When my family moved from Tulsa to Houston, my siblings and I picked up the accent pretty quickly. When an aunt visited us from the Midwest, my 5-year-old brother proudly announced:

“I used to talk human, now I talk Texas.”

Do you ever feel like that? “I used to talk human, now I talk Toyota.” “I used to talk human, now I talk Coca-Cola.” “I used to talk human, now I talk Intuit.”

Make sure you’re talking human — not bureaucratic gobbledygook — on your website. Having a personality is essential online. Go for an individual, not institutional, voice.

In other words, as Stacey Cox, manager of internal communications at CenterPoint Energy, says, use your “business casual” or “casual official” voice online.

Here are five ways to speak “business casual” on your website:

1. Bring your personality to work.

Are you writing messages as if your CEO is looking over your shoulder? Choosing big, important, bureaucratic words and using your stuffiest, stand-up-straight grammar? Carefully sucking all the personality out of your prose?

Here’s an idea: Have a personality. Have an actual person’s personality, not a corporate communication department’s personality.

“Get human!” writes Amy Gahran, author of Contentious.com:

“Stop trying to speak in a monolithic, generic voice. It’s incredibly difficult to write that way, and it’s even more excruciating to have to read that kind of content. Why make things so hard for yourself and your audience? Just write clearly, in human terms … No one believes a monolithic voice, so it undermines your credibility.”

Shonali Burke Consulting is one organization that’s nailed a human voice. I can almost hear Shonali speak as I read:

“Tired of the noise? Looking for a smart communications strategy that will positively impact your business? You’ve reached the right place. Welcome.”

My favorite line?

“Enough about me. How can I help you?”

Yep, it’s easier to hit the right tone when your name’s on the door. But here’s a process for finding the right voice when it’s not.

2. Write a letter.

In 1962, Tom Wolfe was covering the hot rod and custom car culture of Southern California for Esquire.

That is, he was trying to cover it. He was having so much trouble that his desperate editor, Byron Dobell, asked Wolfe to send him his notes, so he could have another writer finish the job.

On the night before the deadline, Wolfe sat down at his typewriter and, ignoring all journalistic conventions, banged out a personal letter to Dobell explaining what he wanted to say on the subject. Dobell just removed the salutation — “Dear Byron” — and published the letter intact.

The result was “There Goes (Varoom! Varoom!) That Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby” — an article that helped establish the New Journalism movement.

Frustrated with IBM employee jargon, Eliot Fette Noyes — who invented the IBM Selectric typewriter — composed a pamphlet called “Dear Mother.” He suggested that employees write memos as if they were simple notes to Mom.

Warren Buffett famously writes his letters to shareholders to his sister Bertie.

If it works for them, it might work for you.

3. Write your piece in the first person.

“If you aren’t allowed to use ‘I,’ at least think ‘I’ while you write, or write the first draft in the first person and then take the ‘I’s out,” Zinsser suggests. “It will warm up your impersonal style.”

Great tip for content marketing pieces.

4. Read your message aloud.

To make sure your business writing is conversational, say, “Hey! Did you hear?” Then read your copy aloud.

If the rest of your message sounds as if it could logically follow that introduction, you’re on the right track. If it sounds like the teacher in Charlie Brown cartoons (“Wah Wah Wah Wah”) you might want to revise.

5. Write in a conversational style.

Want readers to pay attention to every single word?

Don’t worry too much about formal writing and grammar rules. Instead, aim for a good conversational tone — informal, me-to-you, one-to-one, focused on your target audience and appropriate to your subject matter.

To sound more conversational:

• Avoid long sentences. They can be stuffy, and short ones are easy to understand. (And don’t start a sentence with long dependent clauses.)
• Write in the active voice. Write in Subject-Verb-Object sentences — explain who did what to whom. Avoid the passive voice.
• Choose the second person. Call your reader “you” instead of “the employee” or “the customer.”
• Drop the jargon and bureaucratese. Translate from the language of your organization to the language of your reader.
• Show your enthusiasm. “The nonverbal message of good writing is, ‘I understand this subject, I love it, and you are going to love it too,’” says Crawford Kilian, author of Writing for the Web.

Amen.

