In the world of brand rhetoric, your voice counts for everything. Without a consistent tone, audiences won’t become familiar with your brand, and might not be as loyal throughout the duration of your relationship.
Once you become familiar with your target audience, you’ll be able to create or adjust your tone to accurately reflect their desires. Formality is a spectrum, and deciding where your voice should fall is the first step in shaping a proper tone with brand rhetoric. Below, we discuss the elements of formality and informality, and the pros and cons of each.
Informal Indicators
Informal language includes conversational language, colloquialisms, asides, and other “iffy” areas of the English language. Parenthetical asides, slang terms, and incomplete sentences are forgivable here. You can do things like starting sentences with conjunctions, using exclamation points and emoticons, and speaking casually to your audience.
Pros and Cons
· Informality makes you seem more human and makes you more approachable
· Informal language is more fun and more natural to write
· Informality could also be a sign of immaturity, depending on the context
· It is easy to lose consistency in your voice
Formal Indicators
Formal language is much more precise. Most formal voices follow exact standards in terms of spelling, grammar, and syntax, and display a high level vocabulary. There are minimal conversational elements, and a great focus on clarity, thoroughness, and professionalism.
Pros and Cons
· Formal language seems very professional and articulate
· Increased formality naturally lends itself to a greater consistency
· Formal language sometimes requires more time and effort to write
· Audiences can sometimes be bored or “put off” by overly formal language
There really is no right or wrong tone in terms of formality, but you do need to be consistent with your choice. Decide what your customers value most in a voice, and incorporate that across every medium in your communications strategy.
