“[Good writers] tell not of a battle, but of a soldier, they talk not about governance, but about a deal, they discuss not a socioeconomic group, but a person and a life.”
— Donald M. Murray,
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist,
in Writing to Deadline: The Journalist at Work
One or 1,001?
Why ‘one individual trumps the masses’
“If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”
— Mother Teresa
Quick!
You’re in charge of a humanitarian effort to rescue refugees of Rwandan genocide. You’ve got enough money to save 4,500 lives. Would you rather save 4,500 refugees from a camp holding 11,000 people or 4,500 from a camp holding 250,000?
That’s the decision psychologist Paul Slovic of the University of Oregon asked two groups of research participants to make, author Shankar Vedantam reports in his new book, The Hidden Brain. Slovic found that people were way more reluctant to spend the money on the large camp than they were to spend it on the small one.
Save 10,000 lives instead of 20,000
Hmmmmm, Slovic said. OK, how about this: You’re running a philanthropic foundation. Would you rather spend $10 million to save 10,000 lives from a disease that caused 15,000 deaths a year, or save 20,000 lives from a disease that killed 290,000 people a year?
Overwhelmingly, the research participants said they’d rather spend money saving the 10,000 lives rather than the 20,000 lives. What?! Rather than invest in saving the most lives, these folks sought to save the largest proportion of lives within a group of victims.
Are they crazy?! Nope. That’s just how our brains work, Vedantam writes:
“I want to offer a disturbing idea. The reason human beings seem to care so little about mass suffering and death is precisely because the suffering is happening on a mass scale. The brain is simply not very good at grasping the implications of mass suffering. Americans would be far more likely to step forward if only a few people were suffering or a single person were in pain.… Our hidden brain — my term for a host of unconscious mental processes that subtly bias our judgment — shapes our compassion into a telescope. We are best able to respond when we are focused on a single victim.”
We care less about more
So we don’t feel 20 times sadder when we learn that 20 people have died in a disaster than we do when we learn that one person has died. We don’t even feel twice as sad. In fact, we may actually care less.
Consider another study, this one reported by Chip Heath and Dan Heath in Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. In this study, people read one of two letters. The first featured statistics about the magnitude of the problems facing children in Africa. The second shared the story of a single African girl named Rokia.
On average, the people who read the statistics contributed $1.14. The people who read about Rokia contributed $2.38 — more than twice as much.
“It seems that most people have something in common with Mother Teresa,” the Heath brothers write. “When it comes to our hearts, one individual trumps the masses.”
So how can you appeal to the heart? Show me one.
Show me one
Want to master the art of letting individuals stand for your point?
- Invite Ann’s team in to handle a special writing or editing project. We specialize in writing human interest narratives for organizations like Saint Luke’s Health System.
- Bring Ann to your organization for a Make Your Copy More Creative workshop.
- Work with Ann to polish your writing skills in one-on-one writing coaching sessions.
- Get dozens of tipsheets on writing human interest copy at RevUpReadership.com.
- Get free writing tips every month when you subscribe to our e-zine.
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Sources: Shankar Vedantam, “The little dog lost at sea,” The Week, Feb. 16, 2010; Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, Random House, 2007
“If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect.”
— Ben Franklin, signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
Seek higher authority
Move readers to act
I’ve been nagging my husband, Phil, to get regular massages — at least every other week — for 23 years. You’ll feel better, I say. Reduce stress. Get some blood flowing into your creaky knees. Be more flexible at the gym.
Nah, he’s said for 23 years. Don’t need ’em.
Last week, Phil had his once-every-five-years rubdown at Ten Thousand Waves in Santa Fe.
“You should get regular massages,” his massage therapist, Karma, said. “At least every other week.”
“I should get regular massages,” Phil reported to me later. “At least every other week.”
While I’m grateful for Phil’s good Karma for setting him on the path to enlightenment, I also found it a little irritating that my husband bought the massage therapist’s advice, but not mine.
But then, social science explains that. Turns out Phil was just responding to the persuasive principle of authority: We look to experts to show us the way.
Authority recently got a boost, according to the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer, an annual study of global opinion leaders. While people are less likely to trust their peers (a consequence of having 762 “friends” on Facebook?), they place the most trust in expert spokespeople and information sources.
