For many, public speaking is nothing less than terrifying. But the art is indispensable if you want to get on in life, and can be mastered by learning certain techniques. These include how to start and end a talk, effective structures and the use of slides and data, as well as incorporating your character to help make presentations come alive.

Strategic communication is the art of using your writing, presenting, storytelling, online and media skills to achieve your aims. To do so effectively you need to be clear on your goals, and must draw up a plan which identifies your key audiences, how to reach them and when. This chapter also looks at the dark arts of dealing with difficult news, as well as strategies for handling a crisis if you’re ever unfortunate enough to suffer one.

Media coverage can help get your message across to millions, but journalists require careful handling. Here we discover how to write a news release which attracts the attention of a reporter, and ways to make sure a media interview works to your advantage. The chapter also examines how to deal with difficult questions, what to wear for an appearance in the news, and reveals the dirty tricks which some journalists use.

Storytelling is the magic ingredient for ensuring your messages make an impact and are remembered. But, to work well, stories require certain ingredients, including a classic narrative structure, jeopardy, pace and the use of character in telling them.

Mastering the art of compelling communication can be a passport to success, as this introduction explains.

For maximum effect, stories should be deployed strategically. That requires understanding the art of persuasion, the stages of a successful story, scene setting, and how to use the stories of others to illustrate important points. But by far the most powerful of all is knowing and using the stories which only you can tell.

Advanced writing skills can make a piece of content truly excellent. Such tricks of the wordsmith’s trade include specialist structures, ensuring your content is inclusive and appealing to all, elegantly laid out, and efficiently edited.

The best public speakers use a series of tricks to enchant an audience. They are revealed in this chapter and include: incorporating interactions to make a crowd feel part of the performance, signposting to continually refresh interest, the showbusiness of magic moments for truly memorable talks, the use of commanding body language, how to deal with nerves and preparing for the question and answer session.

How to remember your new skills, and what to do with them.

A positive online presence is indispensable in modern life, but establishing one requires thought and strategy. This chapter explores how to use social media to your advantage, with an appealing bio, techniques for posting that attract attention and admiration, which platforms to choose, the power of blogging, the effective use of artificial intelligence, and how to create and incorporate photos and videos to help make an impact online.

There are certain foundations of effective communication, and all are revealed and explored in this chapter. They are: clarity, brevity, simplicity, authenticity, and – sometimes surprisingly – humility, or the power of listening.

Writing which informs, influences and impresses requires a series of key components. They include the start and end of a piece of content, its style (often known as the voice, or character, of the writing), the critical details of who, what, why, where, when and how, and also an appealing title.