Snarky Doesn’t Sell

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the push for mass adoption of business blogging, and how the generally snarky tone that pervades the blogosphere would work out in conjunction. I started to write an article explaining why snarky will kill sales materials, and how it may not even be a good idea for a conversational business blogging voice (even if you’re naturally sarcastic and cynical).
I then started to think about what really bothered me about the whole snark thing. And it boils down to this: some people are trying to be “blog snarky” when it’s not really who they are offline.
They’re not naturally sarcastic and cynical, they’re just pretending to be. So they end up saying things online they would never say to a person’s face, thereby dragging down the level of discourse just a bit more.
And then I remembered something four guys said seven years ago about conversations being natural, open, and honest. And some other stuff about unmistakably genuine voices.
And this is what I ended up with:
The Stop Snark Manifesto
Looking forward to some civil conversation.
UPDATE: I thought this was clear, but maybe not. This has nothing to do with your journal or entertainment blogging style. If you are snarky in real life and therefore want to be snarky online for fun, great. This is about whether snarkiness makes for good business communication, and a comment on those that are striking a snarky pose in the arena of business blogging.
UPDATE 2: Offline, I have been, for the majority of my life, a sarcastic terror. I wrote the SSM primarily as a reminder to myself. For those of you watching my every word for a hint of snarkiness… I WILL fall off the wagon.