____

Gobbledygook courtesy of: Golden Bull-winning direct mail letter from the Crafts Council of Ireland; Web Economy Bullshit Generator’ a job opening announcement at Chevron, published in The Chicago Sun-Times

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When Don Murray arrived in the newsroom for his first day on the job as writing coach for the Boston Globe, he turned to his new boss and said: “I can tell you who your three best writers are.”

Then the Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Writing to Deadline: The Journalist at Work proceeded to do just that.

“How did you know?” the editor asked.

“Their lips move when they write,” Murray said.

Reading your copy aloud — hearing your words instead of just staring at them — is one of the techniques that separates master writers from the might-have-beens.

“The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader,” said poet Robert Frost.

Do your lips move when you write?

Why a conversational voice?

You learned formal writing in high school. But to get your target audience to pay attention, your content marketing pieces, social media and blog posts, and other business writing should use a conversational style, instead. To write conversationally, worry less about being grammatically correct and more about how the writing makes your readers feel.

What goes into a conversational tone in writing? Everything from the way you start a sentence to whether you write in passive or active voice. (The Hemingway App can help with that, by the way.)

Benefits of reading aloud

Specifically, it will help you:

1. Reduce errors.

Your eyes are such good editors, they can “fix” your copy as they view it. Your ears will catch what your eyes miss.

Students taking remedial writing courses at the City University of New York, for instance, eliminated 60% of their grammatical errors by reading their copy aloud, according to Richard Andersen, author of Writing That Works.

2. Make your copy conversational.

“Effective writing has the illusion of speech without its bad habits. The reader hears a writer speaking to a reader. The writing should flow with grace, pace and clarity — not the way we speak but, better than that, the way we should speak.”

— Donald M. Murray, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Writing to Deadline

We want our copy to sound the way we do when we speak — not like some computer spit it out. Take this sounds-the-way-you-speak passage by Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, calling attention to a great bottom line in this letter to shareholders:

“Below is the tally on our underwriting and float for each major sector of insurance. Enjoy the view, because you won’t soon see another like it.”

3. Make your copy sound better.

Reading aloud can smooth out rough passages, reduce fits and starts, and otherwise make your copy flow instead of stutter. It can help you find a voice and tone for your piece.

“Effective writing has the illusion of speech without its bad habits,” Murray writes. “The reader hears a writer speaking to a reader. The writing should flow with grace, pace and clarity — not the way we speak but, better than that, the way we should speak.”

4. Cut Through the Clutter.

When you read your copy aloud, your tongue will trip over nine-syllable words; you’ll run out of breath before the ends of long sentences; you’ll stumble over redundancies, jargon and passive voice.

In short, you’ll find all the things you’ve been looking for — but missed — thus far in your editing process.

Run the ‘Hey, did you hear?’ test.

Having trouble nailing that “business casual” tone you’re aiming for? Try reading your message aloud — after a friendly greeting or phrase:

I call this the “Hey, did you hear?” test. If your business writing sounds like the adults in a Charlie Brown special — “Wah Wah Wah Wah” — after a simple greeting or phrase, chances are, your copy is too stiff, bureaucratic and jargon-filled.

Plus: Your tongue will trip over stuffy, overblown phrases. You’ll stumble over stiff, bureaucratic words. You’ll catch other issues that reduce readability.

You might also run the Elevator Test on your copy: Imagine riding from the first floor to the third floor with your favorite colleague. What, she asks, have you been doing? What do you say? That’s your lead. Corollary: If you can’t imagine saying this in an elevator, don’t put it on the page.

Then there’s the Bar Test. You ever gonna say this on a bar stool? No? Fix it.

Still having trouble? Try leaving yourself a voice message. That will help you capture your conversational voice.

Now ear this.

“When I started reading my stories aloud for a living and I’d hear myself, I would think, ‘Good heavens, that needs to be pointed up,’ or ‘That should be out.’ Now, as I go to colleges to do readings, I have revised a lot of my early stories so that they read more succinctly. I wish I had learned early on what a good test reading aloud was.”

— Eudora Welty, American author

Find a private place and read your copy aloud. When you identify passages that need help, talk them out until you hear something that works better.

Your readers will thank you for it.

Learn more about conversational tone in writing.

Do you read your copy aloud? If so, how does that help?

