Mastering the Art of Switching Voices as a Content Creator

by Syrup | Jun 11, 2019

Imagine a text between you and your mom vs. one between you and a friend making dinner plans. If you’re anything like me, it might go a little something like this:

Mom:

Friend:

The way you text your mom, about 90% of the time, is going to be completely different from the way you text your friends. Two different people. Two different voices. The same goes for working with different clients.

As a content creator, one of the things that I’ve had to learn is how to change the voice you’re writing in when working with multiple clients throughout the day.

So how do you make that switch?

Here are my 4 best tips for switching voices between brands:

1. Take a 5-minute break to regroup between work.

Get up, hydrate (coffee, water, tea, whatever your heart desires), stretch, and give your brain a little bit to regroup. No matter how focused or in the zone you may think you are, going directly from one voice to another might be a recipe for disaster. The last thing you want is for the voices to transfer over between the two clients.

2. Read something completely unrelated to your work.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a BuzzFeed article or your favorite poem, as long as it’s completely unrelated to your day-to-day work and the clients you’re working on. Think of it as recess time for your brain. You can jump into your work refreshed and ready to roll.

3. Or read the last thing you wrote for that client.

Ah yes, the classic, “I’m going to completely contradict what I just said” tip. Sometimes you have to rekindle old flames to get the brain juices flowing. Every client’s voice, regardless of what industry they’re in, will have a certain type of flow to it that sometimes, you just need to get reacquainted with to confidently write that next piece of content.

4. Make a routine.

Routines aren’t for everyone. I get it. But I’m an Enneagram 9w1 and routines are my jam. Before I begin to work on a different client whose voice I know is about to do a 180 from what I was just working on, I do the following:

• Fill up my water bottle (see tip 1)
• Check my email and maybe even my Instagram/Twitter
• Move to a different area of the office to work (this helps me feel refreshed)
• Do a 5-minute task that doesn’t involve writing
• Get to work

This is what works for me, but you have to take some time to figure out what’s going to work best for you. Everybody’s writing style is different and unique. That’s what makes content creators, content creators.