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Blog posts – should you add a little ‘personality’?

Photo by Aleks Magnusson from Pexels - blog posts need personality

Blog posts can often form the bedrock of a content marketing strategy but when you are choosing your tone of voice you need to make an important decision about whether you are going to show a little of your personality or not.

Some of this comes down to technical aspects such as using the first or third person when you write.

Using “I” instead of “we” makes the content much more personal and in my opinion, human.

Some of it comes down to including things like jokes, personal stories and life experiences all of which let readers know who you are.

So should you add a little personality to your posts?

Read on and find out

In this post:

What do you want to do with your blog?

Here’s the first port of call and it really determines how you deal with your blog and the thorny issue of personality.

To a large extent it is all about understanding your customers and understanding your business.

For example, if the outcome of your blog is just to have a place to vent your spleen about things that are concerning you then personality is the way to go.

But if you are looking to build credibility as the face of a professional organisation then the choice is less clear (see below).
Understanding your desired outcome is your starting point, then you can build on this by deciding how much, or how little personality you inject into every post.

What do we mean by personality?

So what do we mean by personality?

To me this comes down to how much of you is in the post.

Now unless you get someone else to write the post then there are always going to be bits of you in there but personality can come down to

  • Photos of you, your cat, your family
  • The tone of voice you adopt
  • Saying I and Me
  • Including opinions
  • Including a sense of humour
  • Stories about your life
  • Writing as you talk
  • Changing the rules of grammar

Of course legally, companies are separate entities in their own right so your business can develop its own personality, especially if you have strong brand guidelines.

Is it the right decision?

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
She's not thinking about blog posts at all. It's a lie!!!!
She’s absolutely not thinking about blogging. But if she were…

This is a good question and this really comes down to your target audience.

In general, if you are looking to portray a corporate look and present your business as one that is perhaps larger than a one-man-band then you’ll tend to go for a third-person style, using “We” and “Us” a lot.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a personality all of your own and it doesn’t mean that when your staff author blog posts that they have to be devoid of personality.

If you are developing a brand that is about you, perhaps you are a consultant, advisor or someone who runs a copywriting business then I’d say yes personality is absolutely required.

Why you need to add personality to your blog posts

People like to buy from people so when they read about your personal journey in your blog, it tends to make a connection.

Blogs that have a bit of personality tend to exhibit better engagement and shareability.

But there’s also a more practical reason why showing your personality in your blogs is a good idea.

Take me – I have zero ambition to work with people I don’t like, none, nessun, zilch.

So putting a little of my personality in my posts acts as kind of a filter. Essentially people who hate humour and aren’t willing to treat writers as human beings won’t like my stuff so they won’t book me.

But often people book me because they ‘get’ me and they also want to work with people they like.

Practical ways to add personality to your blog posts

So how do you go about inserting some of this mysterious thing called personality to your posts?

Here’s a list of my top 6 ways to put personality into blogs

  1. Tell a story – one of the best ways to get people on your side when you are training is to start with a story. It hooks people in and gets them to think of you as a real person. The same is true of blog posts.
  2. Use your own voice – don’t try to be something you are not.
  3. Write about things that you care about – people can spot a phoney
  4. Have an original thought – don’t just rewrite what other people have written, look for a different angle.
  5. Don’t be afraid to voice an opinion – if your blog posts are too vanilla then they’ll never appeal to anyone.

The pointlessness of pretending

Personally I think it is a waste of time pretending to be something you are not.

Firstly, you’ll get found out eventually and the greater the pretence, the greater the fall from grace.

But more importantly no competitor can replicate what you have or your personality.

So if you customers are buying from you because they like you, no amount of free gifts and special offers are going to tear them away.

So trying to pretend that you are something else could actually end up losing you sales rather than gaining them.

Want some help with your marketing strategy and blog posts?

I’m here guys.

If you need help setting your strategy, understanding your target market or even just writing blog posts then I’m your man.

Clicketty clicketty

C’mon help a charity out

use your skills to help a charity

If you are anything like me then over the years you’ve probably taken part in charity runs, sat in baths of beans and maybe even done a charity skydive (yep I have).

But charities need more than just money – they need skills and this is where you can help out.

