Kwenye post hii pale LinkedIn, kuna watu kadhaa wamejaribu kukosoa lugha niliyotumia. Huwa napata critics hizi mara nyingi. Watu hawa hawajui mimi ni mwalimu wa lugha na fasihi na kwa miaka mingi nimethibitisha umahiri katika eneo hili la uwasilishaji. What they miss is why nimechagua aina hii ya uwasilishaji.
Moja kati ya sanaa zinaogopwa na mamlaka dhalimu ni mziki wa kufoka. Nay wa Mitego akiimba kuhusu uongozi mbovu lazima nyimbo ifungiwe. Roma yuko mafichoni.
Kwanini? Ukitaka kupata mrejesho kwa watu, ukitaka watu waamke na wachukue hatua, lazima ujumbe wako uibue hisia za kero na mshituko. The average mwananchi is docile. Ukiwasilisha kipole, kizembe, na kitakatifu utaishia kupata “Well said” na “Spot on”.
Yesu mwenyewe inafika mahali anaita watu wapumbavu, wanafiki, na waongo. Anaenda mbali anakuwa violent anavuruga meza za biashara ndani nyumba yake. Kama Yesu hakubembelezi, itakuwa mimi?
Most people have barely scratched the surface of effective delivery.
Wengine wasomi kabisa. Sijui wanapataje hizo Dr. na PhD bila kusoma rhetoric. Au ni za “kutunukiwa”. Tatizo la wengi, hasa wazee ni wamekua enzi za Nyerere zilizotawaliwa na uoga pamoja na maonyo makali.
Waliosoma kitabu changu wanaelewa. Nimetumia kurasa nyingi kueleza saikolojia ya maudhui na kitu kinaitwa “signaling”. Mfano wa signaling; mimi siwezi kusema kuwa nina ujasiri. Ila nitaongelea kitu ambacho wewe umefyata mkia kukiongelea. Hapo ndipo utakiri kimoyo moyo “this guys is confident.”
The best way to convey reality in a way that will shock people is to weave it into art and fiction.
Yesu Kristo na kushtua watu
Halikuwa jambo geni kwa miungu wa zamani kupata shida na matatizo ya kibinadamu. Mengine kupelekea kufa kwao. Lakini walipata matatizo hayo wakiwa kwenye hali ya umungu. They remained in their god ranks. Hivyo, ikawa vigumu kwa watu ku-relate ni kwa kiasi gani miungu hao waliteseka. Kama mtu si sehemu ya uhalisia wako, unakosa muktadha unaokuruhusu uhisi shida zake.
Lakini aliyekuja kuwastua wanadamu na kuwakera baadhi ni Yesu. Yaani akajishusha hadi kuwa binadamu wa kawaida. Tena maskini. Huo mshitko wa kwanza. Na kero kwa Warumi maana walitarajia mfalme dikteta.
Isitoshe akauawawa na wanajeshi watumwa wa Roma. Mshituko wa pili kwa watu. Kilichofuata ni wafuasi wake kumwanini zaidi na kufanya msalaba kuwa alama ya utukufu na utakatifu. Huu nao ni mshangao na mshituko kwani msalaba ilikuwa alama ya mateso kwa watu wa chini kabisa katika jamii. Watu wa kutupwa.
Hapa ninajaribu kukuonyesha umuhimu wa kuchombeza mshangao, kero, mshituko na sanaa kwenye ujumbe wako. Yesu aliingia kwa kushangaza watu (Mungu gani anazaliwa zizini?) na kuondoka kwa kustua wengi. Mpaka leo, neno la Yesu linatamkwa katika kila kinywa. Waamini na wasioamini.
Uwasilishaji fanisi umekaa kichokozi
Wale wanaonikosoa ndiyo uthibitisho wa hoja yangu. Kwa maana huwa siwaoni wakishiriki kwenye post zingine. Lakini ujumbe wangu umewastua kiasi cha kuacha comment. Ningetumia lugha ya kawaida wangepita tu. Post zangu nyingi zinazoanzisha mijadala ya maana ni zile ambazo nimetia uchizi na uchokozi kwenye uwasilishaji.
Fitness expert Doug Brignole wrote in his book, The Physics of Resistance Exercise;
“Complete forward flexion of the spine and deliberate contraction of the rectus abdominis, is much more likely to produce muscular development of the abs.”
While he could have said.
Bending forward to make full contraction of abdominal muscles will give you six packs.
Then mention the two exercises for that;
Seated cable ab crunches
Incline bench ab crunches.
