap. And it’s natural. A visit to its Facebook page shows some pretty enthusiastic fans. Plus, the product has some cool videos on You Tube with facts about the product and how to use it.

People even Tweet about 20 Mule Team Borax. Who knew? Storify could be a great tool for this brand. So I curated some pictures, Tweets, posts and comments and created a short story. It’s here.

Case Study #2:

Customers showing love and getting loved back

I’ve expressed my love for Sport Skirts before. This post for the blog list 12 Most tucked in a reference about this company’s gear. (See #8)

I got a Tweet back from them, after I posted a link to the post and mentioned @SportSkirts

This brand is very engaged with its customers. And the conversations are fun. Storify could be a great opportunity for Sport Skirts to reach a wider audience.

Their customers really love their products, which are made well, wear well and have great features (A perfectly positioned pocket for my iPhone, with a little place for my headphones to pop through? Fantastic!) The company’s website actually describes the feature benefits like this: “Don’t lift your skirt to rock out.” Too cute.

So I curated some of the Tweets, video and posts from Skirt Sports into this story.

That’s just a start

I created those two case studies in about ten minutes each. Curating is easy because the material is already there. You just search, review and pull in the content you want that fits the story you’re making.

Because Storify enables much wider amplification of other social media tools and sites, the ways brands — or nonprofits — can use the tool in their outreach is almost limitless. It keeps things fun. And it lets community managers and brand managers use and curate material that’s already out on the social web.

This fabulous post talks about one brand that’s missing a huge opportunity to do just that. As Howie Goldfarb writes, Manwich is on Twitter without even being on Twitter!

For nonprofits, think about the many opportunities for reaching donors, showing love to volunteers or demonstrating some of the results your work and programs are creating. Very powerful. And very easy to share and amplify on social media channels and sites.

If you use Storify already, I’d love to hear the other ways you use it. And if you don’t use it yet, but decide to try it, let me know how it goes!