Hi, in this lecture we will talk about what is storytelling and its importance for marketing, the key aspects of a successful story and trending stories. Storytelling is a vital tool for content marketing. It allows brands to create a journey for customers to follow in experience in the brand. It requires a sequence of various content such as videos, images and text that best tells the story, providing customers with a feeling of self-discovery. In digital ecosystems, brands create stories through the dissemination of contents along touch points. The story and its structure allow the movement of the contents, making them all visible and easier to find on social networks. The dissemination of stories increases customer engagement. This engagement is measured through the rate of activation of targeted audience. Stories drive curiosity and push the reader to take action. That different aspects that should be taken into consideration when creating a story emotionally connected to the audience. Some questions might be which is the emotional bonding of the story. What is gained from the story, which is its moral? Who is telling the story, namely, the narrator? Which is the perspective through which the story is told? Is the main character of the story a hero suitable for the audience? Is the story trans-worthy and authentic? How will the story be delivered to the audience? Which is the use of the medium by the audience? Is the content functional to the use? Brands have to take consumers through a journey across emotional type touch points. In this sense, it is impossible for the brand to simply replicate his message on all touch points as traditional advertising. A brand operating in social marketing should create a narrative that evolves, following the different stages of the journey and the level and kind of interaction required by customers. This could be represented for the purchase funnel and the role of stories in the different phases. It is possible to identify a funnel approach to storytelling that could be depicted in the following way. Phase 1 is brand encounter. Here there is the beginning of the story and the brand called customers to be part of the adventure, the transformation that the story promises to its audience. Phase 2 is brand engagement. The story continues to share more insights to show what the brand can do for the consumer, driving a higher level of engagement and social acceptance. Phase 3 is the hook. An explicit call to action is presented to the consumer. More retelling in the digital landscape requires the brand to pay attention to the following key aspects, knowing the brand audience, developing a clear frame of the story that has to be narrated, creating an emotional connection with the audience through an authentic narrative, establishing a consistent theme through all social channels. Having content that resonate with the context and activities customers want to perform in the different touch points along the customer journey, promoting the shareability of user-generated content. In the last part of the lecture, let's focus on trending social stories. Stories might gain momentum online becoming a trending topic. This phenomenon could be measured through hashtags. Marketers evaluate these trends in order to gather insights about preferences and needs of target customers and audience. A trending social story gains momentum thanks to two major aspects that could be defined as content and distribution. Retelling ints based on the assumption that people are willing to pay attention, engage with, and share topics and contents that reflect a common interest of the online community they belong to.