Ask IH: Do you use "we" or "I" on your landing page

I'd focus on writing more about "you" - the customer and their problem. As a general rule, I don't feel like it serves anyone to sound bigger than they are. I totally understand the temptation, though!

We - all the time, unless I am writing back to someone directly via email.

While it is great to be Solo on a project, I don't think many other businesses like the idea of buying from a one-person shop (risk).

Now, the edge case here will be if you are an expert in an area, have a large social following, etc. In this case, I may be better since people will know it is 'you' behind the service.

"We", though don't use either on the landing page, you want to talk about the user and their problem/pain before you get to your product.

But in blog posts you can use "I" when you want to connect a little more. When you add a "Team" page think whether there's any friends or family that are actually like an advisor or product tester and should be added to the page. Plus the dog. Or the cat (even better!)

Should I use "we" for trying to let the product look bigger (and more professional) than it is?

Short answer: no.

Long answer: I think presenting yourself as a company vs presenting yourself as a person are just two different marketing approaches. There are solo makers who present themselves under made up company names (e.g. most of indie game devs), and on the opposite we have e.g. YouTube stars (PewDiePie, Casey Neistat etc) who sign their content under their personal names while having whole production teams behind. Both approaches work, so you just pick one that best suits your PR strategy.

• People seeing a product offered by an individual will feel closer relation to you as a human with a story behind and the personal pain you were solving. Your users will feel more compassion for you, and generally be more patient and forgiving. You’ll need to heavily invest into building a community, being personally available, and offer a mom-and-pop shop level of care. This is time-consuming, but in the end this may pay out really well and reduce your need to pour money into marketing.

• People seeing a product offered by a company won’t feel that much compassion. They’ll look at your product as a result of focus group studies, synthetic mind-storming etc, where the primary goal was never about solving a problem, but making more profits for the corporate. They will also be more demanding of you, and wrathful for your every little misstep. It will be much harder to build a community since people won’t be excited so much, and there you risk losing the free word-of-mouth channel of acquiring new users.

This said, I think the best strategy is truth. That’s the one upon which you can actually execute.

As for strictly "I" vs "we" — try to use neither and phrase around that when possible.

"I" never goes well...Anywhere

I don't think I've ever seen a website using "I".

Think I (we? :-P) agree with the other posters - I like to focus on "You" and then use "We" as a fallback.

But it feels really weird to me as well, so I jump through hoops to remove it altogether - "The aim of Brisa is to provide the best tool to ..." I don't think I'm pulling it off well, and feel like it makes it more wordy.

When writing as an organization, even a solo one, I usually use "we". I definitely feels weird to type though!

When the visitor knows it's just one person in charge of the site, I'll use "I" as if I'm having a personal conversation with them.

"We" sounds better to me on a landing page. But I'm not hiding behind my products and I usually add the "Made by <me>" section, at least in the footer.

We always sounds better to me and I expect it even when I know its a solo business. That said I don't try to hide being solo on projects where I am but I think the place to show that is on the about us page not the lander.

This comment was deleted 7 years ago