Social Media: Is Your Content All Rhetoric?. In social media, the audience pulls the strings. While many marketers focus on reach and engagement, none of that matters if the message contained within our content doesn’t resonate with the audience. Then again, he thought the written word was a step too far; he argued it would lead to knowledge by rote, not reason. The YourTaxis.com.au website launched in September 2015, inviting people to share their taxi experiences, alongside a social media campaign with the hashtag: #YourTaxis. Back up your claims Logos is the appeal to reason and was Aristotle’s answer to Plato’s concerns that rhetoric was all style and no substance. Two sides argue a case based on the same evidence and the same established facts. Then you can address these objections up front within the content: “Some people might say … but our evidence shows …” Otherwise, plan how to respond to the likely reactions in advance, scripting various responses so everyone is prepared to answer the hardest questions and handle the curliest of criticisms. Let that person review your content or campaign ideas to identify the worst possible reactions they might receive once released into the unforgiving wilds of social media. Where this blatant appeal to pathos failed was in completely ignoring how the audience felt about the taxi industry.
In social media, the audience pulls the strings. Most of the time, our social media activities are designed to encourage the audience to pull strings that favor us – amplifying our content or spreading our message – but if the audience doesn’t agree with what we have to say or sees an opportunity for mischief, we can quickly lose all control.
While many marketers focus on reach and engagement, none of that matters if the message contained within our content doesn’t resonate with the audience.
Of course, there have always been people who are particularly good at holding an audience, getting them to agree, and persuading them to act. This was just as true two-and-a-half-thousand years ago, when the philosophers of ancient Greece began to analyze and document how the most effective communicators would routinely win the audience.
A rhetorical toga party
Socrates would have thought the internet an abomination. Then again, he thought the written word was a step too far; he argued it would lead to knowledge by rote, not reason. We know this because his student Plato wrote down the first Socratic dialogues (oh, the irony).
While Plato was certainly more open to new media than his tutor was, he still believed the written and spoken word should be dedicated to the pursuit of pure logic and truth, devoid of style and persuasion. Not so his greatest student, Aristotle – one of the most influential philosophers in all of Western thought and the key figure in any discussion of the rules of persuasive language: rhetoric.
Rhetoric is a massive topic with hundreds of documented techniques, concepts, and descriptors. Yet even the basics of Aristotelian rhetoric can help marketers assess and deconstruct their successes and failures in social media communication.
Why? Some questions can’t be answered with data. Why does one message resonate while another provokes a backlash? Why can one brand get away with a particular campaign while another might crash and burn with the exact same idea? Let’s deconstruct just such a rhetorical disaster.
The taxi industry versus Uber
It’s 2015. You’re the association representing the taxi industry in Melbourne, Australia, and customers are flocking to Uber. What do you do? If you’re the Victorian Taxi Association, you briefed your PR agency to run a social media campaign. The YourTaxis.com.au website launched in September 2015, inviting people to share their taxi experiences, alongside a social media campaign with the hashtag: #YourTaxis.
Unfortunately the audience was only too keen to share stories of rude cabbies, stinking cars, even abuse and assault. There were also plenty of complaints about a taxi system that is inefficient, often doesn’t turn up, and routinely ignores complaints and feedback.
The campaign also backfired massively as many tweets used the hashtag to compare the negative experience of catching a cab with the far more positive experience of catching a ride with good ol’ Uber. Instead of the taxi industry winning customers back from the ride-sharing interloper, this campaign probably did far more to boost its rival by highlighting numerous reasons why people were making the switch.
The campaign had a good distribution strategy, targeted the right places to reach the intended audience, was well funded and had measurable outcomes, but these were all processes and numbers. Strip all of that away and the rhetoric at the heart of the campaign was fundamentally flawed. And if the message is out of step with the audience no amount of…
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