How to Create Stories with Storify

Once upon a time, you spent a lot of time thinking about what to tweet out into the universe in 140 characters. These brilliantly written wisps of humor and intellect mixed artfully with the perfect amount of sarcasm are tossed into the wind like autumn leaves with the average shelf life of tweet being about three hours. (stats from my friends at Bit.ly) That's a very brief window of time for someone to see what you have shared. What can you do to save a fantastic conversation or share an event that you have tweeted?

This is where Storify comes in, Storify is a website that let's you create your own detailed version of social events using Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other sites. Curating elements such as posts, pictures and tweets, you build a story that you can edit and tweak to your hearts content. These elements are shareable within the Storify that you create and can be easily shared throughout social media platforms.

Let's talk about how to create stories with Storify!

1. Go to Storify and set up your account. Please make sure you set up your profile with a photo, nice bio and links to your social media profiles. No skipping the profile!

2. Of course you need something to create a Storify for like an event, conversation or just a few tweets that you loved. One of my favorite Storify stories that I made was from a conversation on Twitter about personal branding. This was a few tweets that turned into a great, spontaneous conversation which frankly for me is one of the great things about Twitter. I love that all parties were making intelligent, respectful comments although they disagreed on the topic. (One wonky thing about Storify, I have an account linked to my Facebook and one to my Twitter account but they can't combine the two accounts and I don't want to lose one of the group of stories so that's a bummer. Anyhow…) I urge you to check out this Storify as a great way to capture a conversation.

3. Your Storify can help you meet new people and help others expand their social media toolkit. I had the pleasure of meeting Aliza Licht, the fantastic PR pro behind @DKNY in New York City at an event. While I was interviewing her about how she uses Twitter, for which she has won multiple awards and single-handedly whisked the fashion industry into social media, Aliza was telling me how she likes to live tweet during Gossip Girl and that Kelly Rutherford, one of the stars of the show, lived tweeted with her. And I thought this is a perfect way to use Storify! So I asked Aliza if she knew about it and she didn't. I explained what it was and how she could use it. She went back to the office and started playing with it. Then went to speak at #Fashion20, talked about it on her panel and people started tweeting! Jeff Elder of Storify made a Storify about it. When @DKNY tweets, people listen. And retweet!

I am still waiting for some candy or commission from Storify. I like Good ‘n Plenty and Twizzlers. And cash, of course.

4. Curate a great event, like #FBSS12, and share it with your followers. I am attending a conference and live tweeting it after the live sessions are over, I am making a Storify of them. Here is a post I wrote on the first four sessions which are packed with Facebook tips and tricks. Mari loves Storify too and as a presenter, it was a great way for her to go back and see what people shared live on Twitter while she was presenting. Mari is the Queen of Facebook but she loves Twitter too. She provided value to me and I like to think that I provided some in return and to the community by creating a summary that is easy to read and fun.

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/MariSmith/status/253308419237351424″]

 

Super cool >> Make a Slideshare from your Storify

Want to create something special for your blog or a presentation? Create a Slideshare from your Storify. Tiara tip to Shareaholic for this great idea. You just embed the Storify on the HTML side of your blog post in WordPress. So easy and smart!

Storify's vision: “We want to share our vision for Storify and why we believe it's important. We've had a great start so far, and together we will disrupt how we inform the world.”

Some tips to make a great Storify:

• Be selective in which tweets you add and put them in sequential order. Don't just dump them all in, that's a mess.
• Add a photo to the cover so it looks pretty.
• Take advantage of the full range of media available, while I have focused mostly on Twitter you have the option of adding Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and much more.
• Curate content that you find by saving the tweets and posts with links for later usage.
• Embed the Storify on your blog or write a post and insert a link.
• Share on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ or email it.
• When you publish your story, notify the people that you included in your piece which help build your community and is great networking.

Some extra hot diggity things you can do with Storify:

• Pin anything you see on Storify — a great way to get a fantastic tweet on your Pinterest boards.
• Add a bookmarklet or use the Chrome extension for Storify.
• Create stories on your iPad
• All the links and@mentions are clickable with Storify. The tweets can be retweeted, favorited or you can reply to the person who originated the tweet from within the Storify.
• Send an email newsletter through Mailchimp.

Have I piqued your interested to try Storify? How are you going to use it? Can't wait to see what you create using Storify, but not the #FBSS12 event ~ I called it.

Featured image courtesy of  Thomas Hawk via Creative Commons.