A captivating speech or podcast can leave a lasting impression on its audience. However, those powerful words often fade into memory once the applause dies. All your work organizing your ideas, developing literary devices and practicing the delivery is lost.
Or is it?
Giving your speech an article afterlife offers a valuable opportunity to extend its reach and impact.
Let's explore why this conversion is a good idea and then delve into the key differences between crafting a speech and an article.
Why Repurpose Your Speech?
Consider extending your message across multiple platforms to get the biggest bang for your buck. Here's why:
- Expand Your Reach: The audience present limits your speech. An article, however, transcends physical boundaries. It can be published online, shared on social media, or even emailed to a broader audience, allowing your message to resonate with a whole new group of people.
- Deeper Dive: Speeches are often concise, focusing on critical points to captivate a live audience. An article allows you to delve deeper into the topic, providing additional details, statistics, or examples that enrich your message for a reading audience.
- Everlasting Impact: Articles have a longer shelf life than speeches. They can be accessed anytime, allowing readers to revisit the content, ponder its points, and share it. The written word creates a lasting impact beyond the initial presentation.
- Boost SEO: Articles containing relevant keywords can improve your search engine ranking. If your speech tackles a timely or relevant topic, an article can position you as a thought leader within that field, attracting new readers and potential clients.
Key Considerations for the Stage-to-Page Transformation
While both aim to convey information, a speech and an article are distinct beasts. Here's a breakdown of the key differences:
- Tone & Style: Speeches often adopt a conversational tone, using humor, personal anecdotes, and rhetorical questions to engage the audience. On the other hand, articles tend towards a more formal style, relying on evidence and clear explanations to inform the reader.
- Pacing: A speech needs to hook the audience quickly and maintain a steady flow of information. Sentences are generally shorter, with less complex vocabulary to ensure real-time comprehension. Articles, however, allow for a more measured pace. They can utilize longer sentences and more intricate vocabulary to delve deeper into the topic.
- Literary Devices: Speeches often leverage literary devices like repetition, powerful imagery, and rhetorical questions to create a memorable experience. Articles rely less on these devices and focus on clarity, structure, and logical flow of information.
Transforming Your Speech: A Step-by-Step Guide
Ready to breathe new life into your speech or podcast?
Here's how to convert it into an engaging article:
- Identify the Core Message: What key point did you try to convey in your speech? Your answer will form the central theme of your article.
- Expand and Elaborate: Take each main point from your speech and flesh it out with additional details, statistics, or illustrative examples.
- Structure and Flow: Plan your article's structure, ensuring a logical flow of information. Use headings, subheadings, and bullet points to improve readability.
- Formalize Your Tone: Revise the language of your speech to suit an article format. Replace informal language with more formal phrasing while maintaining your unique voice.
- Incorporate Visuals: Images, charts, and graphs can enhance your article, making it more visually appealing and more accessible for the reader to understand.
- Optimize for Readability: Break up long paragraphs https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/paragraphs/ , use transition words, and proofread carefully to ensure your article is clear, concise, and engaging.
These steps will help you transform your captivating speech into a compelling article that reaches a broader audience and leaves a lasting impact. Remember, your words deserve to be heard – and now, your expanded audience can read them, too.
Still unsure? In Part 2, I'll show you exactly how to do it by transforming a speech into an article and creating social media posts to market it.