Are You Making This Mistake?

Are you making this mistake?

If you want to stand out, you gotta cut through the noise.?

Blogging is often overlooked in favour of more up-to-date content ideas like TikTok.?

But let’s be honest. People still read. People want to learn.? Some people prefer the written word to video. Blogging isn’t irrelevant if done in the right way.?

With this in mind, what do you need to do to write content that cuts through the noise and gets read??

How do you share valuable information that positions you in the marketplace AND gets you leads???

The answer is having a tone of voice that makes you not sound like a robot and dull as dishwater.?

When I first started writing content, I was fresh out of corporate. I used to think that I had to write with a professional voice, dot my “i’s” and cross my “t’s” on everything.?

This led to me overthinking and panicking all the time that my content wasn’t good enough.?

If I made a spelling mistake I was mortified and the need to be perfect paralysed me.?

I would work myself up into a tiz-woz and this stopped me from being consistent.?

But one day something clicked. What if I wrote content that was written from my heart instead of my head??

What if I wrote as I spoke??

What if I started to resonate with my people, rather than just teach my people??

What if I threw out the rule book, and just helped??

And this is what I started to do.?

But then I noticed my team was struggling to write and didn't know how to show up online. It was at this point I needed to create a brand document outlining the tone of voice of the business.?

If more than one person is writing for your company you do want consistency. This means that you need to decide on words you can (and cannot) use and make sure that you have a cohesive brand voice across the company.?

If you do need to sit down and create a brand document with an outline of your business tone of voice avoid using these words:?

Professional: You are writing for your business. You are hardly likely to be unprofessional.

Human: Are you a robot, are your clients robots? I have yet to see the advances in technology get to the stage where we all become robots.

Helpful: Would you purposely go out and write unhelpful blog posts?

Authoritative: This is why you are writing a blog post in the first place. You are there to share your expertise.

Informative: Are you going to write a blog post without any information in it?

The problem with these words above is that whilst they are not wrong, they are slightly patronising and your team will think you are a numpty.?

Other words you should probably avoid are:?

Funny: Who is to say what is funny? My 20-year-old thinks he is hilarious, you can imagine my view most of the time!

Technical: This is the kind of information you are going to produce and is not a “tone” of voice.

Friendly: Do you need to have this in your tone of voice guidelines – are you naturally rude?

Modern: Really? Modern equates to text speak to me. I won’t be writing in Latin so the other alternative is plain English.

As you can see, putting the information above into a document is a total waste of time.?

So what SHOULD be in your tone of voice guidelines??

To start with you need to know your Client Avatar.?

Before you have even started writing your articles you should have a clear idea of your client avatar.?

Who are they, what their lives are like, what their job is, and what help do they need? How much time do they have? Which online platforms are they hanging out on? What magazines/newspapers do they read… where are they consuming their content??

Once you understand your client avatar you can move on to tone-of-voice.?

Choosing Your Tone-Of-Voice

There is an approach that I love to use with my clients… just to get them comfortable with creating a brand voice.?

It is a simple matter of asking certain questions that conjure up how you want to express yourself.

These simple questions are:

1. If your business was a Radio DJ, who would it be?

2. If your business was an actor who would it be?

3. If your business was to be featured in an advert, during which TV programme would the advert be shown?

4. If your business was a magazine or a newspaper, which one would it be?

5. If your business was a news channel, which one would it be?

6. If your business was a Netflix box set which one would it be?

7. As the writer of the article, which TV personality would you be?

Number 7 is very important. Although you need an overall tone-of-voice for the business, you also need individual voices for the writers of your articles and marketing. Your team will not all have the same personality, and they should be encouraged to embrace their own voice.?

I have met a fair few entrepreneurs on my travels and more often than not I can relate them to TV Characters.

I have met an entrepreneur that likens himself to the suave Harvey from Suits.?

I have met an entrepreneur who loves the 1960's and likens himself to the powerful and sophisticated Don Draper from Mad Men.?

I have met the entrepreneur who is a mixture of Dick Van Dike and Roger Moore.

I personally like to channel my inner Lady Brady. (Karren Brady). She is firm and strong in her opinion, rather like me.?

And I have noticed that when people weave their personality into their content writing they enjoy writing so much more.

These 7 simple questions will enable you to picture how you wish to sound when you are writing your content and you can also weave a consistent tone of voice into your videos and audio…?

You don’t need to craft a document that says you are friendly yet traditional, or professional yet funny. What good are these documents and what do they mean?

What you need to do is show the world that you are a relatable person that people can warm to. You need to attract YOUR people so you need to turn the dial up and be more YOU.?

If you are struggling with time and struggling to know where to start with your blog writing, check out the Content Vault. It is a vault of content (ha!) that you can either use as it is or adapt and weave in your own tone of voice. I guarantee it will save you thousands of hours of hard work writing content and enable you to be visible online, starting today.?Here is the link with more information.