(I was chatting with Adam Rosenfield the other day and decided to fire up the wayback machine. We touched on this a bit last May - video here - 1:18 watch. I figured you’re all getting sick of the Nate and James clips anyway.)
One of the many hills I’ll die on: corporate brand, employer brand, personal brand. They should all sound kinda the same. But rarely do.
No matter how you slice it, audiences don’t buy into corporate-speak. Why do so many careers pages, corporate social posts and job ads sound like they’re written by robots?
2 reasons:
1. The collective decides the message needs to come from “all of us.” A message and tone that covers all the bases for the entire org.
Of course it's going to suck when it sounds like it’s coming from a hive-mind.
2. The message is being written *to* everyone. An all-inclusive for anyone who could be reading it.
Speeches to large audiences sound canned. 1:1 convos don’t.
Broad perspective + broad target = HAL 9000.
Here’s what I propose. Write your corporate message in your own voice. And imagine a single, specific reader when you do it.
Just try to tell that 1 person something compelling.
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