It can be a strange thing for people to get their heads around: the idea that a brand can have a “personality” independent of its creators. But it’s true. Brands are not dead or inanimate things. Brands are bursting with life. Your brand’s voice is its own unique clarion call that radiates through every social media platform and every interaction. A brand takes on an almost human quality, having attributes you would normally find in people you admire and pay attention to.
Since attention is the lifeblood of any brand, let’s get into how to create a social media brand voice that will give you the best chance to be a market leader.
What Is a Brand Voice and Why Is It Important?
The Difference Between Brand Voice and Brand Tone
Brand voice and brand tone may seem identical at first glance. But there is an important distinction. The tone is always secondary to the voice since it is the voice that modulates or changes the tone. The tone can change, but the voice cannot.
For example, an energy drink company publishes a string of light and funny social media posts about the playful rivalry between strawberry-flavour fans and vanilla-flavour fans.
The same company also publishes blogs about the cultural impact of its drink across a variety of regions or countries. Its analytical approach adopts a more sober and formal tone.
The former example seeks to entertain while the latter seeks to inform. Though the tone of each contrasts sharply with the other, they both serve the same master. The energy drink itself.
The voice unifies them both. As long as the contrasting tones remain within the radius of the brand’s personality, the tone can broaden the appeal of the drink without “breaking character”.
Creating a social media brand voice involves staying faithful and consistent. This ensures brand voice is recognised by the public despite the variety of tonal shifts it makes.
Overly dramatic or unlikely shifts in tone will not ring true with a public already familiar with your brand voice. Anything wildly out of character will sow confusion, even betrayal among the faithful. It can muddy an otherwise clear and solid brand persona, so brand owners must be careful.
Brands are like people, after all. And it’s the building of relationships that breeds familiarity and earns trust. If your friendly next-door neighbour suddenly starts shouting and swearing at you, you’d know something is definitely off.
Tone of voice can be a tricky balance to get right, but it can have spectacular results on sales when pitched correctly.
The Importance of Developing a Brand Voice
The goods and services you present to the public must appear distinct and unique. It would be arrogant and misguided to think that what you offer has an inherent uniqueness that the public will recognise and value.
Unless you have reinvented the wheel, there will be many products out there that already perform the functions your product offers.
Creating a social media brand voice involves creative thinking and a good amount of capital. You can begin to personalise your product, that is, to give it characteristics that connect with people and reflect their own values back at them. This is the magic formula that converts value sharing to profit.
Identifying Your Brand’s Core Values
Defining Your Brand’s Mission and Vision
In the war for consumer attention, your voice must speak loud and true. People want to associate with brands that share their beliefs and priorities. Perhaps you believe strongly in sustainability, as many people do. Weaving a socially conscious narrative into your brand voice is how you can create a social media brand voice with values at its core. Whether it’s drawing attention to the way you source ingredients and production materials or how you package your product, it will show that you are serious about conservation and so on.
Depending on what your product is, investing in the creation of a brand voice means both looking inwardly at your motivations for making the product and researching what your ideal customer actually cares about.
Whether it’s about saving the planet or keeping fit, the development of your brand voice is the mechanism that makes initial contact and develops on a theme over time. Gradually, trust can be built, and a relationship can form.
Your return on investment comes from the accuracy, sincerity and consistency of your messaging. This compounds into a meaningful connection, resulting in a strong voice speaking into ears that are willing to hear.
The Impact of a Consistent Brand Voice on Audience Engagement
Maintaining a consistent brand voice stokes feelings of familiarity and safety with your audience. Like an old friend, certain characteristics are expected and nurtured. No matter on which social media platform consumers encounter your brand, the tone must remain consistent and true to the themes and values it has taken so long to establish.
People like certainty. Once they understand what your brand is, they invest more of themselves into what you are doing.
Any kind of wrong turn or unexpected shift in tone can provoke uncertainty and distrust. Once your brand is committed to a certain approach, it is wise to stick to it. If a law firm suddenly decides to be funny and irreverent, its customers might start to question how seriously they will take their case.
Understanding how to create a social media brand voice demands that you stick to the plan. Eventually, it will pay dividends. Consistency needn’t be boring and repetitive. There’s always room for creativity, even in the narrowest of niches, as long as you remain true to your original intent. Customers will recognise it and pay it back with their continued engagement, regardless of which social media platform they use.
The Influence of Values on Brand Voice
While some social media platforms have certain word-capacity limits, lots can be said if the language is concise and direct and if it speaks in a way that rings true to the customer.
What you care about is what you talk about. Your brand’s values will be woven into every sentence and every image, reflecting the characteristics someone with a particular interest in a particular thing would have. This is how to create a social media brand voice.
