“We need this to be a bit more formal, we’re talking to business leaders here so we need to position ourselves as the expert.”
Meanwhile, business leaders and experts I know:
- laughing at and making memes and jokes online
- posting in all lowercase
- *sent from my iPhone*
- watching Bluey with their kids at breakfast
Formality and “signaled” expertise absolutely have their place. In the same way that design, color theory, and other visual clues can instantly and often subconsciously signal loads of things about a brand, tone, sentence construction, and language does too. In other words:
plz dont write ur blgs like this
But overdone formality (you know what I’m talking about) doesn’t actually make you look like an expert, it just makes your writing stuffy, boring, and hard to read. (Sorry.) It feels like how kinda-rich people buy a ton of fancy stuff so they can signal that they’re wealthy, but ultra-wealthy people just wear nice black t-shirts every day.
If you’re an expert — or you’re interviewing one or writing for one — don’t spend so much time trying to signal that you are one through your tone and diction. Just say what you have to say, and let your expertise speak for you.
Rachel on the Web 
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