By Judith Lee

As often happens to me when I take a vacation, I snagged a great recommendation for a “must read” book : Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind by Yuval Noah Harari. With a few hours to spare on Saturday (rare luxury!), I bought the book on my Amazon Kindle app.

Whoa!

Only 52 pages into it, I am blown away by the information and insight. Did you know that several human species co-existed around the globe with our own Homo Sapiens ancestors?

These human species were neither less intelligent nor less successful than our ancestors in their prehistoric time – yet they are long extinct, as Homo Sapiens dominates the planet.

Yuval Noah Harari asks the obvious question – Why? – and provides an answer that I find quite stunning: Only Homo Sapiens developed a powerful storytelling culture that inspired our species to believe certain myths, legends and fictions that bind us together in large numbers.

Nations, religions and corporations are all examples of large groups bound by myths, legends and fictions. Harari believes we are hard-wired to tell stories and believe in them.

This goes a long way toward explaining the modern rise of Social Media. Individuals have access to a huge potential audience, and can directly share their stories. Why do all these other individuals take any interest at all? We are hard-wired for story-telling.

The book Sapiens goes on quite convincingly to explain how storytelling provided a cultural advantage that not only enabled Homo Sapiens’ survival, but empowered our species to dominate all others. Storytelling is power, baby!

Next time you are wondering what to post to Social Media, please please please, TELL YOUR STORY. Tell the story of your business, the story of your family, heck – the story of your day. You might think, “No one will be interested in this,” but in fact, many people will be interested. They will be interested in your story more than any deal or offer your business can devise.

It turns out that the power of Social Media comes from deep within our psyche. We want to hear stories, we need to hear stories, we are seeking stories.

If you tell your story, customers will connect with you, and research shows, customers who connect with you are more likely to purchase from you. It’s as simple as that.

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Top photo credit: COD, Team Up through New Dual-Language Program 2016 31 via photopin (license)