How do you use persuasion and influence online?

1 Identify your audience

Before you start writing or speaking, you need to understand who your audience is and what they want, need, and expect from you. This will help you tailor your message, tone, and style to suit their preferences, values, and interests. You can use online tools such as surveys, polls, analytics, or social media to gather information about your audience and segment them into different groups based on their demographics, behaviors, and motivations.

2 Establish credibility

One of the biggest challenges of online communication is to build trust and rapport with your audience. You need to show them that you are knowledgeable, reliable, and trustworthy, and that you have their best interests at heart. You can do this by providing evidence, testimonials, or credentials to support your claims, by being transparent and honest about your intentions and sources, and by using a professional and respectful tone and language.

3 Appeal to emotions

Emotions play a key role in persuasion and influence, as they can affect how people perceive, process, and respond to your message. You need to use emotional triggers that appeal to your audience's desires, fears, hopes, or frustrations, and that make them feel connected, valued, or inspired by you. You can use storytelling, metaphors, images, or videos to create emotional impact and engagement.

4 Use logic and reason

While emotions are important, they are not enough to persuade and influence your audience. You also need to use logic and reason to back up your arguments, to show the benefits and consequences of your proposal, and to address any objections or doubts that your audience might have. You can use facts, statistics, examples, or comparisons to demonstrate the validity, relevance, and value of your message.

5 Incorporate social proof

Social proof is the phenomenon where people tend to follow the actions or opinions of others, especially if they are similar to them or have authority or expertise. You can use social proof to persuade and influence your audience by showing them that others have already agreed with you, endorsed you, or taken action based on your message. You can use testimonials, reviews, ratings, endorsements, or referrals to showcase social proof.

6 Call to action

The final step of persuasion and influence online is to ask your audience to take a specific action that aligns with your goal. You need to make your call to action clear, concise, and compelling, and to provide incentives, urgency, or scarcity to motivate your audience to act. You can use buttons, links, forms, or pop-ups to make your call to action visible and accessible.