But no. The expert fancied the idea of making exercise sound like classical mechanics and complex biology. Yes, exercise is biomechanics. But no one in my year of gym going has uttered things like “rectus abdominis” or “forward flexion”. Me and my gym bros we say abs, packs, or six packs.
His book is the best fitness book I ever read. You should read it. Only that his delivery limited it to a few learned, pro bodybuilders. Maybe that was his target. A book for trainers, not for the DIY rest of us.
But the point stands. There are more lies in the fitness industry than in romantic relationships. This book could have saved many. If you have something to say, and you have expertise in it, it would be irresponsible to make the message difficult to read.
Difficult, specialized words disengage people.
Unless you want to prove that you also went to school, jargon doesn’t help you much. You will look smart but also make people feel like they don’t belong.
We are wired to respond to content and stories written in clear, simple language. If you want to engage people, plain language is your friend.
With plain language, more people will read and understand your message. And act on it. And if you said something valuable to people, what impact would that be? Plain language is inclusive.
And please do not confuse your message not being for everyone with your message not being effective.
If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself
The best way to dilute your perceived brand authority as a writer is commoditizing your work. AI is tempting everyone writing on Medium to enter the quantity trap. You see some author publishing every day and feel like you’re being left out.
You start thinking maybe you should start publishing more. Please don’t.
I will tell you why
You can never compete in the quantity game. That is turning your work into low-priced fast-moving consumer goods. That’s the worst thing you can do to your brand. Writers ought to have some self-respect.
You can only compete on:
Value and proposition.
Having soul in the game.
Being relevant and relatable.
Like I said in this piece, we are past the time of sharing five tips to do this or five tips not to do that. With AI in the mix, it is no longer about what is posted, But who posted it.
You should worry more about what the writing reflects about you than a 30-article-per-month goal.
Growth doesn’t even work that way. Frequency is one thing. Quality and TIME are other crucial factors. Fast writing your way to success is as rare as a green dog. Resist the urge to break your great idea into three fluff-filled pieces.
Oh, is it the Medium money?
I was initially sad that the Medium Partner program does not apply in my country. But then I realized it was a blessing in disguise. It gives me a reason to focus on why I am here rather than looking at what numbers each post gets. Any platform that introduces a payment model, its users largely become commodities. Few earn actual money. The masses forage on pennies.
If your goal is solely to get Medium money, I understand the pressure to publish more. You write one piece and it flops. You think if I write another it will help. Before you realize it, you have 100 articles on your profile that even you, the author, won’t spend 40 seconds reading. People smell it when you’re writing just for the views.
Joined Medium in 2018 then abandoned it. But this piece I wrote, not proud of it now, gets 250 reads per month. Try having a few pieces like this. Not 100 articles that get 9 reads per month and stop getting any in the future.
Let’s talk business
There are better ways to make money online. Any earning model tied to your activity within a particular platform is unsustainable and not to be relied upon. Unles you’re Mr. Beast, which you are not.
Here is the question; what is your main business? That main business should be your digital home and you use these platforms you have little control over as DISTRIBUTION channels. Whether it is LinkedIn, Medium, or X — they’re at best distribution channels.
Since I write experience-based insights, here is an example; I have a marketing agency that also provides hosting and web design services. I also have an eBook.
I spend ZERO on marketing. No cold DMs, no networking events. My audience of 32,000+ followers on LinkedIn is where I get most of the qualified leads. The combined monthly income is not even close to 10x what most writers earn here per month.
It takes the pressure of speed off if you are not beholden to a platform’s built-in way of earning. I am basically talking about diversification.
The value of trust is raising
The marketplace of ideas has become chaotic. But thanks to one thing. People now come online with an understanding that everyone can easily come up with something. And they also know that the invisible hand of AI is becoming harder to spot. So who did the posting matters more than what was posted. Reputation and provenance will prevail.
Take a look at your articles and ask yourself, “What kind of reputation am I building here?” And when the pressure to publish more comes, ask yourself “To what end?”
I learned very early in my writing journey that the only thoughts I have control over what people think of them are those I haven’t shared yet.
In this edition of Social Rhetoric, we are going to crush your fears. That concern of what people will think of your post. The one that made you leave so many thoughts unpublished. Thoughts that would have made an echo in someone’s life.
Your fears are misplaced. Whenever you ask ‘What will people think of my post’ you ask the wrong question. There is no “people.” Let me explain:
Like I said in this article, when you are writing a thought, or idea (post), you are not writing one post. You are writing 100s of posts.
