Digital Storytelling Tools Leaders Need to Succeed

Memorable leadership hinges on communication. History’s crowning examples of leaders connecting with audiences through impassioned speeches or essays have relied on the power of story. To understand their success, it helps to examine how leaders adjusted their narrative techniques for each new medium. Where the advent of radio and TV required novel approaches, online platforms ushered in an era of digital storytelling that makes unique demands of current and aspiring leaders. 

Nowadays, leaders must become adept at new frontiers of human expression at an accelerating clip to remain competitive. Thankfully, narrative fundamentals are unchanged, and many familiar approaches to audience connection can be applied at scale to achieve success in digital storytelling. To help leaders navigate the emerging landscape, we compiled a list of free digital storytelling tools that center everyone’s favorite workplace medium: the slide deck. 

But first, let’s explore the evolution of digital storytelling and how it combines much of what came before. 

What is digital storytelling?

Humans have always been storytellers. Between the oral traditions of hunter-gatherer societies, the plays of classical antiquity, and the spectacle of summer blockbusters, we’ve always made sense of ourselves through the stories we tell. While Antigone and Armageddon differ in many ways, both grapple with fundamental questions of the human experience. They depict love, loss, and perseverance, and reflect the cultural sentiments from which they were written.  

To this end, digital storytelling is the process of telling stories through a digital or virtual medium. It’s an evolving, open-ended category whose contours are ever-changing as artists and creators continue to push its boundaries. What began in the early audio/visual clubs of budding tech enthusiasts reached critical mass with the internet and social media.

Examples of Digital Storytelling

Radio, public broadcasting, local access, and cable television were stepping stones toward the totality of connection brought about by the World Wide Web. This united storytelling mediums into a one-stop-shop as platforms made their way online and opened the floodgates of human connection. Some examples of internet-enabled digital storytelling include:

• Blogs  
• Online comics 
• Podcasts 
• Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.  
• Short- and long-form video platforms like YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok.  
• Livestreaming sites like Twitch and Discord.

Despite contributors across these platforms being reclassified as “content creators,” all are examples of digital storytellers. The transition to digital media lowered barriers by streamlining the processes and materials needed to create and reach an audience. For leaders, understanding how these platforms differ is essential to amplifying your message. But becoming a digital storyteller requires knowing how to translate your message for relevancy across each platform.  

What are digital storytelling tools?

Digital storytelling tools became available slowly and then, suddenly, all at once. Free trials of first-wave web browsers gave early adopters a chance to tinker in emerging online spaces. However, this expanded exponentially as computers became more commonplace and exploded with the rise of social media platforms and smartphones. Now, the potential to be a digital storyteller is available to anyone with an internet-enabled device and a stable connection. 

This transformation continues to yield exciting results: Twitter threads and viral memes inspire films, fiction mushroomed into microblogging within character limits, and video is becoming pervasive across all platforms. For creators, there’s no shortage of outlets for experimentation, and audiences have a menu of options for their media consumption. 

Taken together, the opportunities for leaders to capitalize on digital storytelling can be overwhelming. That’s why a focused approach that yields wide results can help save time and reach audiences faster. Before deciding which avenues to prioritize for conveying your Big Idea™, finding similarities between platforms can help save time and apply efforts at scale. Whether you’re looking to share infographics on social media or use videos to convey information, one tool continues to dominate: Slide decks.   

Leaders and Digital Storytelling

Often associated with pitches and boardroom presentations, slide decks can be foundational across various online platforms. Slides can populate a carousel of images on Instagram, serve as backgrounds during videos, or as visual aids dropped into blog posts. However, producing slides that capture the attention of scrollers and move audiences to action requires careful planning. Thankfully, slides are beholden to basic design principles that, when applied tactfully, can yield lasting connections with audiences. 

Unfortunately, creativity is rarely associated with the program that’s done the most to popularize (and demonize) slide decks: PowerPoint. That’s why leaders are wise to study the innovators who helped liberate presentations by unlocking their full potential. When it comes to learning how to “think like a designer,” for many, Slide:ology started it all.   

Digital storytelling with PowerPoint® 

After years of refining corporate presentations for Fortune 500 leaders, Silicon Valley visionaries, and corporate juggernauts across industries, in 2008 Nancy Duarte was ready to share her PowerPoint insights with the world. She published Slide:ology in 2008, providing a blueprint for others to swiftly apply design best practices in presentations. 

Nancy reimagined how slides could become vehicles for artistic expression while still furthering critical business aims. This challenged the software’s buttoned-up reputation by showing how design can find a home in any medium. With proper guidance, a slide deck’s versatility is only limited by the imagination of its creator. And as the influence of PowerPoint continues to reverberate, Nancy’s advice remains top of mind for digital storytellers looking to craft persuasive, visually appealing slides. 

Today, creators and leaders are encouraged to think like writers and designers, as audiences and digital platforms increasingly reward those who can do both. By understanding how to build engaging, informative slide decks, leaders can be better positioned to translate their message for the always-on Internet Age. To this end, the central question of Slide:ology is as relevant as ever. 

