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Finding your voice
Keeping up with the times
Written and spoken business communications are generally
becoming more informal, although writing has lagged behind.
Yet completely different writing styles can rapidly evolve
- as seen in text messaging and email, as well as the web.
Until recently it was common practice not to adapt printed
material for web readers. Only when communicators learnt to
tailor their messages for onscreen reading did the quality
of web writing begin to improve. But even today few sites
demonstrate best practice.
Web writing techniques are arguably the most refined of all
writing skills. Once learnt, most communicators choose to
apply many of them to print and other written communication
media.
In developing a more personal web writing style, it can help
to bear in mind some basic psychology. Because working on
a computer can be a solitary mechanical experience, web users
welcome a sense of contact with other human beings.
While photos of people can provide a human face onscreen,
the words act as the voice. But to appear human, the voice
needs to be natural. Try reading aloud text in corporate speak
to see how very unnatural it sounds.
The web demands a much warmer, friendlier style, in less formal
language.
PR and marketing styles usually need to be adapted too. Often
they can appear glib and over the top, or in the realms of
'happy happy land'. Web readers have little time for this
illusion, nor for hype or ambiguity.
With so many sites in competition, showing that you are credible
and trustworthy is paramount.
What web writing ideally needs to emulate is a straightforward,
genuine 'conversation' between one
human being and another.
At the same time, as Nick Usborne points out in Net Words,
readers should be able to contribute, ask questions and make
comments. Websites have to listen as well as to talk.
Next: What is 'relationship
writing'?
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