That’s because many people are going to read and understand it differently. It is going to find people in a different state of mind or environment that may affect their judgment. How can you control that? Should you care?
Let’s say that you care. This means you craft something that succeeds to get everyone to agree with what you have said. Well, then you should not have said it. You just said something so basic that has been said over and over. You held back your thoughts, you were not communicating, you were simply sharing information.
Even when two or three people leave negative comments, it is two out of how many received the message –200? Strangely, we tend to be bothered by the small number of negative comments than the majority of positive ones.
Online discourse is about sharing insights that can be accrued to your name. If it is unique and valuable, society rewards you. If it is bad, you bear the brunt of criticism. The last time I checked, people were still forgiving.
The only thought you have control over what people think of it is the one you have not shared yet. Once you click publish, it is no longer in your control and in most cases not your responsibility what people make of it.
Promise yourself this
If you discover that you have a voice that needs an outlet, then give that voice an outlet. Which is to say post online. If you discover that you have a way of presenting things in a way that people get interested to listen, then it is irresponsible not to do so.
Also what if you are not writing to present-day humans? People who lived 100 years ago are speaking to us through their writings. What if you’re speaking to someone in the future -should you care what present humans think of it?
When I started reading philosophy, I came across Hannah Arendt, a historian and political philosopher whose work has been resoundingly successful at provoking thought and discussion.
Reflecting on her work towards the end of her life, she said this:
“Each time you write something and you send it out into the world and it becomes public, obviously everybody is free to do with it what he pleases, and this is as it should be. I do not have any quarrel with this. You should not try to hold your hand now on whatever may happen to what you have been thinking for yourself. You should rather try to learn from what other people do with it.”
If you have an unclear definition of who you are talking to, your message is likely to appeal to no one. If you are a business, you end up talking about your company and product features.
Think of these messages you often see on websites and social media posts:
“We are the best service provider”
“Our service”
“Our mission, vision, about us, our team..”
“We are excited to..”
People who think that they are communicating with an audience usually write things like that.
But the thing is there is no audience. You only speak to one person. If there are 200 people, you are not talking to 200 people. You are talking to 200 individuals.
An audience of people does not receive and process your message in unison. Each person receives and processes the message individually in his or her mind.
An individual is likely to think “I am here listening to Jordan Petterson”. Not “We are here listening to Jordan Petterson”.
I think Swahili preachers understand this. If you listen from a distance, you may think the pastor is talking to one person in that church. Then you get closer and find over 100 people are listening to Mwamposa (a Swahili preacher in Tanzania).
An effective message is one tailored to a single person. This is why in content marketing strategy we have audience personas.
A persona is that one individual representing the customers you target. So you create this fictional person, you give them a name, demographic information, lifestyle, income, etc.
That is where you can craft a message every individual who identifies with that persona will find it is about him or her.
A message generalized to a faceless mass of people does not land well. Try to watch people who fall asleep during speeches. Mostly it is because the speaker is delivering a prefabricated message without caring about who is in the audience. The same goes for social media posts that don’t generate engagement.
Talking to your audience of one
Let us say you talk about how youths can leverage digital to find alternative career paths and escape endemic unemployment. And you probably have a friend (her name is *Minza) or know someone who is struggling with unemployment and doesn’t know where to start.
Now your message will be more impactful if you deliver it as if talking to Minza. Not because you know there are other unemployed youths out there. Others will feel like you are talking to them only if you talk to Minza whose challenges you know well and care to help.
Address yourself as an audience
Nobody knows you as you do. And guess what, there are things bothering you that others find bothering too. Opinions that others may find interesting. But you don’t know who these “others” may be.
So when in doubt, make yourself your own target audience. Project yourself out there and write to yourself. I will give you an example:
In this LinkedIn post, (sorry it is in Swahili) I say “If you come from a low-income country or a poor family, make sure you earn in dollars on the internet”. This is me telling me. Because I live in a low-income country and my family has struggled with not having many resources for a long time. (See similar post in English)
So the others who liked commented and shared just happened to relate to the message.
Also in this post, I talk about the challenges one goes through to register a business entity in Tanzania. This is something I have experienced while registering Tanzlite Digital and I found them absurd. Turns out I am not the only one.
NOTE that in all those posts I don’t use the personal pronoun “I”. It is like I am telling you if you happen to hear an echo in your own experience.
So that’s it. To be compelling, to deliver clarity and conviction, master the art of talking to an audience of one.
