What sells communities best? People.
Their relationships, conversations, activities, jobs, problems, solutions, life lessons, work lessons, skills, and… well, you get my point.
And for platforms where people are the focal point, human stories matter the most. And for platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, these stories are a treasure of gold.
Human content and emotions
I’ve already talked about the importance of human content in a previous blog and how Google uses it to sell its products. Now let’s talk about Facebook’s practices.
If you think back to the core aim behind Facebook’s creation, it was connecting people to their communities, whether it’s friends or family. And while the platform itself has developed and grown over time, its tone in advertisements has remained the same: highlighting human stories to emphasize its products and services.
This strategy is very useful considering the emotions attached to Facebook as opposed to the emotions these ads revoke. Being a Facebook user, you’ve probably seen an ad or two on your newsfeed and may even be tired of them. This practice along with their recent data usage scandals have cast a negative light on a lot of the apps’ activities, but then there are these ads that are so human, they target your empathy directly. You see Facebook connecting families and communities, telling stories that each of us goes through one way or the other, and you relate to them instantly. This practice plays in the app’s favor because it portrays a human side of the platform that the corporate side negates entirely.
That’s one very important benefit of human advertising: it helps you connect with brands on a core human level, and that’s the best way to connect with your audience.
As proof, here’s an ad from Facebook that’s powerful AND relevant in today’s day and age, despite the story being literally a hundred years old.
The link between the past and present in this ad is genius, and not only is it relatable but also gives people hope, courage, and a story they can hold on to.
Real people, real lives
A very big part of Facebook’s success as a platform is the community stories that aren’t just shared, but also created on it. From Pakistan’s Kanwal Ahmed and Soul Sisters Pakistan to international stories
This is a platform where people have created memories, communities, and friends from across the world and let’s just say Facebook doesn’t shy away from hiding that.
Whether it’s business owners or influencers, Facebook has given a voice to all of them to create and share content that matters the most to each. We can argue all we want about Facebook’s data practices, but the fact remains that the platform has given a voice to people with its family of apps that no other platform has been able to before, it’s a marketplace and a meeting ground for millions and these videos and stories show how massive the platform’s impact has been in the world.
WhatsApp, Instagram, and more…
Facebook isn’t the only brand putting out these stories. It is the biggest, yes, but its sister apps aren’t far behind.
Let’s start by talking about WhatsApp. The chat application has recently come under fire for its privacy policy changes, but the end-to-end encryption model WhatsApp uses was a saving grace for the app. But what does end-to-end encryption even mean? It isn’t a very easy to pronounce phrase, and for laypeople, it may be even harder to understand.
Luckily, WhatsApp has a campaign explaining it to people in very human terms…
Great video, right? There’s more to the campaign than just this one…
Launched in the peak of COVID-19, this campaign covers different scenarios of people getting together on WhatsApp and highlights the privacy they all have. WhatsApp may have its flaws, but this campaign does have a trustworthy factor in it and that’s one thing the app needs now more than ever.
Then there’s Instagram.
The app is as popular as Facebook and WhatsApp, but its audience, the one that uses Instagram the way it was meant to be, is a world apart and IG knows it.
This video takes up all the human traits of the people who use Instagram and sums it up in a way that it’s all relatable, understandable, and creative.
Creating trust, reliability, and relevance
The content explored in this blog is amazing, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that Facebook still is a corporation using audience data in ways it shouldn’t even be allowed. But it’s being done, and that’s a discussion we can have for hours on end.
But stop thinking about that for a minute, scroll back up and watch one of the emotional videos about the platform. Your empathy and emotions will overtake your rational thinking, and that’s what this content is beneficial for. It develops trust, reliability, and relevance instantly, creating an emotional response in the viewer’s head and creating recall for the brand whenever you think about the ad.
And that’s why you should be investing in showcasing human stories in your ads so people can understand, relate, and remember your brand in the longer run, just like Facebook does.
