To get you started, here’s a worksheet to help you determine which listening looks will help you gauge whether your narrative strategy is making traction.
We communicators love creating content. We craft it, polish it, send it out into the world…and then? We know our work is making a difference, but are the stories we’re telling seeding the conditions for the change we seek? We won’t really know unless we put our ear to the ground and listen.
Listening is the most underrated superpower in the narrative strategist’s toolbox.
It’s also the most underdeveloped skill in our sector. Admittedly, I got into this work because I’m a natural talker with a lot to say. I believed that if I could just get other people to listen to my excellent points backed by data and logic, I could convince them to join my cause or change their behavior. This is what the Center for Artistic Activism calls magical thinking, which is “characterized by lack of knowledge, or even concern, of the relationship between cause and effect.”
Magical thinking is not a strategy
Narrative Listening is the antidote to magical thinking. It means paying attention to real-world signals that show whether your narrative intervention is gaining traction and moving in the right direction. It sounds pretty straightforward, so why aren’t more social justice movement organizations doing it?
Social change work is complex, non-linear, and long term and it isn’t always possible to fully trace the effects of a single campaign. We have to keep track of our progress over time, which takes patience, effort, collaboration, and resources. Time and resource constraints are real. Especially right now. So, what’s a narrative strategist to do?
Think like a tiny scientist
The concept of tiny experiments is an awesome way to think about tracking narrative change. It replaces linear goal-setting with small, time-bound actions to foster curiosity and continuous learning. The core idea is to conduct low-stakes experiments that make uncertainty exciting instead of scary. (By the way, we can conduct tiny experiments for any aspect of our lives, including reducing stress and being happier.) The cool thing is, the more tiny experiments we conduct, the better we will get at it.
There is one critical catch: a genuine commitment to measurement and assessment means we have to prepare to be wrong. We have to work as if learning, experimentation, and curiosity are just as important as outcomes. This might sound like a wild idea, but it’s been proven over and over again that when we increase our mistake tolerance, we get better results.
GPS or rearview mirror?
The narrative change cycle isn’t about perfection; it’s about iteration. It’s about looking in the review mirror to see where you’ve been, then plugging the address of where you want to go into the GPS.
Formative listening is the GPS in the narrative change cycle. It helps you form a hypothesis, develop a strategy, and plan your next narrative interventions.
Evaluative listening is the rearview mirror. It’s where you assess whether your strategies and tactics took you where you expected to go, what you learned, and how to recalibrate for the road ahead.
The more you stay curious and treat communications like an experiment, the more motivated you are to get creative and try new things. The key is making sure you’re tracking what you’re learning with every turn around the cycle.
Four Ways to Measure Narrative Traction
When you start listening for narrative traction, it helps to have a dashboard. Here’s the one I use, inspired by the Four-Part Framework for Measuring Narrative Change. This is one useful way to tell where you’re gaining ground and where you might be spinning your wheels. The key is to find a framework that works for you, start tiny, stay curious, and remember that the dots you connect today, no matter how small, can lead you toward shifting the narratives that change beliefs, behaviors, culture, and institutions.
🚃 Ride: Message & Messenger
Determine how you will track if your messages and stories are clear, memorable, and being repeated; if the right people are carrying it forward; and if it’s generating the emotional spark necessary to connect deeply with your intended audience.
🛣️ Road: Reach
What indicators will you use to determine if you’re reaching the right people and if your stories are being amplified by key audiences, influencers, and partners? Are you getting new media attention? Are people snapping, sharing, tagging, or otherwise signaling they saw it on social media?
🚲 Riders: Audiences
Likes by the already converted don’t change the story. How will you know if key audiences’ perspectives are shifting? Are they talking about the issue differently? Are they following through with actions (sign-ups, donations, turnout)?
🚦Rules of the Road: Culture & Structures
This is the big one. Changing the rules takes patience and perseverance, which is why tracking progress is critical. How will you know if your narrative is showing up in public discourse? Are media outlets adopting your frames? Is the opposition arguing on your terrain? Are art and culture echoing your ideas?
Backlash isn’t failure–it’s a sign that your work is making an impact.
FREE WORKSHEET: Narrative Traction Checklist To get you started, here’s a worksheet to help you determine which listening looks will help you gauge whether your narrative strategy is making traction. |
Start Where You Are
Chances are, you’re already doing narrative listening. With this checklist, you can determine where you’re already tuned in and where you need to turn up the volume. Only focus on what you can realistically manage. It’s better to track something than to track nothing because you’re overwhelmed.
Listening won’t just tell you whether your narrative is landing, it will show you how the world is changing because of it. And that’s the whole point: to move from talking about change to actually listening to it happening.
Anna Grace, Senior Strategist at LightBox Collaborative, recommends approaching the road to narrative change by listening, experimenting, and learning from the signals along the way.