Seven Ways to Support Word-of-Mouth About Your Content

Lists of tips for memorable presentations or memorable articles often include suggestions to tell stories, be engaging, use humor, and so on. This is all good advice. To that extensive list, I would add one item: give your audience what they'll need when they're telling someone else about your work. That is, support word-of-mouth about your content.

Most Something magical happens when you create
your work with word-of-mouth in mindcreators who make conscious efforts to support word-of-mouth about what they create do so as an add-on, after the creative work is largely complete. But something magical happens when you create the work with word-of-mouth in mind. This post contains suggestions for doing exactly that. For example, the first suggestion below is to "Focus on what's most important," and avoid trying to do too much. It's advice that's a bit easier to follow when you remember that your auditors can repeat to others only what they can remember. With all this in mind, here are some concrete suggestions for supporting word-of-mouth.

Focus on what's most important

Trying to do too much makes all of it less memorable. A list of seven or eight items is about all anyone can handle. (No need to count mine; it's in the title)

Structure your recommendations as lists

Lists make it easier to use mnemonic techniques, which help you as you deliver presentations. And lists help your audience and readers as they try to recall your material, or relay it to colleagues and associates who ask, "What was that talk/article about?"

Exploit the List Length Effect

There is experimental evidence that as the number of items in a list increases, the probability of correctly recalling or recognizing an item decreases. [Kinnell & Dennis 2011] This is yet another reason to focus on what's most important.

Exploit the Word Length Effect

There is experimental evidence that as word length increases, the probability of correctly recalling the word decreases. In general, memory performance degrades as the word complexity increases. And as word familiarity declines, recall performance also does.

Be strategic about rhyming and alliteration

Rhyming and alliteration can be particularly effective if not forced. For example, Tuckman's sequence of stages of small group development is described as "forming, storming, norming, performing." [Tuckman 1965] Tuckman himself attributed the popularity of his model, in part, to this device, writing that the terms, "…probably account for [the 1965] paper's popularity," and, "…quotability may be the key to success." [Tuckman 1984]

Invent a novel Acronym

An acronym is formed from the first letters of the words of a phrase to make a pronounceable (though not necessarily real) word. Example: NASA for National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Invent a novel acrostic

An acrostic is a word composition consisting of an ordered list of (sometimes) sentences, or (more often) phrases. The first letter or phoneme of each element, sequentially, forms a memorable name, phrase, or sentence. Unlike acronyms, the ordered list is usually coherent, and the word formed from the ordered list is usually relevant to it. More at LitCharts.com

Last words

Brevity and simplicity are essential. If the mnemonic device you adopt is longer or more complicated than the material you're trying to make memorable, remembering the material is easier than remembering the device. Brevity makes you more quotable; simplicity makes you more understandable. So, when someone asks you what this article was about, what will you say?  Top    Next Issue

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