Are You Speaking the English of Your Target Audience as a Blogger?

I am not asking how good or not your English is

4 min readJul 25, 2022

Beautiful woman posing for camera — sergeycauselove

Medium has around 244K writers last time I checked.

That means writers not only from the US but all over the world.

I guess it is because I have lived in several countries spanning 3 continents and am fluent in a number of languages, including English, that I am easily able to catch on to the little nuances that tell me a lot about the writer and their English.

Here are examples off the top of my head:

1️⃣The writer with a very formal writing style that is obviously the product of education with strong British influences ( I would know, I went to school in a former British colony as well)

2️⃣The writer who was thoroughly weaned on a diet of Enid Blyton as a child (I don’t think that is very relatable anymore unless your target audience is familiar with the Famous Five, like myself)

3️⃣The Gen Z writer whose posts are a weird mix of neologisms and an English dialect that may be popular in their country but which someone from, say from the US, will have a hard time understanding.

Mind you, I am not the grammar police. Heck, I’m not a native English speaker myself but what I’d like to point out is that many try so hard to write perfect English or in such a “serious as a heart attack voice” or with nary a care for grammar & punctuation that they fail to consider one important point — and that is the English of their target audience.

So I ask you, as a blogger do you know the English of your target audience?

What I’ve learned is social media blogging is not just writing something, hitting publish, and expecting the views to roll in.

You also need to know your audience. (I think I would know a thing or two about it considering I have 21 viral posts (10K + views)on NewsBreak as a newbie.)

From paying close attention to the comments section on my Medium posts, what I’ve discovered is that most of my readers range between their early 20s and 50s. They are also from all over — not just the US.

The writer in me is truly flattered and grateful, however, the question remains — how do I continue to create content to keep my readers coming back for more?

Here are some tips I found useful from a digital marketing agency, Theluvo:

✅There are certain groups in my target audience for whom visuals (vids, images, diagrams) and a modern way of communication (slang, acronyms, emoticons) have a lot of appeal — no surprise there since I personally use them in everyday communication.

I have found incorporating visuals along with my informal, conversational style of writing seems to connect with readers more.

✅Having said that, I am also mindful of the importance of writing well-structured and impactful articles as Theluvo elaborates: “Full sentences, punctuation, and eloquence do not seem to be forgotten, so if you want to target more mature audience, remember all those papers you had written in school and write as if you would for your teacher. Just remember that this time, you can actually be funny to get them to like you!”

✅Don’t be afraid to share emotions: Do you remember me talking about some writers being too serious? I am referring to the “you shoulds,” “you have to do these 10 things right away or else you will end up being a dummkoff” style articles.

I mean, honestly, how long would you tolerate in said person’s company if they were a friend?

You get my drift…

Henley Wing of content marketing platform, BuzzSumo analyzed the top 10% of articles that get shared online and the results (displayed as a chart) were pretty interesting — as they talk about what emotions most appeal to the reader and in turn push them to share the article on social media.