Tone

If our voice is our per­son­al­i­ty, our tone is our mood. It changes depend­ing on what we’re say­ing and who we’re say­ing it to. 

Think of our traits (human, ener­gized, guid­ing and empow­er­ing) as ingre­di­ents you can use to craft any piece of writ­ing. Sometimes you might need more of one and less of another.

When we’re mak­ing a first impres­sion (take paid ads as an exam­ple), ener­getic and empow­er­ing mes­sages will res­onate most. When our audi­ence is con­sid­er­ing our prod­uct (maybe by vis­it­ing our site or read­ing user tes­ti­mo­ni­als), we need to focus on prov­ing our thought lead­er­ship and trust­wor­thi­ness. Messaging around prod­uct announce­ments or big com­pa­ny news will always need more ener­gy than ​“busi­ness” stuff (like account changes), where our pri­or­i­ty will be inform­ing the user in an approach­able way.