Making Your Voice Be Heard

In your office, when you're all talking, do you all sound the same? How about in your writing?

I was recently struck by the idea of “voice”. I read a regular blog called Kottke.org. The owner, Jason Kottke, has been blogging at that site for a couple of decades. He posts half a dozen interesting items each day, in the design and pop culture space.

Occasionally he'll have a guest blogger. That person will take over for a week, post in a similar way, but showing things they are interested in. Typically they have a slightly different writing style, or slightly different interests, and it's noticeable that they are a different person.

Usually by the Tuesday of the week I'll have realized that someone else is writing this week. Rarely do they get by me for longer. A couple of weeks ago Jason had a guest blogger called Patrick Tanguay. It wasn't until Friday afternoon that I noticed there was a guest, and the only reason I noticed was that he posted a “well, it was nice to be guest-blogging here this week” post.

That got me thinking about the voice of the site. Literally Patrick wrote in such a similar style to Jason that I had no idea they were different people. I noticed with others, but not those two.

So the question about voice comes around again. Does your site have a singular voice? Is it clear that multiple people write on it? They are representing your company - do you want them to be similar or different?

This all comes down to guidelines. Everyone is familiar with design guidelines, like which color to use in the logo, what font to use, etc. But I've never seen guidelines for writing, like “don't use too many ‘ands’ or ‘likes’”. That would be crazy, right? Except for a couple of old standards, the AP Style and Chicago Manual of Style, there's not much out there.

Think about it though. Does it matter? In most cases I'd say no, everyone accepts that multiple people work at a company and might write on the blog. On the other hand, if a document charged writing style in the middle, you'd notice quickly.

Maybe you need to run your output through style software to fix these points. Maybe the coming AI writing software will take care of it, and everyone will begin to sound more and more the same.

This article was written by Steve West, the Power Copywriter. Steve works with marketing managers in the electric power generation industry. He helps create long-form content to establish thought leadership, generate leads, and accelerate the sales cycle. You can find Steve online at powercopywriter.com, or call him at 972-521-7456 to discuss your marketing needs.