I know that many of my clients and followers are professional people and my mission today is to persuade you to get involved.

I wanted to finish the week by sharing some of my experience of working with charities and let you know what you can expect to get out of it.

Doing it all for charidee mate

So I’ve been involved with local charities for quite a few years now and before you accuse me of humblebragging I can promise you I get much more out of it than they do.

I’ve worked as a volunteer, a consultant, have donated training days and am currently a charity trustee. All of these are very different positions and all of them have given me satisfaction, experience and a new perspective.

So what can you expect to get out of your involvement with charities?

The mercenary bit

There are so many reasons why you should get involved with a charity today that I can’t believe I am even having to tell you, but I will.

I’m going to start off with the mercenary advantages of working with charities for no other reason than I wanted to get it out of the way.

The first benefit I got out of it was that I had charity experience. This meant that in my day job as a finance consultant I could legitimately be put forward for charity and nonprofit jobs.

Acting as a trustee or Community Interest Company director also gives you board level experience that is attractive for future employers as it shows the level you are able to work at.

I also think that being on the board of a charity gives future employers and clients a sign that you are more interested in the world around you. A rounded personality if you like.

I’ve also increased my network of professionals, many of whom I am still in touch with and have worked with subsequently.

The touchy-feely bit

So that’s the money bit about serving as a volunteer but what about the feel-good factor?

Well, being part of something important, and being able to contribute, even if it is just in a small way is a great feeling.

This is especially important if you are a contractor or self-employed worker as there are times when you’ll find yourself without work, which can be tough mentally.

I find that in private industry, nobody is surprised that you can do your job well because you are expected to be brilliant. Consequently, it is rare to receive genuine thanks or appreciation.

In the charity sector, people are much more appreciative of your time, after all you are giving it for free. You also find that advanced skills are in short supply, so when you add your knowledge and experience to the mix, you are able to massively improve things for the better.

I’ve worked with some pretty crappy private businesses and I have always found that helping out with a charity is almost a way of restoring Karma a bit. Ying/yang in balance you might say.

One of the best days ever was when I was working with a mental health charity and we had an away day with trustees, management and service users and listening to the stories of how the charity had made their lives better was inspiring and lives with me today.

I’ve learned a huge amount as a result of working with the charity sector from technical stuff like SORPS, board governance and even simple legal and HR aspects from my fellow trustees.

Working with charities gives you confidence, inspiration and helps you retain a sense of perspective on what things are really important in the world.

After all it’s difficult to get massively worried by the fact that you used the wrong font in the monthly management accounts when you are also helping distribute food parcels in the evening!

Get involved

Get involved!

Choose a cause that is dear to your heart because you’ll be giving your time for free, decide what time you can give and what level you want to work at and then make contact.

If you have a charity that you particularly want to work with then make contact directly. Don’t get upset if they don’t answer immediately, time follows a different path in the voluntary sector but if you don’t get contacted after a while then reach out again. (I hate that phrase).

If you are looking for charity roles or to work as a trustee then why not check out the REACH website.

https://reachvolunteering.org.uk/

They have a listing of charities that are actively looking for help and you can set up an account and get notified when roles matching your interests turn up.

You could also look at Third Sector that has a combination of paid and volunteer roles that is constantly updated.

The Cranfield Trust is an organisation that provides project, consultancy and mentoring support for charities and you can apply to become a consultant and then work on shorter-term projects with a wide variety of different charities.

https://www.cranfieldtrust.org/

Go on have a look now. I promise you’ll get so much out of volunteering for a charity that you will never look back.

OMG. Do you really need those TLAs?

Stop using TLAs

Imagine the scene, it’s my second ever board meeting and someone says with a totally straight face – I think there are too many TLAs in that report.

He was right, there were too many TLAs*, but with classic unself-awareness (is that a word?) he’d missed the point that he’d also slipped into the murky world of TLAs.

As a writer who is often working on technical or finance subjects, TLAs are the bane of my life, but in some cases I have to use them.

Of course, TLA’s don’t need to be three letters IMHO2, in fact, they can be any number of letters but sometimes they can be really confusing and not helpful at all.

Why do people use TLAs?

So why do we use them?

Well there are a number of reasons.

