PostHog Handbook Library / Brand

913 words. Estimated reading time: 5 min.

# Voice & tone

> Writing for PostHog? Be sure to check out our full writing style guide.

### The core principle

Write the way you'd explain something to a smart friend, not a business associate you're trying to impress or a prospect you're trying to close.

That means:

- Clear and simple. If a simpler word works, use it.
- Specific. Concrete nouns and real examples beat abstract claims every time.
- Direct. State what the thing is. Don't make the reader infer. Don't use filler words.
- Honest. Including about limitations. Developers trust honesty more than polish.
- Conversational. Contractions are fine. Starting a sentence with "But" or "And" is fine.
- No jargon for jargon's sake. Technical precision when it helps. No buzzwords.
- No emojis. Emojis come off as try-hard and cringe. Avoid them, and prioritize using plain English.

If there's an industry-standard phrase, question if it's actually the best way to describe something – or if somebody came up with it once and then everyone else followed suit. Maybe it makes sense to stick with it, but we also have the unique opportunity to coin a new term if the juice is worth the squeeze.

### What to avoid

#### Hedge words and weasel phrases

These make copy feel weak and corporate. Cut them:

| Instead of this | Consider... | | ----------------------- | -------------------------------------------- | | "helps you to" | just say what it does | | "empowers teams to" | say what teams can now do | | "enables you to unlock" | say what they get | | "leverages" | uses | | "utilize" | use | | "streamline" | speed up / simplify | | "robust" | strong, solid, or just describe it | | "best-in-class" | show, don't claim | | "holistic" | comprehensive, or just describe the parts | | "seamless" | describe why it's easy | | "synergy" | C'mon, really... |

#### Passive voice

Active: "PostHog tracks your events." Passive: "Events are tracked by PostHog."

The active version is shorter, clearer, and more confident.

#### Feature-first headlines

"Introducing our new dashboard" says nothing about why anyone should care. Lead with the benefit or the specific capability.

#### Forced humor

A joke that has to be explained isn't funny. Humor in PostHog copy works when it's specific, unexpected, and comes from a genuine perspective. It doesn't work when it's "here's a wacky metaphor to make our SaaS product seem fun."

When in doubt, just be clear. Clear beats clever, and makes the genuine humor stand out.

For how the voice shifts across surfaces (website, product UI, docs, blog, social, support, GitHub), see Brand in practice.

### Dos and don'ts with examples

#### Headlines

| ✅ Do | ❌ Don't | | -------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- | | "Feature flags that don't slow you down" | "Supercharge your feature delivery workflow" | | "See exactly what your users are doing" | "Unlock actionable user insights" | | "Built for engineers who ship fast" | "The all-in-one platform for modern product teams" | | "Ship, measure and iterate – all on one platform." | "Streamline your product development lifecycle" | | "Make your product self-driving" | "PostHog is self-driving software" |

On that last one: PostHog makes _your_ product self-driving. Keep the customer's product as the subject — they get a product that improves itself; PostHog is how. See how we describe PostHog for the full nuance.

#### Body copy

| ✅ Do | ❌ Don't | | ------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------ | | "PostHog stores your data in your own cloud." | "With PostHog, you can leverage our advanced data sovereignty capabilities." | | "There's no separate pricing for each tool. Pay for usage across all of them." | "Our holistic pricing model enables teams to seamlessly utilize all of our integrated products." | | "We wrote this ourselves because existing solutions weren't good enough." | "Drawing on our extensive expertise, we've developed a best-in-class solution." |

#### Error messages

| ✅ Do | ❌ Don't | | ------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------ | | "Can't connect. Check your API key and try again." | "An error has occurred. Please contact support." | | "This experiment needs at least 100 events before we can calculate significance." | "Insufficient data for statistical analysis." |

#### Emails

| ✅ Do | ❌ Don't | | ------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ | | "You've been quiet for a bit. Here's what's new." | "We noticed you haven't engaged with our platform recently and wanted to reach out." |

#### Social Media

<th>✅ Do</th> <th>❌ Don't</th>

<td>"We have a million products and never talk about most of them, so here's a full list"</td> <td>"PostHog has more than two dozen varied products for your needs. They are:"</td>

<td>"Introducing PostHog Desktop, the product editor that:<br/>• Understands your product<br/>• Identifies usage patterns<br/>• Triages bugs and errors for you<br/>• Creates PRs to fix them<br/>• Continuously monitors and improves your product"</td> <td>"PostHog Desktop is the product editor that understands your product, identifies usage patterns, triages bugs and errors for you, creates PRs to fix them, and continuously monitors and improves your product."</td>

<td>"Fable 5's in PostHog Desktop (again)"</td> <td>"We're proud to announce that Fable 5 is now available in PostHog Desktop. Happy coding!"</td>

<td>(reply) "this is incredible"</td> <td>(reply) "Nice work! We love it!" 😁</td>

Canonical URL: https://posthog.com/handbook/brand/tone

GitHub source: contents/handbook/brand/tone.md

Content hash: `d92768b4687e5df9`