Whoever said that writing and communicating is an easy job must have never worked with it. Is communicating a brand through social media just about taking photo, writing the caption and then uploading them? Last month on October 16th, 2018 we had the opportunity to learn about the basic of a brand story with Windy Ariestanty and it obviously changes the way we think about branding & communicating!

For those of you who are familiar with us, it is likely that you’ve heard about Windy. She is a dear friend of Greenhost, and she is often involved in a few collaborations with us – including the last one on Hidden Gems Jogja project. During her last visit to Jogja, we had a valuable opportunity to sit together with her and she shared her experiences about developing a brand story in our internal sharing session.

We remember that day very well because we arrived early in the morning, feeling very excited for the sharing session that will begin at 8 am. We have also prepared ourselves to use all our senses to digest what mbak Windy was trying to deliver. First and foremost, she told us about how to differentiate between noise and voice. “A brand must be mindful when they are doing a promotion so that the message is not turning into noise and then ignored by its customers. Building the story and conveying the value of our brand is one way to communicate about who we are, what we do, and what the unique value that we bring to our customers,” said mbak Windy. “But another thing that we have to remember is delivering the values of the brand or company cannot be done only once. We need repetitions to make a reputation,” she added calmly and surely.

Besides sharing from A to Z about a brand story, mbak Windy also shared some tips to avoid common mistakes that are often made by a brand when communicating its value. She said that we all have to remember that communication must be simple, so it wouldn’t burn too many calories to understand; and the key to getting there is clarity. She also gave us some writing guidelines to simplify our daily tasks in delivering the brand. “It’s such a new thing for me and of course it will help me to communicate better with the people at Greenhost,” said mbak Ira – our Management Assistant, whose the work includes meeting and connecting with the community members around Prawirotaman neighborhood.

Surely, a sharing session is not complete without an exciting activity. This time mbak Windy concluded her session with a challenge for each of us! She dared us to try to tell the value of Greenhost starting from one of the values that suits us. Surprisingly, our answers were indeed very diverse.  “It turns out that to tell a value through a brand story could start from seeing ourselves first as a mirror. Looking for the same values between ourselves and the brand where we worked,” said Pak Jonas – our Deputy General Manager.

All of us agree that this is truly a new insight for us. We hope that there will be another class to deepen our knowledge in the field of marketing - especially using storytelling as a new tool in communicating to our audience. We are ready to burn our brain again (and burn our calories, too!), looking forward to seeing you here again, mbak Windy, and thank you for sharing! ;)