Academics, experts and analysts are now the top three voices of credible information — outweighing peers, CEOs and company employees, according to the barometer. And analysts’ reports and articles in business magazines and newspapers now out-influence conversations with company employees and advice on social networking sites, according to the study.
So how can you tap the persuasive power of authority?
- Quote experts and authority figures in your persuasive copy.
- Don’t drop traditional PR efforts. Journalists remain important authority figures, according to the Edelman study. Let them help you tell your story.
- Cite your credentials. When an executive published the credentials of people brought in to turn around a London bureau, the government monitoring and advisory panel was more accepting of the rate and type of change the team made, reports Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive.
- Arrange for someone else to cite your credentials. In a study, researcher Jeffrey Pfeffer and his team asked one group to read passages about an author’s credentials from the author’s agent and a second group to read the same comments made by the author himself, according to Yes! Participants rated the author more highly on nearly every measure when the author’s agent sang his praises than when the author tooted his own horn. Testimonials, third-party introductions and displays of your diplomas and trophies shine a light for you without making you look arrogant.
- Look the part. Use design to increase your authority in social media, suggests viral marketing scientist Dan Zarella. Off-the-shelf themes and default templates are for rookies. Invest in a custom design that’s unique to your site, blog or page and that presents you as an expert. While you’re at it, make sure your design is sophisticated and professional. Avoid a MySpace-y look.
And if all else fails? Maybe you can get Karma to intervene.
Move readers to act
Want to master the art of writing copy that sells, not just products and services, but programs, plans and positions, as well?
- Bring Ann to your organization for a “Think Like a Reader” workshop.
- Work with Ann to Think Like a Reader in one-on-one writing coaching.
- Get dozens of tipsheets on persuasive writing at RevUpReadership.com.
- Find out about Ann’s next “Think Like a Reader” teleseminar.
- Read Ann’s “Think Like a Reader” toolkit.
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Sources: Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin and Robert B. Cialdini, Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, Free Press, 2008; 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer, Edelman, 2010
“God is in the structure.”
— Richard Preston, author, The Demon in the Freezer
Mark time
Try a chronological structure
Work on a client’s new website has me thinking about navigational structure.
- Move with the times: Parenting.com offers a week-by-week pregnancy planner
Whether you’re organizing a website or a magazine article, a museum exhibit or your family’s letters and memorabilia, there are only five ways to structure information. Richard Saul Wurman, author of Information Architects, uses the acronym LATCH to define them:
For your website’s structure to work, each navigational component should fit one of these approaches.
Take time.
Years ago, one of my colleagues came up with a great idea for a newsletter for pregnant women based on chronological structure: Distribution would be based on subscribers’ due dates.
Each month, subscribers would get an issue telling them what to expect and do during that month of their own pregnancy. Best of all, as publisher, you’d produce just nine issues of the newsletter, cycling subscribers through the issues instead of issues through subscribers.
Now Parenting.com is going my colleague one better with its week-by-week Pregnancy Planner and daily Babygram e-zine, both tied to exactly what’s going on with your body or fetus based on your due date.
Of course, Parenting.com’s entire website is organized chronologically: fertility, pregnancy, baby, toddler, child, mom. (If I were organizing this site, I’d put recipes, activities, gear and community — four categorical buttons — into a separate nav bar, perhaps on the right side of the page. Because some of these things just don’t belong.)
Does your organization’s business suggest a chronological structure? If so, consider basing your navigation on time.
And if you’re organizing chronologically, why not make your piece a timeline?
Caveat: Make sure you’re not organizing by time when your readers are thinking in categories. Most blog archives are organized chronologically. Are your visitors more interested in your content on, say, organizing information, or do they really want to know what you were thinking on Feb. 23, 2010? If the former, you might want to consider a separate categorical index for your postings.
Ditto newsrooms.
Learn more about “when” stories.
Reach Readers Online
Want more tips for getting the word out on the Web? If so, please join me at PRSA’s March 25 teleseminar, “Writing for Social Media.” You’ll learn how to:
- Use the 70-20-10 rule for engaging your followers, plus other tips for making sure your status updates are welcome guests, not intrusive pests
- Pass the “who cares?” test and four other techniques for becoming a resource, not a bore, on social media.
