How to Use Storytelling to Build Community
How do storytelling and community building overlap? How often do you tell the story of how you created your community? Maybe you become a storyteller to deepen relationships. Maybe you tell stories to grab attention and increase engagement.
On this episode of Talk About Your Community, Todd Nilson of Clocktower Advisors is joined by Ahmadou Diallo, an Afropean Griot, which is a Senegalese term representing more than a storyteller. In addition to discussing international Community Day, they discuss the power of storytelling, including how stories we tell ourselves shape our world view.
About Ahmadou
“I am an Afropean. I am a SénéGaulois, half Senegalese, half French. I am in a journey to tell my story so that my children and their children will hear my story from my own perspective. I am a griot, a Senegalese term representing more than a Storyteller. I am part f many communities in Europe and in Africa.”
Show Notes
2:30: Ahmadou starts with his background, what led him to creating his first communities into where he’s at now.
6:30: In introducing storytelling, Ahmadou and Todd discuss what a griot is. Griot is an African term for someone who is passing through stories and values of community via oral tradition. This is especially important for passing on information in places where written word is not as common.
12:30: Moving onto the overlap of community building and storytelling, Ahmadou explains taking the story of our community and using storytelling to bring about an emotional response. You can tell the stories of how your community was created or the purpose your community serves to gain more members or retain the members you already have.
22:30: Ahmadou shares the six steps to storytelling. He also shares how raising different emotions elicit chemicals in our brain for various responses, such as dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins.
27:30: Using the film “Everything Everywhere All At Once” as an example, Ahmadou and Todd dive into storytelling within social media. Todd asks the question about all stories being inherently true or lies, and the importance of multiple viewpoints of stories.
41:00: They finish by touching on International Community Day, coming up on October 8th.
