11/30/2023 0 Comments Breaking habits statistics![]() ![]() Social marketing tactics aren’t designed for this, and instead often undermine the public policy conversation by keeping issues stuck at the individual level where better individual choices are all that is required to solve complex social problems. An essential task for social advocates, however, is to help people see a problem in public, collective terms – to show that an issue can’t be solved by private, personal actions alone. The theory is that communicators can persuade people to quit smoking or donate blood in the same way a company persuades people to buy its brand of soap or shoes. Selling people on socially responsible decision-making is a technique borrowed from commercial marketing. To break this habit – Begin with a carefully chosen point of commonality – a shared value – that not only helps you connect, but opens people’s thinking to the new perspective you bring. Communications need to resonate in order to work, but they need to resonate in a way that aligns with our strategic goals. There are plenty of way of connecting and resonating (fear for example) that actually lead people to places (fatalism, disengagement) that we don’t want them to go. It may help us connect, but it hurts the goal of encouraging people to view things differently. When we want to redefine an issue, however, reinforcing what people already think is not an effective strategy. “You have to meet people where they are,” the logic goes. Focusing on “resonance” as our ultimate goal.Ĭonnecting with our audience is a priority touted by public relations experts. Focus on what’s most important for people to know. To break this habit – Instead of repeating what you want people to forget by debating on opposing idea, stick to your message. If our goal is to widen the conversation and shift public attitudes, getting into a heated debate is not the way to go. When we do this, we end up strengthening the very ideas we seek to move people away from. We can’t repeat the thing that people already believe and expect to correct it in the next sentence. And when we repeat the thing that people already think in order to get them to move to a new idea, we are working against the way that our cognitive systems work. People are not easily shamed into changing their minds, especially when they know their views are shared by others in their social identity group. Confronting (and repeating) oppositional views.ĭirectly challenging other people’s opinions is a frequently used tactic, but rarely a successful one. To break this habit – Build people’s understanding of an issue by interpreting relevant facts. The more sparse the information, the more room there is for people to interpret it to confirm what they already believe. The data actually don’t speak for themselves. What actually happens, however, is that people rely on their existing perceptions of the world to makes sense of the information we’ve presented. This way of presenting information assumes that with enough information, or the right information, people will see what we want them to. This approach can take the form of a set of statistics, a list of affected groups, or a timeline of landmark legislation – but all without big ideas, value statements, or interpretation. Offering a “just the facts” review of a social issue to convey impartiality rarely has the intended effect. To break this habit – Bring a broad base of the public into the conversation. In other words, we can’t win the “inside game” of direct legislative advocacy without running up the score in the “outside game” of public will-building. Unless an issue is on the public’s agenda, it’s not likely to get addressed by our representatives. Public thinking plays a critical role in changing policies. Focusing communications efforts narrowly on elected officials and policymakers leaves important framing tasks undone.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |