How to decide. Many forms of communication have a built-in recipient. For example, an email is going to a specific person or group for a specific reason. In those instances, you can pour all of your focus into your tone, pace, and message. But social media posts, blogs, or articles might be a little bit vague or open-ended as to who you want to find them. In that case, you need to decide who you want to talk to with each specific piece. Maybe you are writing to connect with your peers or maybe instead, you want to reach your clients. Those audiences are very different and thus, your writing (even if the message is similar) needs to be focused in different ways. Your boundaries are in different places, for starters. If you’re writing to your peers, they are already on the inside of what you do, they are behind the curtain with you so to speak. But if you’re writing for marketing, your future clients might not regularly use the abbreviations or language specific to your job. For that audience, you need to shift to more industry specific language, instead of department specific. Even within speaking to your clients, it’s best to know which clients you want to reach at different times or through different publications. Knowing who you are talking to can also help you tighten up your message so you don’t overwhelm your audience or try and relay too much information at one time. 

You aren’t pizza. I read that comment the other day in reference to how we will rarely make everyone happy at the same time. (Although at our house, even pizza has to try hard. Why can’t everyone just get on board with mushrooms?) That’s why we need to pick our audience. Posts that are too ambitious, that overreach or try to talk to everyone, can fall flat and reach no one. Instead, it’s best to think about one person, or one type of person you want to reach with each publication. Maybe you want to use social media this week to market yourself to future clients. That is a different message than writing to reaffirm a current client. Or maybe you want to focus on a specific set of skills or services you offer instead. Even when writing out a marketing email, think of a single person you hope reads your words and then speak directly to them, like they were sitting across the table from you. Narrowing your focus and concentrating on a specific person or two will help your message be more authentic and clear. 

We are maybe more familiar with the idea that we need a reason to connect with someone, the “what I’m trying to tell you” point of the story. But we also need to figure out to whom we are speaking in order to keep our communications, blog posts, social media, etc. not only on-brand but authentic and relevant as well. 

When I sit down to write my blog posts, I think about saying all of this to one particular friend, as a way to explain to her exactly what I’ve been doing lately. This helps me stay grounded in the practical applications of my work and avoid language specific to a single industry — especially as I have clients that span a spectrum of business types.

I do like to slide in something for just for Chuck, to keep him honest when he says “of course I read your blog.” But that’s not necessary for everyone. Don’t worry, I’ll test him on it later.