Sound Bites

Sound Bites… are self-contained phrases or a sentence that capture the essence of what you have just said or explained in your speech. 

They wake up the audience to the key headlines of your speech. 

“Wake up”. Alerting the audience to your main message is more important in speaking, especially online, than if they are reading the same piece. People have the ability to go back and re-read a passage if they did not pay attention while reading through it the first time. In a live setting, this opportunity is not available. When listening passively on a computer, audiences have an easier time of zoning out because there are more stimuli to be distracted by. The computer in front of them can be drony, their phone can be pinging from various notifications, and having the option to turn the camera off are all taking away from what is being said. Hence a self-contained, well thought-through summarizing sentence every once in a while can have real value.

“Key headlines”. This is a principle of presentations that has transitioned over to speaking. Our society is getting more and more wired to process in key tidbits.  Sound Bites can summarize a prior paragraph or two, or can be a summary for the entire speech.

From the last lesson on the speed of speech, if a Head of State speaks for 2 minutes, he or she would likely speak 150+ words. What’s going to make it on national TV news at the end of the day are a few key sentences or phrases. You cannot cut and patch words from separate sentences here. Hence, it is important to think about sound bites in an important address or presentation. 

Famous speeches have a good number of Sound Bites. Try to identify them in your favorite ones.

Sound Bites are even more important if you are writing to be heard, vs writing to be read. For the latter, you have more creative liberties, and the reader can return back to a section. In a live speech, that is not possible. And even in a video recording, people are significantly less likely to rewind if they have missed something. 

Sound Bites. An important part of your arsenal for impactful communication.

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