Jonathan Crossfield says, “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)”.

Social Media: Is Your Content All Rhetoric?

Content Marketing Institute

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