Do you use I or we, when writing articles?

[Olov]

Good evening people,

What do you think is the best and when - I or we?

I just realized that all of my websites are using we, I never write as "me". Some websites have no author in the articles, some websites have psedonyms signing each article.

The websites where I am showing the author name, I was thinking perhaps I should start writing "me" and become more personal. Catch the reader with personal stories and so on. I might be missing out by being too strict and informative, rather than sharing experiences and entertaining stories.

All my sites are trying to look like an authoritive magazine-type/informational portal site. No blogs. My articles and websites are everywhere between training, child care, finance and leadership.

What do you guys think and how to you do with your articles?

 

[bernard]

Info content - we/you
Blog content - I
I do use I in articles, but only if I feel like it really makes sense, like if I would explain why I am an expert on this particular topic.

 

[Poplanu]

Which one's better depends on the type of content you're putting out and the niche.

It has to do with generating trust in the reader.

• Writing as "we" implies that you have a professional team doing the testing behind the scenes. That's what most bigger publications stick to. It's less personal and more professional.
• Writing as "I" is more personal, but as Bernard said, the author should come off as an expert on the topic, and give the reader a reason why he should be trusted. This will probably perform better than "we" in some niches.

For general product reviews, "We spent 23 hours testing the 5 best washing machines..." sounds more authoritative and trustworthy than "I spent 23 hours testing the 5 best washing machines...".

Unless the lone tester is a washing machine expert running his own washing machine blog.

I'm sure that bigger sites have tested both approaches for conversions and decided on the winner.

 

[Boy]

I'm starting to put more of a story at the beginning of my review type content so I start with "I" then move into either "I" or "we" depending on how realistic it would be for 1 person vs a team to review. If it's a sub $40 product or physically smaller, I'll usually use "I" but there's really no standard I follow.

One I would use I for: "After looking at microphones for my new podcast, I realized there are so many options out there, from condenser mics to dynamic mics. Fortunately, I'm friends with a few musicians so I was able to get my hands on a few different models to see which one sounded the best. Blah blah blah, I got my hands on 7 different models to test the audio quality."

We: "The other day at the [website] office we were having a heated debate over which vacuum cleaners was best for cleaning up sand. No, not really, but someone was shopping for one since she lives closer to the beach and brought it up. Blah blah blah, we decided to put them to the test."

 

[Poplanu]

@Boy it's nice, I like your story approach. Pulls the reader right into it. Do you have a set of templates, or do you just shoot these off from your head?

 

[Boy]

The stories I go off the cuff or in some cases use real examples from my own life. I still don't think they're good by any means, but just a simple

• here's a problem I/we had
• did some research
• here's what we found, presented in this article

For the actual review portion, I do have a pretty good template that has a few common buyer-intent H2s I can just plug the product in. Does [product] do [advantage]? How to pick a [product]? Best [product] under [$]. Things like that. Before I even start writing I have ~100 words already.