Last week’s web tip (click here to read) was all about building a cohesive visual image style. This week handles writing style. Believe it or not, how a caption is written or how the text on an image reads has a huge impact on consumers.
Text writing style can encourage people to trust a brand/individual. However, that text style must feel authentic in order to build trust since people must trust before they’ll open their wallets. People are amazing in their ability to pick up on lies and unauthentic material.
The first step is to pick a style. The style can be based on an emotion (i.e. relaxed) or it can be built around a style of speech (i.e. with friends or formal). This should be something that feels fairly natural if it’s for an individual or a personal brand. A larger company may require more thought.
Now, it’s all about writing and editing. After all, if a style is hard to write in for someone they’re going to spend more time producing their content, and it may not even have the desired conversion rates. If the audience can’t relate to the style of writing, then there’s no reason for them to trust. Additional tweaking then becomes more urgent.
It’s important to recognize that a style is not necessarily going to feel right overnight. These posts, for example, sound informational and similar to a conversation among colleagues. That’s a style that required some development rather than feeling fully natural. It took a bit of editing to get there.
The best advice on writing style starts with what feels natural and then build. Ideally with ideal client work, a happy medium between what feels natural/authentic and what the ideal client is attracted to establishes. Then it’s a matter of writing, writing, editing, and more writing.