• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • The Famous Blog
    • Blogging
    • Social Media
    • SEO
    • Marketing
    • Design

Famous Bloggers

How To Blog and Start a Business

  • Contribute
    • Submit News
  • Login

Home » The Famous Blog » 11 Awesome Tips for ‘Business Casual’ Writing

11 Awesome Tips for ‘Business Casual’ Writing

October 27, 2011 - Last Modified: October 27, 2011 by Melody McKinnon 1,828

Business Casual Writing

I love how social marketing is allowing us to get to know businesses on a different level, but I think many business writers struggle with that happy medium between being professional and being approachable.  While a relaxed, casual style is often encouraged in today’s social online environment, ‘relaxed’ has somehow been interpreted as ‘anything goes’  by many online writers/marketers. We don’t have to be aloof and impersonal online, we just have to temper how we represent ourselves and our company.  This is especially important for business to business (B2B) or business to professional (B2P) companies.

I am not ‘one of those’.  I don’t feel the need to correct grammar or spelling in other people’s posts, or lecture a business blogger because they couldn’t help mentioning their new granddaughter.  Part of the appeal of writing and reading online is we’re allowed to be human, and I’m certainly not a perfect one either.  However, when I have to stop reading an article because it is so riddled with errors, acronyms, texting abbreviations, excess search terms, melodrama or other such nonsense, you’ve lost me and I won’t be back.

When aiming for a casual writing style for business, imagine an invitation that indicates an occasion is ‘business casual’.  You know you won’t be attending a stiff, formal affair, but you won’t put on your old jeans and a stained t-shirt proclaiming you to be the barbecue king either. This will be a professional, yet relaxed environment and you’ll be expected to look and act accordingly.  At a business casual event, we can still be friendly and even a little personal.  We do, however, conduct ourselves professionally at all times.

11 Tips for Bringing Your Business Casual Persona Online

1. Brush up on punctuation and grammar but don’t stop at the old standby, The Associated Press Style Guide.  Online writing has developed its own acceptable style that differs from print standards. To illustrate this point, The Yahoo Style Guide has published a chart comparing the two styles.

2. Avoid texting habits like using a letter to represent a word, such as U=you.  This is comparable to approaching the President with “Yo, Prez!”

3. Acronyms work in texting, chat, etc., but not everyone is familiar with them and they look sloppy.

4. Expanding your vocabulary speaks of intelligence, but don’t overuse your thesaurus and avoid industry jargon when writing for a general audience.

5. Don’t get too personal or mundane in your posts. You wouldn’t ramble on to attendees of a business event about the coffee you just had and expect to keep them engaged. If you have nothing good to post, it’s better to not post at all.

6. Humor is OK, but be careful with it.  When in doubt, make a list of people you know with a wide range of tolerance levels and ask yourself if they’d be amused.

7. Imagine saying your product name in every sentence at a business gathering.  You certainly won’t fool or impress anyone. There’s a fine line between search engine optimization and an unreadable article.  Use your search terms creatively and spread them around rather than repeating the same phrase.  Ask someone to read it for you to determine if it’s awkward. There’s little point in gaining search traffic if you’re bringing visitors to annoying, amateur copy.

8. Would you recite your radio commercial at a business event? Keep your marketing subtle. Providing quality information suggests expertise, and engagement is lucrative in its own right.  You’re not writing sales copy in the traditional sense, you’re using a marketing method.

9. Know and serve your audience.  Personal websites, blogs, etc. are for publishing whatever you want to publish.  Business online publishing is all about getting to know the reader and giving them what they want.  The great thing about online publishing is if you don’t know what your readers want, you can just ask them.  Your posts may include industry or company news, education, information, resources, or special offers, as long as it’s useful to your readership.

10. Respond to negative feedback in a calm, professional manner and politely respond to as many comments as possible.

11. Read it or weep.  Check your writing by reading it from a visitor’s perspective and never post anything without checking it first. If you maintain personal and business social accounts, make sure you’re logged into your personal account before making a personal post. Even some of the most professional social marketers have made this mistake.

Professionalism encourages trust and confidence in your level of expertise.  Whether you sell products, services or yourself, maintaining a business-casual frame of mind will produce consistent content and results.  Go ahead, take off your tie, but save the barbecue shirt for weekends at the cottage.

ShareTweet

Filed Under: How To Blog, Marketing

About Melody McKinnon

Follow @naturalpetscare

Melody McKinnon holds 52 certifications revolving around business administration, marketing, design, writing, nutrition, biochemistry and general sciences. A confessed workaholic, Melody currently owns AllNaturalPetCare.com, blogs for PetfoodIndustry.com, and is a Community Manager for the American Livebearer Assoc.

Reader Interactions

Related Posts

  • Blogging Limiting Beliefs about Money5 Blogging Limiting Beliefs about Money that You Need to Release
  • What’s Up Bloggers! Roundup #8 with Don Sturgill
  • SEO Trends InfographicSEO is Evolving: Trend You Need to Know About [Infographic]
  • What is Keeping Your Blog from Making Money?What is Keeping Your Blog from Making Money?

