Creating Social Change

Communication Tipsfor

Harness the power of social proof.

Seeing others doing something makes it the norm and makes us want to do it as well.

How can you show lots of people repeatedly taking the actions you want to encourage?

harness social proof

You can establish new behaviours by increasing their status.

Make them trendy and sought-after or just an accepted part of normal behavior.

give it status

Rational messages are useful, but they don’t change behavior.

Emotion tells us something important is happening. It gets our attention.

We only care about things we have feelings about.

You won’t inspire behavior change without engaging emotions.

emotions engage

Use emotions like amazement, wonder, surprise, awe, triumph and joy to your heart’s content.

emotions aren’t equal

Use anger and fear judiciously.

Avoid sadness, guilt and gloom. They make people tune-out and become apathetic.

Emotions alone are not enough to persuade and influence. Use a balance of emotions and logic in your communications.

use emotion + logic

Aristotle claimed that to persuade, one must employ three types of argument: ethical appeal (ethos), emotional appeal (pathos), and logical appeal (logos).

Facts alone are not sufficient to persuade. They need to be complemented with just the right balance of credibility and content that tugs at the heartstrings.

Nancy Duarte

"Aristotle (384-322 BC)" by Tilemahos Efthimiadis; Flickr CC2.0

Be unusual to stand out (but base it on being yourself, on your values and your ideals).

stand out

The other leads to an undesirable future.

One fork leads to your positive vision.

Time to choose…

Show people we’re at a fork in the road and there’s limited time to choose.

establish limited time

Inspiration is good. Lead with a positive view of the future that gets people excited to make change.

Create positive feelings about the behaviours you want to inspire.

inspire

For people to want something, they have to believe it’s better than what they currently have.

So to get them excited about your vision, show them how and why it’s better than their current reality. Make your vision come alive.

demonstrate evolution

storify

Stories also engage people’s emotions. Research shows that people tend to better remember information that triggers emotion over the same information that doesn’t.

We process new information by slotting it into what we already know. People can make quick sense of very complex information when conveyed as story.

People share stories, not data.

That thing about a picture being worth a 1000 words is true.

Images engage imagination and are retained longer.

So examine your text - where you can replace it with images?

visualize

Ask for the change you want.

People say, ‘we’re telling them about ourselves or giving them information. Isn’t it obvious what we’re asking?’

The simple answer is no. It’s not enough to explain why an action is important, you also need to ask people to do it and remove obstacles to them taking action.

ask for action

Sustainability Communications and

Consulting

www.SherlockInk.cominfo@sherlockink.com

• Communications and Research• Sustainability Leadership Strategy• Capacity Building• Facilitation and Stakeholder Engagement

Thanks for watching!Check us out…