What makes a great slide?   

Despite its subjective nature, this is where opening your “eye for design” is crucial for earning engagement across social media platforms. Nancy’s work in Slide:ology reveals PowerPoint’s potential for design-minded storytelling by introducing a few key takeaways rooted in artistic truisms.

Nancy’s approach combines cornerstones of color theory, greyscale, minimalism, white space, and thoughtful composition to sharpen ideas for visual storytelling. In the spirit of “teaching a person to fish,” Slide:ology serves as the definitive guide for “thinking like a designer” to break the chains of a dull deck.  

Since its publication, digital platforms have increasingly dominated storytelling and information sharing. But as we noted, publishing effective content on social platforms is downstream of well-documented narrative and design best practices. To help close this gap, we’ve compiled five free tools below to help leaders brainstorm and produce compelling digital stories. Together, they should serve to anchor and grow your online presence.   

5 Digital Storytelling Tools for Leadership Success  

The following assets and templates are freely available to kickstart your digital storytelling efforts or build on your existing toolkit. While there’s a wealth of knowledge housed in the offerings below, there’s always more ways to cement your understanding. For ongoing reference, we recommend exploring Slide:ology in print or joining a live Slide:ology training workshop via the link below. With that in mind, let’s start by thinking about who your content is for and how to reach them. 

#1: Audience Needs Map™    

Understanding your audience is essential no matter how you’re trying to connect. Our Audience Needs Map™ guides storytellers through seven questions to help them reach varied demographics, find potential pain points, and address conflicting views that may arise. Having a firm grasp of your audience gives your message a higher chance of standing out and leaving a lasting impact.  

CTA: Download Your Audience Needs Map™  

#2: Slidedocs® Templates 

Not all information is designed to be presented. Our Slidedocs templates offer complimentary layouts to help arrange complex information for Instagram stories, social posts, presentation handouts, or PDF attachments for audiences to digest at their own pace. These free designs provide access to graphic toolkits and offer guidance on structuring data and displaying diagrams to increase audience comprehension.  

CTA: Download Your Slidedocs Templates  

#3: Diagrammer® 

Speaking of displaying diagrams, our Diagrammer® tool features a downloadable database of over 4,000 free PowerPoint-ready diagrams to help visualize data with greater simplicity. This catalog can help meet your unique needs for:

• Flow diagrams  
• Join diagrams  
• Segment diagrams  
• Network diagrams  
• Stack diagrams 

Incorporate the work of our world-class designers to enhance the clarity of your visual aids through this treasure trove of versatile images.

CTA: Download Diagrammer 

#4: Chart Animation Toolkit  

A well-executed chart can go a long way toward translating data for quick comprehension. Our Chart Animation Toolkit distills Duarte’s design ability to bring your information to life. Adding subtle flourishes to visuals can highlight key takeaways and crucial data breadcrumbs to reinforce your call to action. From aggregating to stylizing, this free resource can refine and focus your analysis to ensure audiences arrive at a desired conclusion.  

CTA: Download Your Chart Animation Toolkit  

#5: Illuminate Torchbearer’s Toolkit™  

Along with making complex information easily digestible, choosing a proper narrative framework is another crucial aspect of telling an inspiring digital story. The Illuminate Torchbearer’s Toolkit™ abbreviates elements of Nancy’s and co-author Patti Sanchez’s 2016 book Illuminate™ for prompt reference to light the way for your storytelling.   

While this tool is meant to supplement the book or workshop in question, these concise, valuable lessons illustrate when to deploy specific communication genres, such as speeches, stories, symbols, and ceremonies to solidify messaging and galvanize support for a cause or movement. In turn, learners can discover how to proactively engage with counterarguments and shore up their positions to withstand scrutiny before it arises.   

CTA: Download Your Torchbearer’s Toolkit 

Additional Digital Storytelling Resources for Leaders   

Everybody loves a self-starter. But when the stakes are high, it sometimes pays to call in the experts.  

For over 35 years, Duarte has helped some of Silicon Valley’s biggest brands articulate their visions for an accelerated world. As digital natives in the art of storytelling, our speaker coaches, training facilitators, writers, and designers can help refine you or your message for clarity and world-class precision. 

Whether you’re new to digital storytelling or looking to enhance your leadership abilities for the demands of tomorrow, Duarte has many training workshops and on-demand courses to level up your abilities:   

• Slide:ology® – Instill an eye for design to perfect your visual aids and increase engagement with your target audience.  
• DataStory®  – Learn compelling date storytelling techniques that lead audiences to take decisive action.  
• Accelerator Lab™ – Fine-tune your messaging by uncovering the best pathway to be heard loud and clear.  
• VisualStory® – Learn how to imbue your online talks and webinars with arresting visuals and a persuasive, story-based framework.  

Still looking for the right entry point into digital storytelling? Book a call with a Duarte concierge to discover all our available opportunities to improve your leadership. Wherever you’re looking to close gaps in your knowledge base or expand your toolkit, we can help you meet the moment.