So you want to sound like Slack?: The adventure of nailing an authentic tone

I’m a freelance copywriter, which means I get to craft online content for brands both big and tiny.

I’ve noticed that, of late, a lot of companies have been captivated by the standout tech darling and brand crush de jour Slack. For great reason. Slack has shown what fundamentally authentic, well-crafted copy can do for a startup’s prospects.

As a Californian expat (living in Sweden), I’ll admit writing in this super friendly and accessible tone comes easily.

It’s exciting to get briefs that are accompanied by statements like:

• “We want to this campaign to leave people talking.”
• “We want to establish ourselves as leaders in the XYZ marketplace.”
• “We want to be the Slack of _______.”

To fulfill such an assignment you need to be clever and bold and very human, from all angles. Cue exciting happy fun times for copywriters such as myself. We’re generating punchy headlines and earnest taglines, spirited About pages, meta tags with a bit of cheek, and so on and so forth. All clipped and trimmed and attractive to the eye.

And then the feedback rolls in.

• “It’s really great, but a little informal. We might want to sound more professional.”
• “The headline is fun but it doesn’t allude to these other three product features. Could you have a second look?”
• “People over 40 might not know what this means.”
• “This part was really creative, but…”

After multiple rounds of feedback, the copy can get watered down.

There are typically a few things happening here:

1. You are proud of your product and you want to talk about everything that it does in more detail.
2. You want to sell your product not just to your target audience but to everyone. That’s so many more people!
3. After seeing adventurous copy, you want to play it safer. You don’t want to offend anyone.

When it comes to the underlying marketing strategy, I’ll let this brilliant, brilliant pieceby Slack’s founder, Stewart Butterfield, do the talking about selling your innovation rather than your product.

And where the tone voice in your copy is concerned, here are some questions to help illuminate what kind of tone you’re ready for.

How do you talk to each other in your company?

If you are signing off emails to your colleagues “Best, ______” then you might not be ready for an informal tone. If you are signing off “Best fishes, ______,” then we’re talking.

Even if your communication comes off as pretty standard, there are always subtle edges in your company culture that can be teased out upon closer inspection. Perhaps it’s a subtle self-deprecating humor. Or you all like to keep things short, to the point, and extra business-y. Or maybe your collective nerdiness comes spilling out in the breakroom.

The way you talk to each other should be the way you talk to your customers. To a reasonable extent, of course.

How does your founder talk to everyone?

Welcome to the real headwaters of corporate culture. Take Virgin Air’s homepage. You can hear Branson’s fun-loving voice all up in there. And Slack? Stewart is a sweetheart from Canada.

My advice here:

Rather than trying to come up with what your company’s tone should be, just take a look at what it already is. Set your sights on maximum authenticity and continue in that direction for ever and ever.

Are you brave enough to keep it real?

It takes real courage for a company to communicate with honesty and authenticity. Turning your company’s culture inside out for the world to see requires vulnerability.

In the universal effort to get our moms to quit worrying about us, erring on the side of “professional” and “serious” always seems like a better way to err. Hiding your mistakes and proclaiming only your accomplishments also seems prudent.

But when you do this with your company — when you surround yourself with a mote of professionalism — you distance yourself from the people you’re trying to reach. If it’s love and loyalty you want from your customers, you’re going to have to offer up vulnerability, transparency and general realness that’s required for love in real life.

Do you want to be successful?

This question isn’t meant to hype you up Tony Robbins-style, or to be patronizing. It’s an actual question. Say this bold and edgy new website or marketing campaign does what it intends to do and people come flooding in to view/purchase/download your product. And to talk about it on the Internet. To rave about it. To tear it apart.

This comes with the territory of being noticed in a big way. No company is “ready” for all of the mess that arises after launching. But you deal with each thing as it comes. You fix the bugs. You deal with the legal issues. Be honest about how much success you feel ready for. Fear of success is a real thing, and it will surface as all the drafts get closer to their final versions.

You might think that these are leading questions…

And it’s true. I do, in all honesty, have a nicer time writing and reading web copy that is infused with a bold amount of humanity. Not only does it come much more naturally for me personally, I’m convinced it’s ultimately a more effective way to get attention and onboard new customers.

But if that’s not your style, then it’s not your style and that’s totally alright. Authenticity is the key here.

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Chelsea Milojkovic is a digital copywriter based in Gothenburg, Sweden who loves expanding the horizons of Scandinavian companies and generally finds third-person bios creepy. She told me to tell you to get in touch if you agree.