The Ultimate List of 15 Storytelling Courses Available Online

Since narrating a narrative is as simple as reading from a book, some people might believe it cannot be that tough. Yet, this is untrue. While storytelling is a challenging discipline to master, it is essential if you want to bring change and influence people through your stories.

Telling a story well, there are many different approaches. Using online storytelling classes, you can develop all of these skills. You can select from a wide variety of online courses and certifications that are offered on different platforms. In addition, you can use your professional storytelling abilities to sell and explain your company’s brand, objectives, and achievements. The world’s most successful and rapidly expanding companies employ storytelling as a growing marketing approach.

Here is a list of the top 15 storytelling classes online for 2023 to help you learn how to create a captivating story, polish it for maximum effect, and effectively present it to your listeners.

Become a Pro in Storytelling with these Storytelling Classes Online!

1. The Art of Storytelling [Khan Academy]

In these sessions, directors and storytellers from Pixar will discuss how they got their start and what stories inspire them. Then, you’ll start thinking about the stories you wish to tell. In these sessions, you’ll learn how Pixar’s storytelling approach is driven by character creation and get ideas for developing characters for your own stories. Also, you’ll discover how Pixar organizes its movies and begin building the framework for your tales.

Duration – 60 minutes

Cost – Free

Level – Beginner

Certification – Not Provided

2. Paid – Shane Snow on Storytelling [LinkedIn Learning]

A YouTube video to draw your attention to the art of storytelling-

A compelling method to get people interested in your brand is through storytelling. It can help with presentations, sales, marketing, and other work that calls for a human connection. Shane Snow, a LinkedIn influencer and best-selling business author, explains how he creates engaging stories. Discover how to use recognized storytelling frameworks and the fundamental components of narrative to engage audiences in personal tales, brand stories, and other types of accounts. This online storytelling course teaches how to maximize interactions with your audience and establish storytelling as a corporate culture.

Duration – 1 hour 8 minutes

Cost – Paid

Level – General

Certification – Provided

3. Selling with Stories, Part 1: What Makes a Great Story? [Linkedin Learning]

A superb product and a persuasive sales talk are no longer sufficient for a business to grow. To accompany them, you need compelling stories. Paul A. Smith’s online course on storytelling teaches you how to leverage the power of storytelling to market your goods or services. Paul Smith, one of the world’s foremost authorities on business storytelling and the author of the number-one bestseller book Sell with a Story: How to Capture Attention, Build Trust, and Close the Sale, will be sharing his knowledge on how to locate, create, and present compelling sales stories that appeal to customers.

Duration – 53 minutes

Cost – Paid

Level – Beginner

Certification – Provided

4. Storytelling and Influencing: Communicate with Impact [Coursera]

This online storytelling course is based on a focus on the influencing abilities of administration and management.

It takes more than an ambitious plan for your company’s future to convince your coworkers to support it. Therefore, a critical leadership competency is the capacity for persuasive communication and influences over others. Unfortunately, conventional and common-sense models of persuasion and communication frequently fall short of describing the intricate nature of “influencing.” This course by Associate Professor Lawrence Ang will improve your ability to communicate effectively in many situational and cultural circumstances through structured learning activities (video lectures, quizzes, discussion prompts, and written evaluations), transforming you into a highly effective leader.

In this course, you will develop the ability to critically assess a variety of theories to decode the elements of persuasive communications, apply a variety of different strategies to a variety of contexts to build rapport, overcome resistance, and find acceptance, and develop the ability to read the audience’s motivations and influence their thoughts and feelings to support your ideas.

Duration – 18 hours

Cost – Free

Level – Beginner

Certification – Provided

5. Influencing: Storytelling, Change Management, and Governance Specialization [Coursera]

In Professor Richard Badham’s free online storytelling course, you will learn to apply various communication skills to different situations to build rapport, overcome resistance, and find acceptance. Through this course, you will better understand negotiation and conflict resolution and increase your competency in these areas. In addition, you will learn to establish risk governance frameworks to ensure your organization meets its goals by involving all essential stakeholders. You will also develop a creative and practical change capability—the discipline of influencing yourself and others to achieve a purpose.

