It is as simple as this: “Storify helps its users tell stories by curating social media.” I just stumbled across the social media tool Storify, and at first, the concept didn’t seem too helpful. But, now the different possibilities for Storify seem pretty interesting. Here is an abridged version of how Storify explains its (free!) service:

Use Storify to introduce social stories.

• Storify lets you curate social networks to build social stories, bringing together media scattered across the Web into a coherent narrative, creating a new media format that is interactive, dynamic and social.

Or, use Storify to create your own story.

• Search for social media elements — In the Storify editor, you can search social media networks to find media elements about the topic you want to Storify. Look through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Instagram and more to gather material for your stories.
• Curate the elements — Drag and drop status updates, photos or videos to bring together the social media elements that will best illustrate your story. Your story is always editable, so you can pull in the latest from the social web.
• Write your own narrative — A Storify story is more than just a collection of elements from social media. You can write a headline, introduction and insert text anywhere inside your story. You can add headers, hyperlinks and styled text. Build a narrative and give context to your readers.

One of the best opportunities for Storify is the ease for a story to go viral. More than just about pulling information from different social networks, Storify helps you create a story in one central place while including, quoting and linking all of the people involved, making each individual person part of something larger. Further more, these stories are easy to share and can be embedded anywhere on the web.

Check out this example of a Storify CBC News created about a Coca-Cola Hug Me vending machine. Getting a better feel for Storify now? Once you start to see the different ways to use Storify, it’s impossible to not start brainstorming different ways to use this tool for clients. CBC News did a great Storify on the Hug Me vending machine, but Storify can be just as useful for brands. Introducing a new product? Making a big announcement? Want to involve your fans and followers in a trending topic? This is the tool you need.