What Writers Can Learn from Public Speakers

Why You Should Look Towards Public Speakers for Inspiration

Public speaking and writing: two talents that seem to have little in common on the surface, yet somehow move in the same patterns once you truly examine them. In the marketing world, consistently writing and curating great content is vital to success on both social media and your company website, but many writers run out of inspiration on a regular basis. Being able to look outside the comfort zone and find inspiration in unconventional places is a strength that many great writers rely on during creative dry spells.

Public speaking is a great source of unconventional wisdom for writers, from brainstorming to the actual creation of content. If you’re a content creator who has hit a roadblock, take a look at our list of ways you can find inspiration in public speaking.

Research

Careful research is a huge part of the public speaker’s success. This is because the right information, placed intelligently in the speech, can incite the audience’s interest, keep them intrigued or avoid a lull in concentration.

Similarly, your research as a writer is important because it helps ensure that your content doesn’t become stale by the second paragraph. The research skills of the public speaker are relevant here because, like them, you must compile information strategically, based on what will interest your audience.

Storytelling

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of watching a great public speaker at work, you might recall feeling as if you were witnessing a story unfold as their speech progressed. This is because great public speakers understand the value of storytelling and so they craft their speeches to resemble stories, with characters, motivations and conflict.

Like the audience listening to a public speaker, your audience will be more captivated by your content if you infuse it with storytelling. Observe the way public speakers give their speeches story-like structures, with beginnings and ends and characters with which they can identify.

Simplification

Like a public speaker, your aim is to communicate a message clearly and efficiently. A great public speaker understands the necessity of simplifying his or her speech because, at all stages of speech creation, they’re empathizing with their audience. By empathizing with their audience, the public speaker is able to craft a speech that is accessible and easy to listen to.

Similiarly, it’s important to read through your own content and assess whether or not it’s clear and concise enough to be truly beneficial to your audience.

Display of Expertise

One thing that makes a public speaker so influential in their communication is being seen as an expert by their audience. The speeches that they deliver reflect that expertise, and their audience learns from their experiences and opinions.

Likewise, infusing your content with your own expertise is a great way to establish yourself as an authority among your readers and lend weight to your future posts.

A Knowledge of the Audience

A public speaker who is familiar with his or her audience can cater their delivery, jokes and emphases to them, increasing the chances of success and making a positive and lasting impression on their audience.

If you keep your audience in mind when you’re crafting your content, you can taper your tone and the nature of your information to their interests and tastes. When you know who you’re talking to you, you can do a better job of providing them with information that is useful to them.

A Sense of Time

Because a great public speaker is aware of the attention span of his or her audience, they are also aware of the time frame in which they are speaking. Speaking too long on one subject or expanding the speech with excessive rambling can diminish an audience’s attention and interest in your subject. So it is invaluable for a public speaker to keep time limits in mind throughout their speech.

Similarly, keeping length in mind when creating your content is very important, not only because it will help you manage your audience’s interest and attention span, but also because it will help you keep your delivery simple and easy to understand.

As you can see, adopting some of these public speaking skills in your writing can help you fight writer’s block and keep your content crisp, interesting and relevant to your readers. Public speaking and content creation are more similar than you might think; the next time you find yourself stalled on the road to content creation, take a look at the habits of some great public speakers and let yourself be inspired.

photo credit: Boston Public Library via photopin

Source: B2C_Business

What Writers Can Learn from Public Speakers