Duration – 3 months

Cost – Free

Level – Beginner

Certification – Provided

6. Leadership Communication for Maximum Impact: Storytelling [Coursera]

Leading with stories is a crucial component of leadership. Successful leaders use communication to engage with consumers and clients, work with investors and communities, and grow their effect on the globe as a member of a global society. A leader’s ability to inspire followers depends on developing an authentic, reliable, and captivating narrative. Tom Collinger‘s online storytelling course assists leaders in developing their own stories through personal branding, developing storytelling success with all audiences, starting an influential voice for crises, interacting well on social and third-party media, and communicating an innovation vision.

Duration – 3 hours

Cost – Free

Level – Beginner

Certification – Provided

7. Stories That Sell: 7 Secrets To Create Killer Content [FIVER]

If your marketing strategy includes written content, you must learn to capture and hold readers’ interest while maintaining your unique style. It’s essential to understand the fundamentals of compelling content, whether you’re producing emails, articles, sales sites, social media postings, or presentations.

With the help of these tried-and-true strategies, resources, and templates, you can now produce quality content like a pro. You will learn all about honing your headlines, streamlining your writing, making an impact, and gaining permission to pitch your offer or product with compelling written content in this online storytelling course taught by best-selling e-course author Jon Youshaei, who has been named one of the world’s top marketers by Forbes. In-depth case studies, coaching, and practice prompts are also available for you, all of which will put your knowledge to the test.

This course will demonstrate developing content that ignites your audience’s passion and yields the desired results.

Duration – 1.4 hours

Cost – Paid

Level – All levels

Certification – Not Provided

8. Storytelling for Leaders: How to Craft Stories That Matter [Skillshare]

This online storytelling course with Keith Yamashita, the founder of SYPartners, will show you how to develop a compelling story that matters to your audience, whether it’s for marketing materials, a client presentation, a unifying narrative to fire up your team, an investor pitch, or simply a story about you as a person.

Keith has developed a framework for storytelling techniques that anyone can use and benefit from based on his years of expertise assisting Fortune 100 firms in telling their brand stories. There are stories in everything. Your responsibility as a leader is to convey your goals and work meaningfully.

The different kinds of tales that leaders need to tell, the elements of a great story, the archetypes involved, and essential techniques for developing and elevating your storytelling are all covered by Beth Keath in this course. No prior knowledge is necessary to enroll in this course. Nevertheless, if a story has ever moved you, you’ll want to remember that emotion and look for it when writing your own.

Duration – 21 minutes

Cost – Paid

Level – Beginner

Certification – Provided

9. Powerful Storytelling Today: Strategies for Crafting Great Content [Skillshare]

With the help of award-winning journalist Soledad O’Brien, tell your finest stories.

Almost everyone is in the business of telling stories, from content marketers and social media managers to business owners and independent contractors. Join Soledad as she explains tried-and-true strategies for creating engaging content to help you connect with your audience and achieve your goals.

One of the main concepts in this online storytelling course is integrating specific aspects into every story you tell. How to compile the information into an engaging storyline and why everyone should become an experienced interviewer (with advice on how to do it) are also what you’ve learned.

You don’t need the skills of a writer to tell a true story if you’re writing tweets and Facebook posts or making a movie about the beginning of your firm. But everyone can add it to their professional toolkit with the help of these guided lessons and discover the importance of standing out, engaging the community, and sharing genuine experiences in this digital age.

Duration – Varies from course to course

Cost – Paid

Level – All levels

Certification – Provided

10. The Public Speaker’s Guide to Storytelling [Udemy]

You’ll learn how to fully appreciate the power of your story so that you can touch your audience’s emotions in Alex Glod‘s online course. You will develop the skill of telling captivating stories that will keep your audience on the edge of their seats and how to build and preserve remarkable stories from your own experience authentically. As a result, by the end of the course, you will understand how to use tales to entertain, motivate, and inform your audience. This online storytelling course on Udemy will help you motivate, captivate, and influence your audiences through powerful storytelling and expressive public speaking.

Teachers and trainers, public presenters, leaders, marketers, bloggers, and anyone wishing to improve their storytelling abilities can enroll in this course.

Duration – 2 hours 30 minutes

Cost – Paid

Level – All levels

Certification – Provided

11. Intro to Storytelling: Wow Your Crowd [Udemy]

Throughout this online storytelling course by Kevin Allison, you’ll put several helpful tips to use to craft unforgettable true stories about your personal experiences that you may use throughout your life. Take note that The Story Studio offers a course called Storytelling for Business on Udemy if your goal is to create tales about projects, branding, client relationships, and other topics at work. The stories discussed in this course, Intro to Storytelling, may or may not be related to your work.

