Total communication is systemic, touching the entirety of others

Humans use multiple communications channels. Our five senses are vital for sensory inputs and for expression. Indeed, it might surprise you to know that people are far more influenced by perceptions than by what is actually heard or read. Non-verbal language accounts for over 60% of communication and listening is often better than telling.

That is why we experience so many mixed signals and misinterpretations in electronic communications. Without the further dimensions of non-verbal cues, communication is often cold, wooden and mechanistic. Symbolic gestures that amplify our feelings on a given subject, do help e.g. emphases, bold text, italics, emoticons, visuals or the tone of our communication. Its never going to be as rich as the real thing, but to preserve the efficiency of electronic communications, trade-offs are inevitable.

That said, written communication can certainly stimulate the non-verbal sensors of audiences. The style of a blog site or the garnishings of written text, can communicate things like respect for audiences, intent, quality, values, etc. Sadly, the psychology behind all of that has been so abused by advertisers and spammers that trying to reach an audience often fails causes people to just switch off.

That brings me to a few vital points:

Communication must be holistic. You cannot rely on limited channels or methods. People need to see, hear, touch and feel what you are saying, through a mix of approaches. Banks tried internet-only strategies, which failed, because customers saw direct channels as complementary to face-to-face channels.

Less is more. I personally limit myself to 500 word articles and many are half of that. Even that may be too much. Crowding of social network channels with short quotes and messages, can elicit a negative response - it often looks like spam.

Consistency is king. It takes a long-term commitment to win an audience. Large-scale exhibition firms, bank on running new shows at a loss for the first few years, because it takes so long to reach the tipping point. The Beatles played in a German pub for a few years, before they reached their own tipping point.

People are not reading less, they are reading differently. Thanks to the high pace of modern life, we prefer bite-size chunks of information, not long essays. But if a long essay is broken down into logical bites, it can still be effective.

We must repersonalize. Depersonalization of call center, internet and social network channels, raised the attention threshold of people, so be effective our communications must be distinctive, not more of the same. That implies a need for warmth, empathy, connectedness, responsiveness, etc.

Engagement is critical. You cannot pump out outputs to an audience that is always more concerned with being heard. People value an empathetic ear. Engagement must be real, inclusive, relevant and ongoing. The thin, one-dimensional feedback offen given in blog or social network sites, is not engagement and as such, is not sticky or sustainable.

(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net