Personal Brand: Tone
What your writing tone or voice can convey.
When it comes to managing your Personal Brand, it can be easy to focus on the really visible parts - your purpose, your bio, your headshot, etc - but there is one element of your brand that shows up everywhere, but isn't as often talked about: Your Tone.
Whether you think about it or not, your tone (or voice) is one of the parts of your Personal Brand that people experience most frequently - it's in every email you send, every presentation you build, and every post you share. And it's for that very reason that special attention should be paid - both in crafting your tone and in ensuring you use it consistently through time and across communication channels.
A few ways to think about this that may help:
Imagine someone reading an email you sent, but your name wasn't attached to it. Would they be able to attribute it to you?
Imagine someone stumbling across a blog post of yours, but scrolled beyond the author. Would they immediately think "This sounds like something ______ would have written"?
Imagine a colleague giving a presentation that you put together. Would the audience pick up hints of you in the format, the word choice, and the flow?
If you've followed my content for a while, I'm hoping you've picked up on my tone over the years: I aim for casual and approachable, I use lots of "-"s (and alot of parentheticals (sorry)), I lean on examples - often drawing from real-life experiences or stories, I use "etc" more than I should, and try to pose questions for reflection.
In addition - I've tried to keep my tone consistent through time. If you read any of my earliest posts, they should at least "rhyme" (in terms of tone) with my more recent ones. See if you agree: my posts going back to 2018 are available here on my blog - go read some and come back (I'll wait here).
So here's the challenge - broken into 3 Phases:
Phase 1: Audit your current tone. Reread recent emails, messages, presentations, posts, etc. How would you describe your tone and your style? Regardless of how you'd describe it - does your tone feel consistent through time and across channels?
Phase 2: First - identify how you want to show up in terms of your tone. Do you want to be formal or more casual? Do you want to be perceived as an expert already or someone curious to learn and explore? Do you use industry jargon (not in negative way) or keep verbiage more approachable? Then, review your "Tone Audit" and compare that to how you want to show up. Does it match up or is there a disconnect?
Phase 3: If your desired tone matches your audit - continue leveraging this Personal Brand tone (and ensure you're being consistent through time). If there's a gap - determine how you need to shift your tone to close the gap between your audit results and you desired tone.
Thanks for spending time with me in my workshop,
Eric