You may discover the specific guidelines and resources for a tried-and-true workshopping approach in the workbook exercises and the video lectures.

After completing this course, you’ll be prepared to respond appropriately if you notice your audience losing interest or feel like you’re drifting off-topic. You’ll list and examine the most memorable and fascinating experiences you’ve had. You’ll discover how to keep the reader guessing and create an engaging story arc. And by thinking and compassionately sharing your experience, you will gain influence.

Duration – 3 hours

Cost – Paid

Level – All levels

Certification – Provided

12. The Anatomy and Phonology of Words [Alison]

The National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning, an online learning platform, has launched this online storytelling course on Alison.

Learn about words’ phonological and anatomical structures in this free online course on spoken word recognition. In this online course on words and language structure, you will study the phonology of words, spoken word recognition models, and word anatomy. In addition, it describes the stages of language development in the brain and the principles of sentence processing and comprehension at the semantic and syntactic levels. This course will be helpful for anyone working in language or linguistics.

Duration – 8 hours

Cost – Free

Level – All levels

Certification – Provided

13. Fundamentals of Storytelling in Education for Teachers and Trainers [ Alison]

By honing your storytelling skills with the help of this free online storytelling course offered by the University of North Carolina, you can increase student engagement with practically any subject.
This no-cost online course, Storytelling in Education for Teachers and Trainers, emphasizes storytelling in the classroom to arrange material, express feelings, and create a sense of community. One of the first kinds of communication, storytelling, is crucial to education, especially for young children. This course teaches you how to use narrative to raise student engagement.

The function of storytelling in education will be outlined in this course, along with many storytelling models. The experience of listening to stories is also included in the system while investigating the causes and methods for achieving the listening trance. Take advantage of the narrative techniques you will learn in this course to improve communication with your students.

Duration – 1.5 hours – 2 hours

Cost – Free

Level – All levels

Certification – Provided

14. Digital Marketing: Storytelling in the New Communication Landscape [Future Learn]

Learn how to use social media to your advantage from Dines, the Creative Director of Studio Blup, a London-based firm at the vanguard of the new digital avant-garde. Dines has collaborated with DerekYates, an educator and design writer at Ravensbourne University London, to produce brief videos, real-world case studies, and interactive activities that will provide you with the knowledge you need to develop a successful digital marketing strategy confidently.

Social media and digital technology have entirely altered the traditional marketing and communications landscape, and even significant firms find engaging with the new digital culture challenging. In this course, you’ll learn how to link brands with consumers in the rapidly developing field of digital media.

Learn the theory behind contemporary communication design, how to create your network, disrupt creatively, and deliver inspiring creative content. You’ll learn the fundamentals of digital storytelling and be able to interact authentically on social media in a way that goes beyond tracking algorithms.

Duration – 4 hours

Cost – Paid

Level – Advanced

Certification – Provided

15. Storytelling for Social Change [EdX]

How can storytelling encourage a cultural shift?

This online storytelling course teaches students how to use stories to influence audiences and change perceptions of social transformation. Discover how fostering empathy and creating characters may provide a variety of viewpoints on complex issues. Social transformation occurs when viewers or listeners connect with the messages a protagonist presents so they can relate to them. Theatre performers and professional storytellers can share their knowledge about how to write a compelling narrative that inspires empathy.

Provide messages that have an impact on people via text. Find out how to write a story that inspires empathy and leaves a lasting impression.

You will attend performances, hear video interviews with storytelling professionals, and write your tale for cultural progress. Learn how stories delivered from many viewpoints help us gain new insights about critical global challenges. Discover the power of storytelling as a vehicle for change. Everyone who wants to tell a compelling story should take this course.

Duration – 3 hours

Cost – Free and Paid

Level – Beginner

Certification – Provided with the paid course

Interested in Pursuing Storytelling?

You must commit to developing new talents like storytelling to advance in your unique creative skill or even switch to a different profession. And these storytelling classes. One of the best ways to do it is through online lessons.

By taking storytelling classes, you can connect with the audience and ensure that more people see your work. These are some of the best storytelling courses and are different enough to use what you learn in various contexts. Nevertheless, these online storytelling classes will give you the time and space to understand and learn a new storytelling technique. Also, most of these courses consist of exercises and on-demand videos you can complete quickly.