I recently read about creating Google search stories on Twitter (thanks @Eleesha) and decided to investigate to see if this was something worth doing for my business. I have occasionally seen little videos showing how a search on Google could lead to life changes (the most famous example is the Parisian Love story).
This seemed like a great way for me to talk about why I wanted to set up my business; I was looking for eco friendly designer products for my two sons back in 2008 and didn’t find enough eco products for kids that combined fashionable design and sustainability. Things have changed a bit since then!
I have been using Google since it launched and it was thanks to Google I found all the research material and contacts I needed to write my business plan, find funding and so on. I had a lot of help from the British Library Business and IP Centre and the East London small business centre but Google was my starting point and I owe it a big thank you.
You can go to the Google Search Stories site to see what they have put up but the easiest way to create a Search Stories video is using their Search Stories Video Creator Tool. This is simplicity itself: simply choose six searches that tell your story (you can search Images, Products, Blogs and Videos for example), preview them in the preview tool to check that the results are the ones you want to display and choose a soundtrack.
I was thrilled with the results: I will probably tweak this video a bit, adding a products search for example rather than an image search, but I think you’ll agree this does a good job of telling a story in a short amount of time! Thanks Google 😉