The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Let’s pretend you are a civilization that has no written language. If you can’t write anything down, but you want your people to remember the history of their culture, how do you do that? You tell a story.
One of the best examples of remembering history through stories was practiced by the early Native Americans. Without a written language, their history, culture, and traditions were usually passed on orally through stories and songs. Sometimes they would also draw pictures or choreograph a special dance to symbolize a particular event, which would be even more helpful for their memories.
The ancient tradition of storytelling is still alive and well today. If you want people to remember something well, tell a story. And if you want them to remember it even faster, add pictures to it.
Speaking of pictures, yesterday I found an article called Why We're More Likely To Remember Content With Images And Video. There are three visual communication tools that outperform text basically every time: presentations, videos, and infographics. The article itself also included a handy infographic that visually breaks down the advantages of each of these communication tools.
Whether you decide to create a presentation, video, or infographic for your next communication, here are a few statistics from the infographic worth remembering:
Using visuals is important both for internal communication to your employees and external communication to your customers. If everyone is already slogging through tons of text-based emails, memos, and files, any kind of visual communication is an instant attention-grabber and will definitely stand out from the competition. And it is a competition.
To make professional presentations people will remember, you can use tools like PowerPoint or Prezi. And if you upload your presentations to SlideShare, you’ll get a handy little embed code that you can use to publish your presentation directly on your website.
Making videos is a breeze these days. The simplest, most cost-effective method is to just record a video of yourself speaking on your computer or smartphone and then upload your video to social media. You could also use a video email service to quickly send a customized video message to your list of email contacts.
Infographics are fantastic for presenting lots of data in an easy-to-understand format. Technical tables and graphs can be confusing, but a simple image next to some brightly colored text or an interesting font is universally pleasing. And there are several free infograph-making tools you can use, like Piktochart and Venngage. Just do a quick online search to find a list of tools like these.
The technology may have changed, but the principles are still the same: visual storytelling is the best way to get people to remember both you and your message. If you aren’t already using visuals to improve your business communication and performance, it’s time to start.