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The hardest job I’ve ever done was writing and editing a microsite for H&R Block. It was designed to let survivors know how to handle taxes for their loved ones who had died in the Sept. 11 attacks.

I’m usually pretty confident about my writing voice, but this project left me feeling unsure. My usual brisk style obviously wasn’t going to do the job.

How do you know what your voice should be? How do you define it so all the project contributors are using the same tone in writing?

1. Define your voice.

First, describe your organization’s/executive’s/channel’s voice.

What is it now? What would you like it to be?

Decide upfront what the right voice is for this piece:

• Individual or institutional?
• Bureaucratic or — as Stacey Cox, manager of internal communications at CenterPoint Energy — calls it, “business casual”?
• “Impersonal reportorial? Personal but formal? Personal and casual?” asks William Zinsser in On Writing Well.

In fall 2001, H&R Block had just completed a rebranding effort. The new brand was “not your father’s H&R Block.” The voice of its main site was brisk and hip — occasionally even a little flip.

Not right for our 9/11 microsite, clearly.

How do you know what is right? The perfect pitch depends on your:

• Audience
• Organization
• Subject matter

So start with some descriptors. Do you want your message to be technical or accessible? Formal or casual? Dry and factual or witty and playful? You might use a simple scale like this:

Whatever you decide, do decide. Commit to a voice, then stick with it.

So what tone can communicators use to create a voice that’s not too buttoned-down and stand-up-straight? One of my clients makes scientific instruments. Its descriptor: “accessible expertise.” I think it’s perfect.

For the H&R Block site, we wanted a voice that was warm, knowledgeable and empathetic to help survivors manage a difficult job during a traumatic time.

2. Give it a name.

Next, give your voice a name. That will give you a shorthand for talking about your tone to management, reviewers and other writers as well as helping you choose the right words or phrases.

If there’s a person in your organization (or outside of it, for that matter) who embodies the tone you seek, feel free to use her name.

Among the names that have come up during my workshops and consulting:

• For a corporate library, the descriptor was “your articulate, geeky friend.” The name: Alex Trebek.
• For a university recruiting site, the descriptor was “your favorite professor, who wears a sports coat and tennis shoes.” These communicators used the name of a popular professor on campus.
• For H&R Block, we used: “Uncle Frank, your favorite uncle, a retired CPA. He sits down with you and says, ‘Honey, let’s get through this. First, write your name at the top of the form.’”

Now, Alex Trebek, Professor Popular and Uncle Frank never showed up in the messages themselves. These are just internal names you’ll use to focus contributors and reviewers on the right tone.

3. Use your tone.

Your descriptor and name should make it easier to write and edit copy and manage the review process. When H&R Block accountants wanted to replace our accessible, friendly prose with IRS-ese, for instance, we’d just say, “That doesn’t sound like Uncle Frank.”

End of discussion.

Your descriptor and name also keep writers on the same page. After all, you don’t want your message to end up sounding like your crazy Uncle Frank, who has a different personality on Thanksgiving than he has on Christmas.

Whether your message should be playful or serious, before you write the next word, determine and communicate your voice and tone.

Learn more about tone of voice in writing.

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“Good writers are visible just behind their words.”

— William Zinsser, author, On Writing Well

Eliot Fette Noyes was a Harvard-trained architect and industrial designer. He worked on projects for IBM — most famously the IBM Selectric typewriter and the Westchester IBM Research Center.

Frustrated with IBM employee jargon, Noyes composed a pamphlet called “Dear Mother.”

He suggested that employees write memos as if they were simple notes to Mom.

Dear Byron

It was 1962, and Tom Wolfe was covering the hot rod and custom car culture of Southern California for Esquire magazine.

That is, he was trying to cover it. He was having so much trouble that his desperate editor, Byron Dobell, asked Wolfe to send him his notes so he could have another writer try.

On the night before deadline, Wolfe he sat down at his typewriter and, ignoring all journalistic conventions, banged out a personal letter to Dobell explaining what he wanted to say on the subject. Dobell just removed the salutation — “Dear Byron” — and published the letter intact.

The result was “There Goes (Varoom! Varoom!) That Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby” — an article that helped establish the New Journalism movement.

____

Source: “Ten Things You Should Know About Eliot Noyes,” Dwell, April 2007

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