🧠 During a mastermind meeting recently our group was talking about voice. The tone and type of voice we gravitate to and are good at, and the tone and type of voice our clients want. Sometimes you are a great fit for several types of voices.
Some of us can nail a host of voices and others of us realize when a voice is out of our wheelhouse and therefore not a great fit for a client who wants that tone.
Typically, you only realize that after taking on work and then not being able to hit the tone your client requests. Some of these tone and voice descriptors include:
· Conversational voice
· Academic voice
· Authoritative voice
· Warm friendly voice
· Friendly yet informative voice
· Millennial voice
· Gen X voice
· Gen Z voice
· Street voice
· Empowering and uplifting voice
· Professional voice
· Sassy, voicey voice
· Weird, wacky and irreverent voice
Many of these voices overlap and encapsulate several characteristics. In other words, you can have a warm, friendly, millennial voice or a friendly, yet informative professional voice. Even a sassy, voicey street voice.
Usually you’re good at a couple of these, and find that most of your clients fall within one or two of these brand voices, and if you’re lucky, you can pick up another couple of styles with some practice.
🦻🏻When you think of brands, you can usually classify them into voice by thinking about the content they put out, their style of both spoken and written language, and even things like commercials and social media. Are they playful, buttoned up or irreverent?
Nike and Dove, for instance, might be classified as Millennial or Gen X, empowering and friendly.
Johnson and Johnson might be considered friendly yet informational.
Microsoft could be thought of as authoritative and professional.
Lowe’s might be empowering and informational.
Skittles and iHop lend to weird, wacky and irreverent.
Now, when you go looking for new clients or news brands, companies or institutions to represent with your words, think about what you know about their tone and voice by reading their websites, checking out their social media and then deciding which category they fall within and if that category is a good fit for your expertise.
🤔 When it comes to your own brand voice, and yes, you have one, too, think about where you fall in these voice classifications.
What voice or tone do you consider your correspondence, website, LinkedIn profile, bio and other written materials that represent you? Are you going for a street voice or something more conversational? Maybe professional yet authoritative fits you best.
Many things go into creating that voice including your style of speaking, your age and gender, your cultural background, the type of work and writing you do and the audience and clients you go after.
If you write for physicians and medical publications, for instance, you likely can’t use a wacky or irreverent voice since that won’t lend to that kind of work. If you’re writing cryptocurrency for Gen Z, you probably can’t use an academic voice to reach that niche demographic.
Other ways to figure out your voice:
1. Take what’s unique about your business, products or offerings and find a couple words to describe yourself. Steady, logical and clear. Or fun, funky and smarting. Only you know you, and what words work best.
2. Skip the pretense. We’re all creative, unique, quirky, rational, sensible, practical, smart, and scrappy. We’re looking for how you solve problems, what you bring to clients and how you can better create their content. Think of words unique to your strengths and channel them into your style.
3. Re-check the places mentioned above where your words and voice live—website, LinkedIn, marketing materials. Do they speak to your strengths and qualifications? Do they reflect your personality? Or do they sound like every other LinkedIn profile or writer’s about page? Do you stand out in any way? What one word sums up your style from these written materials? See if it resonates with who you are.
4. Channel someone who comes close to how you speak, think, write and present. It could be someone you know or more fun, a well-known person. Maybe you think of yourself as an Oprah or a James Earl Jones, a Mister Rogers or Kristen Wiig.
🎥 Think about if they were writing your copy, doing your interviews, staring as you in your movie, representing your voice in the world. Is it someone level headed and measured like Obama or someone off the cuff like Jim Carey?
Maybe it’s more like Tina Fey, Barbara Walters, or Tom Hanks.
Morgan Freeman or Matthew McConaughey? Melissa McCarthy or Meryl Streep?
I’m channeling a little Kristen Bell. Kind, smart, funny, off the hip. The Good Place. Yup, pun intended. Who are you channeling?
Who/What/Where to Watch?
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Women, drop the men’s pseudonym ASAP if you haven’t already. Women writers say no more male pen names.
Everything good comes back around. Remember book of the month club? They’re baaaack.
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❤️ Taking a moment to remember the 19th anniversary of Sept. 11 today, and the people who were and still are affected.
Stay healthy and safe!
See you next week,
Jennifer