Bitesize Branding
Writing about your own brand is bloody difficult. Try this exercise to make it a *tiny* bit easier.

This is part of my bitesize branding posts, a series of super-short exercises designed to help you get a grip on your brand’s voice.

There’s no two ways about it: writing about your own brand or products is hard. ⁣⁣
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When you’re too close to something, you start to really sweat the small stuff. Is this word too harsh? Is this word too try-hard? Is this all just a bit shit? ⁣⁣
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(That, or you sit at the blinking cursor, scratching your head.)⁣⁣
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The thing is, customers don’t really care about that stuff.

They don’t pore over each individual word or whether you started a sentence with and. They respond more to the tone and feel of what you’re saying.⁣⁣
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So, here’s a handy tip that’ll help you get out of your own head and writing something that makes more of a connection with your customers and sounds more authentic too.⁣⁣
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Picture this:⁣⁣
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It’s Friday afternoon. It’s been a hot day, but it’s cooling off. Your phone buzzes. It’s an old friend who’s been in town for a meeting and wonders if you want to grab a drink and a bite to eat this evening. (Of course you do.)⁣⁣
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You meet up, find a nice pub garden and order some food and a few beers each. After an hour of reminiscing and moaning about your old boss, they ask: ‘So, what are you working on right now?’⁣⁣
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How would you tell them about your business or your new product?⁣⁣
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Odds are you wouldn’t say something like: ‘The Team at XYZ have been blue sky thinking and now we’re focused on developing a results-driven solution…’⁣⁣
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(Side note: if you are a person that talks like that in real life, please don’t invite me for a beer.)⁣⁣
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Instead, you’d probably say something like: ‘Oh, we got fed up with [something] so worked out a way to fix it’, OR ‘we’ve just brewed this dope new IPA that’s hoppy as hell’ or ‘we’ve built this killer product…’⁣⁣
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Roll with that conversational tone. Record it or write it down as you go.⁣
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Once you’re done, all you’ll have to do is tweak it slightly and tighten it up (don’t edit it heavily, though!) and I guarantee you’ve got something that sounds natural, engaging and full of personality — all the things good copy should be. ⁣⁣
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(That, or you could just drink two pints and then write. That works just as well, I’ve found.)⁣

For more pointers on making your writing a little less dry and little more loosey-goosey, check out my article on 10 ways to nail conversational copy!