Write like YOU!
Written by Julia Bickerstaff // March 24, 2014 // Daily Juice // No comments
Do you ever worry about how you should sound, or what you should say, or whether you should say it?! Well here’s a super-simple tip that always works. Just Be You!
I know that sounds kinda obvious by sometimes we get all muddled. We think we need to make our businesses sound BIG and professional and very serious. But actually people like us more when we’re little and approachable and fun!
There’s a great book called Rework by Jason Fried (read it, it’s fab!) and in it he says:
So here’s a good thing to do:
1. Get together a sample of everything you’ve written. So that’s your packaging, your blog posts, your Facebook posts, your website, your ‘About me!’, your adverts your emails, your flyers.
2. Have a good read of it.
3. What do you reckon? Does it sound like you? Does it read like the way you’d talk? Or is it a bit wordy. A bit unfriendly. A bit corporate?
4. Make a list of the writing that needs changing.
5. Have a go at re-writing the stuff that’s easy to change. Like your website material. Try writing it for just ONE person! Yes! It’s much easier to write if you think you’re doing it for one person you know than masses you don’t. And make it conversational. Like you would if you were writing to a friend!
6. When you’ve got the hang of it try a rewrite of your print material – flyers, packaging and the like.
7. And if you’re struggling a bit a Swipe File may help!
Really, you’re writing doesn’t have to be ‘perfect’. Or corporate! There are lots of fabulously successful little businesses whose Facebook posts and blogs are all over the shop when it comes to grammar and spelling and malapropisms. But they are very readable and approachable and it’s kinda like their brand. Oh yes, and their customers totally love them for it!
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