Stop sounding like an ad.

Ryanair is not a comfortable airline. The seats don’t recline and there’s a fee for nearly everything. Its TikTok account doesn’t hide any of that. It makes fun of it. When someone complains about their seat, the account roasts them right back, and millions of people watch.

Steak-umm sells frozen sliced steak. Its Twitter account stopped posting recipes and started writing plain paragraphs about misinformation, burnout and late-night doomscrolling. Reporters wrote whole pieces trying to explain it. Thousands of people replied to say thank you.

What they have in common

Neither account talks like a company. No “we’re thrilled to announce”, no stock smiles, no product shot over piano music. They sound like one specific person with opinions, which is how people talk to each other online. So the posts get treated like posts from a person: read, answered, shared.

Honesty is the cheap part

Ryanair can joke about its seats because everyone already knows. Most businesses have their own version: the waiting list, the price, the thing you won’t do. Owning it out loud is more believable than any claim about quality.

A simple check

Read your last five posts aloud. Would you say any of them, in those words, to a customer standing in front of you? If not, rewrite one the way you’d actually say it, and post that instead.

These are other brands’ accounts, not our work.

Be the obvious choice, not another copy.