The new year brings fresh opportunities to refresh, refocus, and re-energize your organizational storytelling strategy. With a well-structured plan in place, you’ll achieve better alignment across teams, execute projects more efficiently, and create a lasting impact. Who wouldn’t want that?

Here are five actionable steps to uplevel your organizational storytelling strategy this year.

Step 1: Align with Organization and Talent Goals

The best strategies are built with clear objectives in mind. Start by reviewing your company’s overarching goals and your talent team’s priorities. What hiring targets, business milestones, or DEI initiatives are on the horizon?

Have conversations with leaders across the organization to uncover key objectives. Then, connect the dots by showing how your organizational storytelling strategy can amplify these efforts—whether it’s highlighting team successes, showcasing diverse perspectives, or creating excitement for a new office opening.

Pro Tip: Host a cross-functional kickoff meeting to align priorities and emphasize the power of storytelling in achieving business and talent goals.

Step 2: Map Out Your Communication Channels

To execute an effective organizational storytelling strategy, you need to understand where your audiences are and how they engage with content. Map out the channels you’ll use to connect with employees, candidates, and other stakeholders.

Think internal platforms (e.g., intranets and newsletters) as well as external spaces like Instagram, careers pages, and niche channels like Handshake for early career talent or Grace Hopper for female tech candidates. Knowing your channels will help you plan the types of content you’ll need and ensure your storytelling is reaching the right people in the right places.

Action Step: Optimize your channels with engaging storytelling that resonates with your audiences.

Step 3: Create a Content Calendar

A content calendar is the backbone of any successful organizational storytelling strategy. Planning ahead ensures you’re ready to share compelling stories all year long.

Include:

• Always-on content to keep social media and other platforms active
• Key dates for DEI celebrations and company milestones
• Business priorities or themes to amplify throughout the year
• Recruiting events and seasonal campaigns

Breaking your year into weekly, monthly, or quarterly content plans will help you identify gaps. And be sure to regularly revisit the talent and organizational goal you uncovered in Step 1 to stay on track. 

Step 4: Audit your Existing Content

Before creating new content, take stock of what you already have. An audit helps you uncover high-performing pieces worth reusing, identify outdated stories, and spot opportunities for improvement.

With your organizational goals and content calendar in mind, systematically review your existing content to decide what to keep, refresh, or retire.

Helpful Resource: Use our content audit guide to streamline the process and ensure your storytelling aligns with your overall strategy.

Step 5: Identify Organizational Storytelling Opportunities

You’ll have a clear picture of what content you need to create at this stage. Compare your calendar with the gaps revealed in your audit to prioritize new storytelling initiatives.

Consider planning video filming days or content capture sessions to gather a variety of materials in one go. From employee stories to team highlights, this is your chance to capture the moments that make your company unique.

Pro Tip: Use our project planning tool to map out your storytelling activities for the year.

Make this Your Best Year Yet

Starting the year with a strong organizational storytelling strategy sets the stage for success. By aligning with business goals, optimizing communication channels, and planning content with purpose, you can build a strategy that inspires and engages your audiences all year long.

Ready to get started?