What is Tone In Writing Blogs?
In order to keep your reader engaged throughout your blog post, you need to stick to your tone. You may wonder what is tone?
It is the implicit emotional message you are sending to your reader. This is how they decipher what you mean and take it in a negative or positive context.
This article discusses how to set your tone and use it according to your brand image.
1.
What is Tone for Your Brand?
Your brand usually does not have a tone right away. To tell an impactful story and make a connection, you will have to set one up.
Examine your audiences, their likes and preferences and your content to decide what tome you should go for.
Let’s dive in deeper to know how you can set it for your brand.
Knowing the Audience’s Persona
The audience or buyer’s persona identifies the likes and preferences of your ideal customer.
Buyer’s persona is not only important for knowing what tone to choose but also establishing your brand.
All the content should be in line with the audience’s needs and demands.
Therefore, you need to have an idea about your audience’s:
- Demographics, such as age group, nationality, religion, gender and ethnicity
- What is their decision-making behavior that leads to purchase?
- Know their pain points and the problems they are trying to solve
- How they interact with other communication channels
- The kind of content they prefer
Once you will start seeing your audience as someone with real needs then you will be able to set your tone in a way to communicate with them directly.
This will help you to write like you are an audience member rather than an outside observer.
Though, there is a chance you would like to have more than one persona.
Then you can choose a single tone for two target audiences if they have similar requirements.
Examine Your Existing Content
Are you already posting content?
Then you likely already have a tone without knowing.
Your audience has an idea of what your tone is from any content you posted, the captions you write and the way you interact with them.
The way you have advertised your prior content and storytelling tactics.
Posting on social media or a blog post is enough to associate a tone with your brand.
While audiences may want you to be true to your existing tone, you can always make a change for the better.
Though, you need to be aware of it first.
Luckily, that is just a step away.
A content audit is all you need.
First, find out, what implicit messages have you been sending to the audiences.
What types of tones work best on your audience and leave a meaningful impact?
Plus, if you have an ideal tone, does your existing content align with it or is it completely different?
Manually perform a content audit to examine your most popular posts.
Check if they reflect your core values and the tone you want to convey.
If not, then what tone do they currently reflect, is it serious or humorous?
Also, find out if they address the needs of your audience.
Moreover, is there anything common in the posts that perform well such as a common tone, length or structure?
Once, you know your content and audience, you should dig deeper into your brand.
Examining Your Brand
What is the perspective of your brand and what kind of audiences do you want to target?
Knowing your existing content and audience comes after you look into your own brand.
It has a voice of its own reflected by your core values and the products you offer.
Your values, ideals and goals show what you stand for and hold true to the brand.
Plus every brand has products and services that set them apart from the competition. What is it in yours?
Also, analyze what your customers value.
By keeping these in mind, you can write your content accordingly and not what opposes what you stand for.
For instance, if your business is in the healthcare sector, you cannot have a very informal tone because your core values revolve around safety and better health.
That said, your brand also needs a tone to set it apart from the crowd.
If it is too formal then people will miss out on the human connection.
Make it compelling enough that your audience can engage with it.
While you may have several writers with individual, unique tones, remember that the one should reflect your brand’s voice and sales tones.
2.
What is Tone: Different Types
Tones are usually on the different ends of the spectrum.
For instance, you can either have a serious or humorous tone, a formal or informal tone.
Without further ado, let’s discuss them in detail and find out what your brand needs.
Informal/Conversational or Formal- Formality
The first step in setting your tone is to identify if you want to write in a formal or conversational style.
Using proper formality includes:
- Correct use of grammar
- Complex word choice and use of phrases rather than simple ones
- Very long sentences
- No use of slangs
In writing, thesis or research papers usually use a very formal tone.
However, blogs are made for the people of the internet.
You want everyone to understand and relate to your content.
So, even in scientific, medical or technical writing there can be a chance to get slightly conversational.
Though, since the subject matter is serious, you would want to also maintain a single tone.
If you want to be completely formal, use an elevated and complex vocabulary with long sentences.
On the other hand, informal writing is more relatable.
Simply because it uses easy words, short sentences, everyday word choice and even sometimes slangs.
Usually, a lifestyle blog, a makeup blog, a food chain or even an e-commerce store can use an informal tone.
This takes us back to what are their target audience -everyday humans rather than scholars looking for serious scientific discoveries.
Adding Humor or Staying Serious
Your writing style can be playful or grounded.
Humor can bring the audience with a similar sense of humor to your blog.
Plus, it can make them feel positive about your brand as they feel comfortable and develop a connection with the humor.
However, it is also risky.
Not everyone has the same sense of humor.
While some people may laugh out loud at your jokes, others will not understand the deal about them.
Hence, you need a thorough understanding of your audience to ensure that they will like it.
On the other hand, being serious is a rather simpler and safer approach.
You can do that by keeping your core values in mind and using a formal tone rather than a conversational/informal one you may have taken for a humorous tone.
Plus, you can also show that you take your brand seriously.
Do so by incorporating serious posts about your products and ethical values.
Respectfulness vs Irreverence
No company wants to be disrespectful to its customers.
Or you may think so!
Irreverant tone can include using slang, swearing and a rather casual approach.
However, the audience can be put off by it.
Therefore, you need to strike a balance by appreciating customers for their feedback and also emphasizing the brand’s effort in maintaining quality.
Hence, choosing an irreverent approach is not wrong.
In fact, your audience can find your fun and unique.
Therefore, remember to always balance out things.
Contrary to that, adopting a respectful tone is easier.
The language can be formal but layered with respect and care.
For instance, thanking customers for their valuable actions, talking about your core values and guiding principles all related to the customers can give them a sense of respect.
So, if you emphasize that respecting your customers is your priority in your tone, they will regard you higher too.
These two can also be the warm and cold tones whereby the respectful tone feels warm to the audience while the irreverent one sounds cold.
Dry or Enthusiastic Tone
A brand that wants to maintain a classy appeal will sound drier than enthusiastic.
Enthusiasm is great, it insinuates positivity and youthfulness.
However, it is not a great option for every brand.
Some deliberately need a dry, matter-of-fact tone.
This includes writing facts rather than using emotional words and keeping the copy simple.
Some brands go for this to evoke a high-end minimalistic feel.
Though it is not necessary.
You can have a matter-of-fact drier approach by stating only the facts, avoiding any emotional language, having a straight-to-business and practical tone.
This tone is rather authoritative where products speak for themselves.
In contrast, an enthusiastic tone tries to generate the same excitement in the audience that the owners have for the brand.
Hence, use emotional words to elicit the same positive feelings.
Also, include bold colors, fonts, exclamation marks to show enthusiasm.
This tone is informational but also very excited about their own products.
Hence, that elicits an optimistic response from the audience as well.
Finally,
We discussed what is tone in writing in detail.
The crux is that you will have a tone in any form of writing even if it is unintentional.
Hence, if you want to have a uniform tone across all your channels, it is better to choose one aligning with your brand as well as your target audience.
Keep practicing by writing again and again.
read your competitors and analyze content that is similar to how you want your tone to be.
Moreover, always look for constructive feedback in order to improve.