The most obvious is to shorten a phrase when speaking or to make typing quicker.
They are very useful for text messages although in general people tend to use txt spk most of the time.

But there are a couple of other reasons why people use them.

The first is a defence mechanism. When they are feeling under attack or that they don’t have the requisite knowledge then it is a safe haven.

In most cases IMO, this is down to imposter syndrome and lack of confidence. It’s true to say that people can use them as a way of showing off a bit, which is fine in moderation.

Where TLAs become malignant

My own industry is riddled with TLRs like TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read), SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and SERPs ( Search Engine Results Pages).

I often think these are a way of creating a mystique around what we do and if people really understood what some of these professionals did then the price would go down!

But sometimes people can use TLAs like a big stick. I once worked at a company where one of the executives wasn’t the sort of guy you’d want to have a drink with.

In fact he was a misogynist bully.

He used TLAs as a weapon, dropping in obscure acronyms to intimidate people who he thought were below him and laughing at them when they asked what he meant. Usually the women.

Oddly, the organisation was owned by a woman, and the majority of senior managers were women but no one called him out on his behaviour (he did a lot of other stuff besides) and which I don’t think would be tolerated today.

I’ve also seen this and a version of it in academia where very senior doctors, professors and lecturers would sit in the bar and play a game of TLA scrabble to try to assert their authority.

It was a bit like watching a bunch of silverback gorillas throwing feces at each other.

And that’s the problem with weaponising TLAs; they make you feel like you’re powerful at the time but you still end up looking stupid and covered in brown stuff afterwards.

(Mis)Using TLAs isn’t big and it isn’t clever.

When TLAs are good

There are some places where an acronym is perfectly acceptable or indeed helpful.

I’m not a TLA nazi after all!

It’s perfectly acceptable to use the standard signifier for a currency for example. So Great Britain Pound becomes GBP.

This is helpful because not all keyboards have all the symbols for all the currencies (obvs) and using the TLA is in fact better.

In some cases I can accept using the IATA airport code. For example most people I think would know that LAX is LA airport. Some, especially UK citizens would know that LGW is London Gatwick and LHR is London Heathrow.

You may be able to work out that AMS is Amsterdam but how many would know what FNC stood for3?

For technical subjects, TLAs are really good for shortening phrases that would otherwise make the text less understandable – but when you use them you should always make sure that you write out the phrase the first time you use it and then put the TLA in brackets afterwards = Not For Profit (NFP).

And of course brand recognition is awesome for some TLAs. Think NHS, RSPCA or RNLI.

But in general, I’m with the Campaign for Plain English on this. Text should be easy to read and understandable and sometimes TLAs don’t help at all.

When TLA’s are bad

OK so I am going to admit that sometimes a handy TLA really helps.

But a lot of the time Three Letter Acronyms are simply the effect of someone being lazy, mischievous or downright rude!

Remember also that TLAs may be well known within your industry or even at a company level, but outside users can find that they haven’t got an idea what you are talking about.

I once worked in an organisation where I was promised PIN4 so that I could start off a project. I spent the next few days wondering where I would be entering my PIN until the answer arrived in the internal mail.

And TLAs may be perfectly understandable to an English speaker, but confusing for people who have English as a second language.

So what can you do about it?

Well the first thing you can do is to become an island of plain English in your organisation.

Reject confusing jargon and the overuse of TLAs. Ask yourself if your text is really helped or hindered by the use of acronyms for the ordinary user.

As I got more senior in my career, I began to ask stupid questions. So whenever someone used a TLA I would ask them what it stood for.

Some of the time they eventually got bored and stopped using them, but some of the time they didn’t know!

More than once I have been in a meeting where no one knew what a TLA stood for when they had been throwing it about for years!

So call it out.

Reject documents that don’t explain TLA’s and refuse to use them yourself.

Ask people what they mean.

Tell people you hate TLAs

Declare TLA freedom day and fine people for using them, giving the money to your favourite charity.

I know we’re not going to get rid of TLAs altogether, after all, they are useful, but we can at least stop overusing them IMHO!


*TLA = Three-Letter Acronym

2= In My Humble Opinion

3 = It’s Madeira airport. FNC stands for Funchal, in Portugal. Portugal is lovely IMO.

4= Project Initiation Note