- Get retweeted. Five steps for expanding your influence and reach on Twitter
- Tweet like the FBI. Write dramatic, compelling status updates that draw followers and get clicks
- Make your posts personable. There’s a reason they call it “social” media
- Tweak your tweets. Get your message across in 140 characters or less. Plus, learn how to make140 characters go further — and when you must come in under the character limit
Learn about my other upcoming teleseminars.
“Very valuable for the whole group — worth every penny (and a lot more).”
— Arthur E.F. Wiese Jr., vice president, Corporate Communications, Entergy
Find out what others say about Ann’s writing workshops
Bring Ann to your team via teleseminar
Save on training fees and travel expenses with Ann’s virtual workshops
When you bring one of Ann’s workshops to your team via teleseminar, you can:
- Save money. Save on travel costs — not just for Ann, but also for far-flung members of your team.
- Involve more people. Anyone with a phone can participate, even team members located in other offices, cities, states or countries. HSBC, Novartis and Saint Gobain are among the companies that have brought their worldwide staffs together for a series of training sessions via a teleseminar with Ann.
- Develop a series of training programs. Bringing Ann in for on-site sessions once a month or every Tuesday for six weeks just isn’t practical for most organizations. But it is affordable to host an ongoing series of teleseminars. That makes it easier for people to fit training into their schedules — and to process and apply what they’ve learned between sessions.
- Schedule programs at your convenience. Ann can often fit in a teleseminar even when she’s not available for on-site programs. As Ann’s training schedule sells out earlier and earlier each year, teleseminars can give you much more flexibility in selecting training dates.
Most of Ann’s programs are available via teleseminar.
To talk about bringing one of Ann’s programs to your team, contact me.
“Five times as many people read the headline as the body copy. When you’ve written your headline, you’ve spent 80 cents of your dollar.”
— David Ogilvy, “the father of advertising,” in Ogilvy on Advertising
Billboard your story
What editors can learn from podcasters
“On the show today: giant carnivorous birds, flying snakes, and what all of that has to do with how you season your French fries.”
That’s how Caitlin Kenney, associate producer of NPR’s “Planet Money,” introduced a recent podcast about the history of spices. These summaries at the top of radio shows and podcasts are called billboards.
And that’s what publication editors can learn from podcasters: Billboard your stories. Tell readers what they’re going to get and sell them on the story to promote your content.
Nobody billboards better than “Planet Money.” In fact, sometimes one host will congratulate another on a billboard.
“That was very well billboarded,” contributing editor Alex Blumberg said after Kenney’s spice story promotion.
So how can you create praiseworthy billboards for your publication?
1. Choose the right billboard.
Billboards are known “refers” in the publication world. (Not that, silly! Refers because they refer readers to specific stories.)
They come in many forms. Consider billboarding your story in coverlines, tables of contents, skyboxes, rails, refers and indexes.
2. Draw readers in.
There are two main ways to drive readers to your story, whether in print or in podcast: 1) promise a benefit or 2) entertain. So focus on news readers can use or choose or on creative techniques like humor, drama or human interest for your billboard.
“Planet Money” entertains with billboards that tease the listener into sticking around for the story. (Yes, these people manage to make complicated economics stories hilarious or heart-warming — a skill any communicator could emulate.)
Here are some recent “Planet Money” billboards:
“On the show today, homeowners who want to be foreclosed on, and banks saying, ‘Eeeh … let’s wait a minute.’ The foreclosure mess enters a topsy-turvy, upside-down new phase, and we’ll hear all about the fascinating details from a foreclosure attorney in Phoenix.”
Alex Blumberg: “Our topic today, David, is tied to our economic indicator. The indicator is $14 billion. And that is one estimate for the size of California’s largest cash crop.” David Kestenbaum: “Oranges?” Alex: “Nope.” David: “Organic milk?” Alex: “No. … Marijuana.” David: “I thought that number seemed high.”
“On our show today, a story about a cable TV producer from New Jersey, a podcasting Libertarian economist, an international pop superstar and the two dead economists who brought them all together.”
“On the podcast today, we have something almost every economist loves and almost everyone else hates. Well, not everyone, but a lot of people.”
