What's the future of brand storytelling? Google collected some smart thinkers and posed that question. And while there was a lot of talk of "digital-first," I wonder if their own recruiters and employer branders would 100% agree.

If you occasionally feel like you tell the same employer brand story over and over and over (guilty!), you might appreciate some different ways to tell a story. Take any profile, article, posting, or video and re-tell it in a new format and it will feel fresh and news (I mean, George Lucas was just retelling a samurai story in space and he's a billionaire).

You know I'm a story fan, so you might not be surprised to see that I loved this piece on creating a villain in your own brand story. Who opposes your company? Who are you trying very hard to NOT be? What are you working to vanquish? Villains don't just offer an element of drama, they serve as a driving purpose to your own brand, offering a suggestion of how far you'll be willing to go to defeat the enemy.

Yes, you should actively be sharing your stories right now. Right now! Lauryn Sargent, who knows a thing or two about employee stories, makes a solid case for telling more stories now, not less. Whether the news is good or bad, telling stories turns anything into a more human experience, one that gets more eyeballs and sticks in the brain longer.

Here's a nice juicy article on how to write short stories in your posts to create more clicks and engagement. This article didn't feel at all like the usual run-of-the-mill listicle, but had some great new ideas that get your readers to really chew over your ideas.

Let's talk Tik Tok! Or maybe we shouldn't! Just as the all-dancing, all-singing social platform starts to gain traction as a legitimate branding platform, it gets branded as a state agency intelligence operation. But when has a little espionage stopped "the kids" from singing? (That's the entire plot of Val Kilmer's Top Secret, btw.) So if you're ready to ignore potential Trump/Bezos bans of the social channel, here are so suggestions on how to do it right. My favorite? Think of it as an education platform first.

Allison Kruse has really carved out her own space on how to effectively use content marketing in employer brand communications. So when she writes a big ol' article on how to use content marketing thinking to address and overcome employee advocacy challenges, I have to share it.

Want to strengthen your brand story telling? Go back to your fundamentals (so sayeth Google). Understand emotional state, understand what emotions you want to create, and nail your tone.