{ 29 Responses }

  1. Yahya Ayyash says:
    waw wonderful tips. Maybe it will teach me how to be a awesome business casual writing. Nice post, and nice blog too. Like it very much
  2. Ricardus says:
    Great tips especially point no. 9. Know your audience and serve them well is the key
  3. klaus says:
    thanks for sharing this. very useful for me. im from denmark and are new in this bussines. i learn a lot from this blog. i will follow this blog in the future so im looking forward to more great post.
  4. Steve says:
    These are some great tips. It is fine to be a little bit informal in writing, it makes it seem more "personable". But the rules you stated here are some great ones. It is one thing to be casual, but another completely to be unreadable. Standards may be looser, but standards exist. I think you made a great list of what those more casual standards should be.
  5. Grigore says:
    Hi Melody I like this article, great info. Can i post this article to my blog and i will use all links related to post? Thanks
  6. Chris says:
    Now that we are in a more technological advanced era, even our way of communicating with others are affected. Like the result of the study here, it's proven that lots of people nowadays tend to forget the right spelling of a word because of the acronyms used in texting. So despite of this changes, we must be aware how to separate personal life to our business writing.
  7. Hesham says:
    Thank you so much Melody for the nice article, I agree with you all what you've came up with, especially the point of keep things simple when writing for general audience, this is what I am trying to achieve here on the blog to make it understandable for everyone who come across! I appreciate it, and I hope to see more from you in the future.
  8. yahya ayyash says:
    nice post. i will try that tips. thanks before
  9. Melody McKinnon says:
    I appreciate the feedback everyone, thank you.
  10. Madhav Tripathi says:
    Very good tips, surely it will improve casual writing. Acronyms are not good with the person if he is not our friend.
  11. Jeanie says:
    I even can't single out the most important tips among those ones you gave above. They all are very useful, and maybe seem to be quite obvious, but they are not always followed by many people. As for me, then I don't want to have a casual site or blog, so I don't need to follow all the tipa you offer, but there are people who tend to have such websites, but don't have any notion about these tips. I have already visited such websites,,,,
  12. Asiru Nasir says:
    Good points and beautifully arranged.... Thanks for the write-up...
  13. Kavya Hari says:
    Thanks a lot for given up 11 awesome tips for business casual writing tips on here. Have to write unique article on here
  14. tushar says:
    Being straightforward and writing what you feel without any manipulations is the biggest reasons for success for me. If you are manipulating things, after one point of time, you will certainly regret it
  15. Raj says:
    I think businesses should be bold enough to allow its bloggers to use words like U, Lyk, Txt and other such shorteners. And maybe even allow their president to be addressed as 'Yo Prez' in their Blog. Its because of excessive formality that business blogs are so boring to read. Imagine all your friends to like and promote a TV commercial in FB? That's exactly what business blogs are trying to do with Blogs. They might as well stick to Newspapers / Magazines for their advertisements.
    • Melody McKinnon says:
      I don't think spelling a word out will increase the boredom factor...LOL. If it works for the type of readers you're writing for, then keep doing it. As the article mentioned, it's especially important for B2B and B2P writing, the majority of which expect and want professionalism. As a reader, I wouldn't read a blog that uses U, Lyk, txt, etc. Most people over 40 wouldn't either - it's hard to read when you're not accustomed to it. No method applies to every situation though. Thanks for the comment!
      • Liz says:
        I agree Melody. No matter how justified someone feels wanting to "keep it real", there is a line drawn when it comes to first impressions - which for businesses is ultra important. Just as actions speak louder than words so do our looks and appearances - and in this case that is done through the look and feel of our writing styles. If this were not the case, businesses wouldn't be devoting huge resources into Marketing.
        • Melody McKinnon says:
          Exactly. That's why B2B sales people maintain an impeccable appearance. They can still laugh and show some personality at a business event or meeting. They're just constantly aware that they are representing not only their own company, but also what the company they're selling to wants to be. It reminds me of spammers who try to sell marketing services. I'm going to want someone who uses those tactics to represent my company? I don't think so.
  16. Ryan Biddulph says:
    #11 helps a great deal Melody. Reading your post out loud brings up many errors you probably wouldn't detect otherwise. Thanks for sharing! RB
    • Melody McKinnon says:
      Thanks Ryan! It's a constant state of awareness that takes practice. It doesn't mean we have to be perfect (thank goodness!), but it's something to strive for.
  17. sudha says:
    thank you for giving nice tips
  18. sudha says:
    thank you for giving nice tips for business casuals
  19. Shamelle says:
    Melody, To add to your list, I think it's also important to know what not to say. Just like any dinner party, don’t stray down the streets labeled politics and religion. By doing so you will run the very significant risk of alienating your audience and prospective clients.
    • Melody McKinnon says:
      Good point, Shamelle! Some controversy can get the conversation going, but it can be a dangerous road to go down.
  20. Andrea Robinson says:
    Great professional advise especially for someone new to blogging. I wrestle with finding balance between showing personality, authentic voice, and good content while not being a snore fest. Thanks for the article I am sure I will get better with practice.
    • Melody McKinnon says:
      I think we all struggle with it sometimes, especially when the audience is a hodgepodge of personalities. :-)
  21. Maria says:
    Smart attention grabbing regards of informative post. I actually simply came across any blog site and additionally wished to make sure you express which usually I’ve extremely appreciated examining any weblog and additionally threads.
  22. Melody McKinnon says:
    Thanks James :-)
  23. James says:
    Hey Melody, Great Post. thanks for sharing. I love #9 Serve your readers. Too many people assume that their readers are around to serve them, and act as if they are entitled to sales just because they did some work.

Primary Sidebar

Our Newsletter

Our Newsletter

Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our blog.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Popular Articles

  1. Top 10 Sites Where You Can Get Paid to Write 115,627 views
  2. How to Get Targeted Twitter Followers Fast 92,033 views
  3. How to Set Half Rating Scale 1-5 (Poor to Excellent) by Words 85,051 views
  4. 66 Awesome Social Media Quotes 78,364 views
  5. 50 Traffic Sources You Should Milk Like Crazy 75,072 views
Schema Structured Data for wordPress
  • Blog
  • Contribute
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Disclosure Policy

Copyright ©2020 · FamousBloggers - All Rights Are Reserved · Powered by Genesis Framework

  • Login
Forgot Password?
Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.
Go to mobile version