How can you use humor, metaphors, or analogies to improve your messages?

It is important to remember that cultural nuances dictate what's funny. Misunderstanding these can offend, instead of amuse. So knowing your audience is crucial!! Used wisely, humor breaks tension, conveys messages subtly, and humanizes interactions; misused, it can alienate and harm relationships.

As a comms leader in the humanitarian sector, I eventually had to confront why my organisations were NOT using the most powerful tactic in the human communication arsenal: Humour! Through careful experimentation and feedback I discovered that on uncomfortable or taboo subjects, humour offers a wild card that can bypass compassion fatigue. You don't even need to weigh your audience down or stumble clumsily into offense. Naturally, weighty problems are no laughing matter. But my secret is to lean on the coping mechanisms of people affected: How do they laugh off the trauma they face? What jokes do they crack about their struggles? This dark humour lends clues to a lighter, fresher approach to communicating serious issues...use them!

Design a mascot, and let them do your talking for you! Works like a charm, especially for contentious intersectional issues involving politics.

I am a huge fan of metaphors! To be honest I think I use them too much :) The key thing for me to remember is not to be too verbose. Nobody wants an extended metaphor that takes 300 words. Another factor to consider is that in a globalised world, sometimes metaphors actually create confusion instead of clarity. My advice is therefore to use them only as needed - and to be sure that the desired meaning is clear

Analogies are powerful for training or when trying to communicate complex concepts. During training, I always try to get the trainee to give me a clue as to what they are interested in or what they are good at. Let the recipient guide you as to what analogy works best for them

One thing I have found helpful with the use of analogies is that it helps to simplify and demystify complex sentences or pieces. The use of analogy is a practical guide to walk the audience through the reflection of previous encounters. Using analogy will help to create a top-of-the-mind awareness in the audiences' hearts eyes.

A suggestion for analogies -- Employ imagery wherever you can! For instance, if I want to talk about specialty coffee origins, I would argue it is easier for a layperson to understand it if I speak of it like Krypton, the planet Superman comes from. Coffee bean, then, becomes the superhero that has an origin story.

Strategic communications is both art and science. The science is determining exactly who is in your audience. The art is in crafting messages that resonate with the people who make up the audience you are messaging. Whether we use humor or analogies or metaphors depends first on who makes up the target audience. Only after we know the who can we create the message.