Adam Davidson: “Today, we have the second half of our look at Denmark.” David Kestenbaum: “Denmark: the awesome-est economy on earth, the country that figured everything out and figured out the best way to …” Adam: “(interrupting) Alright, David. Easy, easy …”
Get more tips for writing refers.
3. Don’t drop the billboard.
Content promotion — advertising stories within your publication — helps drive readership. Don’t forget to promote your stories within the publication itself.
Rev Up Readership
Want to master the art of lifting your ideas off the page with display copy?
- Bring Ann to your organization for a “Rev Up Readership” workshop.
- Work with Ann to write better display copy in one-on-one writing coaching.
- Have Ann review your publication or website.
- Get dozens of tipsheets on writing better display copy at RevUpReadership.com.
“My purpose,” wrote one writer, “is to make what I write entertaining enough to compete with beer.”
— Kenneth Atchity, author of A Writer’s Time
Where in the world is Ann?
Cut your training costs when you piggyback your program
Save money when you piggyback your workshop by scheduling it when I’m already “in the neighborhood.” Book your program the day before or after another organization’s and split my airfare and ground transportation with the other group.
Ask about piggybacking on my upcoming engagements in:
- Anchorage: Sept. 22
- Boston: July 13
- Chicago: March 5 and 10; July 9
- Cleveland: May 20
- Detroit: May 6-7
- Lake of the Ozarks, Mo.: June 16
- New York: March 19
- Portland, Ore.: Aug. 5-Sept. 13
- San Francisco: June 18
- Scottsdale, Ariz.: April 27
- Tacoma, Wash.: Aug. 11
- Toronto: June 9
Save even more: Ask about my communication association discounts and second-day fee reductions.
Contact me to discuss piggybacking.
Ann’s touring schedule
Polish your skills at one of these events
Alas, I can’t invite you to the in-house seminars I present for private organizations. But everyone’s invited to these upcoming public seminars in:
- Anchorage on Sept. 22. “Write for the Web,” a half-day workshop and luncheon session for AEMAA/PRSA Alaska
- Chicago on March 5. “Writing That Sells,” a one-day workshop for the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA )
- Cleveland on May 20. “Write for the Web,” a one-day workshop for the Press Club of Cleveland
- Detroit on May 6- 7. “Think Like a Reader,” a half-day pre-conference boot camp, and “How to Write the News Release 2.0,” a breakout session, for the Ragan Corporate Communicators Conference
- Lake of the Ozarks, Mo., on June 16. “Think Like a Reader,” a half-day workshop at the Missouri Hospital Association Summer Forum — Missouri Association for Healthcare Public Relations and Marketing
- Portland, Ore., on Aug. 12. “Get the Word Out With Social Media,” a half-day workshop for PRSA Portland
- San Francisco on June 18. “Get The Word Out Online: Write Web Copy That Clicks,” a one-day workshop for PRSA
- Tacoma, Wash., on Aug. 11. “Get The Word Out With Social Media,” a half-day workshop for PRSA Puget Sound
- Toronto on June 9. “Six Secrets of Persuasion: How to move readers to act,” an All-Star session for the IABC World Conference
Would you like to attend? Please contact meeting planners directly for details.
Can’t make these events? If you’d like to bring me in for a workshop at your organization, contact me.
Let’s connect
Keep in touch via:
- ComPRehension, PRSA’s blog of public relations strategies and tactics
- Wylie Communications feed, click RSS
- Wylie’s Writing Tips
Keep up with Ann’s calendar
Find out when I’m coming to your neighborhood, learn when you can sign up for one of my programs and otherwise keep up with my calendar.
What are we up to?
The folks at Wylie Communications have been enjoying:
- Writing and editing magazine and newsletter copy for Saint Luke’s Health System
- Helping Saint Luke’s plan the system’s new website
- Presenting writing workshops for General Dynamics AIS
- Presenting teleseminars for PRSA
For more info …
… about my seminars, publication consulting or writing and editing services, please contact me or visit my website.
Please share this issue …
… with two of your colleagues by directing them to our current issue. Better yet, invite them to subscribe to Wylie’s Writing Tips. They’ll thank you — and so will I!