Have you ever applied any persuasive tricks to convince people to approve of your point of view or share some controversial ideas? Whether you did it or not, you should be familiar with the term “persuasion” which is a well-known term in use for over 60 years. One of the most prominent researchers of persuasion techniques is Robert Cialdini. He did some situational experiments in various groups of society to find the factors that influence people to say “yes”. Here you can find a great video, which explains simply the 6 key principles of influence according to Robert Cialdini: reciprocity, commitment and consistency, liking, authority, scarcity.
Check this video:
Persuasion is simply referred to as a specific, powerful way of communication, which is aimed at convincing people to change their attitude toward something. How can you achieve this tricky goal? According to Joan Detz, who is the author of the book “How to write and give a speech”, you need to realise that persuasive speech is not done automatically by what you say, but how you say it. Scientists advise speakers to use more “powerful” words to get the attention of their audience faster. When it comes to raising your own performance bar bit by bit, you should use the most common adjectives and verbs. Begin by introducing powerful verbs: get, give, come, make, know, look, love, use, feel, take, taste, have, see, choose, keep, need, like, go, buy, start, think. Additionally, put in some adjectives, like: free, safe, great, new, good/better/best, full, sure, clean, wonderful, fine, rich, bright, special, easy, big, crisp. Even if these rules are more advertising-related, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t appropriate for your speech. Next, think about the language, in which you will give a speech, as some of them (e.g. English) offer you an extensive vocabulary, so you need to remember that sometimes one word can carry six or even more various meanings, so be careful what you communicate! Furthermore, you need to constrain the number of words to not bore your public.
Realise that even if you come up with a brilliant idea, it doesn’t mean that you get the other’s support. So, how to manage it? Think about the content and ask yourself if what is important to you, is also regarded in the same way by the audience. The best strategy is to show some funny findings and videos, which are related to your topic, as people tend to remember funny and smart images and intriguing sentences. The other rule of persuasion is related to the power of authority. If you personally know some celebrities or experts for whom others feel respect, ask one to support your opinion publicly. Don’t worry if you don’t have such VIP contacts, you can take great advantage from showing some statistics or certificates, which could be regarded as credentials. Moreover, say something worth listening to. Your speech will get noticed when you use anecdotes. Unfortunately, the opposite can result when you start with overusing quotations and statistics. Finally, follow the Voltaire credo “The secret of being a bore is to tell everything”, so please allow the audience to probe into the mystery after your presentation.
The language of advertisements
Let’s check the most persuasive language of all. Here you can find some guidelines: how to create a brilliant advertisement. For instance, compound words are often used as adjectives, like: longer-lasting, economy-size or top-quality. Next, people love being surprised, so ads-makers attempt to devise a persuasive story which consists of neologisms (e.g. Cookability, Wonderfuel) or semantic/syntactic ambiguity. What is the most important in the world of consumerism? Using: imperatives, euphemisms, weasel words, colloquial language, present tense, syntactic parallelism (“stay dry, stay happy”), repetitions, simple language, humour, glamorisation (charming house) or association (“fresh as a mountain stream”). When you want to be more persuasive, you should make up ads with rhyme and rhythm and avoid saying negatives, which sound unpleasant. Lastly, I wish for everyone to be a great speaker like the Dalai Lama who sold almost 10 000 tickets in only 16 minutes for his speech as well as getting another 10 000 people from 109 nations to follow online!
Sources:
Use of Language in Advertisements
Written by Aleksandra Święcicka. Journalist, web editor and social media expert. Communication Trainee at TermCoord