Consider the value incentive of a motivational speaker selling a course on public speaking: a social media ad must communicate with authority and conviction — but in a way that is encouraging and confidence-building. The incentive here is to help people become the best version of themselves.
What about a charity for homeless animals? The value incentive here is to appeal to the good nature of animal lovers who want to provide a good home for strays. The value is mutually beneficial for both parties. The brand voice must be soft, approachable and empathic.
Whatever your brand offers, the voice must convey authenticity. This is not just about salesmanship. It’s about connecting with people in a truthful and transparent way. Authenticity is central to creating a social media brand voice.
If you can demonstrate that the values your brand holds are sincerely felt, customers will place a lot of trust in what you do. They will assume you put as much effort into the creation of your products as you do into the belief that drives them.
Key Questions To Clarify Your Brand’s Personality
A handy way to start shaping your brand’s personality is to play a word-association game with adjectives. Write down words that paint a general picture of personality traits as though you would with a person you know. Words like “playful”, “adventurous”, “tough” and “resilient” might best describe what your brand embodies. If any of these adjectives apply, note them down.
Once you have six words or more, you can begin to form the language that can be of most effect in your social media campaigns.
When you have an idea of what your brand is, you will get a feel for who is likely to respond and who will be most entertained, informed or inspired.
Now you have a brand personality, why not put that personality inside a story? Storytelling is a great way to place your product or service inside a narrative, a roleplay where the product is the protagonist. This helps contextualise what your product does, how it works and to whom it might benefit the most. Stories are key to creating a social media brand voice.
This works wonders on social media, where posts can develop stories like mini episodes across a series of posts, reels or carousels.
Understanding Your Target Audience
Defining Your Ideal Customer and Their Preferences
Your customers are complex and multidimensional. They have their own incentives, interests, preferences and values.
Your brand must also have attributes that mimic a living person. By understanding your ideal customer, you can draw from them to build your brand personality and the voice it uses to project it. A good deal of research, insight and empathy allows you to see through the eyes of those who share an affinity with your values.
Which demographic is the most likely to benefit from your goods and services? What is it they are lacking? What worries or objections might they have regarding your solution? These are questions to consider when you create a social media brand voice.
Your social media posts will ring hollow if there is no real sense of who your customers are. Some digging will reveal common desires, fears and expectations that you can distil down to a winning social media formula.
How Knowing Your Audience Shapes Your Brand Voice
Customer preferences are the pieces you use to build a customer persona, and as that persona takes on more bone, muscle and flesh, you begin to understand how to pitch your social media messaging.
Whether your brand voice is humorous, straight-talking or rousingly inspirational, a natural course of discovery will lead in the right direction.
Empathy and identification are the surest way to create a meaningful bond with your customers. They will feel that their needs are recognised and acknowledged and that their pain points are understood and factored in. If they feel that they are understood, then you have the best possible chance to convert these people long term.
Methods for Gathering Audience Insights
Creating a social media brand voice requires real-time data. Start by conducting surveys or polls to learn more about your audience’s preferences and opinions. Social media channels are perfect for this, as they allow for direct interaction and feedback. Additionally, analysing engagement metrics on your posts can provide valuable insights into what resonates with your audience and what doesn’t.
Another effective method is to review comments and messages received across your social media platforms. This feedback can reveal what your audience loves about your brand and where there might be room for improvement. By actively listening to your audience, you can shape your brand voice to better align with their expectations, making your social media presence more engaging and authentic.
Creating Your Brand Voice Guidelines
Essential Elements of Brand Voice Guidelines
Start with a clear definition of your brand voice, outlining its key characteristics and how it reflects your brand identity. Next, include examples of tone across an array of platforms. This shows your team how to adapt brand voice for different contexts. Also, specify any dos and don’ts to protect brand coherence across all social media posts. This is key to creating a social media brand voice.
Consider including guidance on language style, such as preferred vocabulary and sentence structure, to distinguish your brand identity. This will help everyone involved in the social media management of your business stay on the same page and maintain a consistent tone throughout. Concrete guidelines mean your social media manager, content creator and team members know where the limits are.
Defining the Tone, Style and Language of Your Brand Voice
Like any individual who has their own unique blend of tone and intonation, brand voice is much the same. Unique phrases or expressions or novel sentence structure can help you stand out from the pack, and if consistently maintained over time across many social media platforms, this compounds to an extraordinary effect. This is the alchemy behind creating a social media brand voice. Familiarity, recognition and trust grow within your audience, but it’s a long and steady march rather than a desperate sprint. So go carefully, gradually building upon all those unique qualities you’ve laid out.
Implementing Your Brand Voice Across Social Media Platforms
Adapting Your Brand Voice for Different Social Media Platforms
It’s important not to treat all social media platforms the same. Each one has its own signature, so small adaptations will need to be made, but not at the expense of consistency. X’s character limit means your brand voice should be simple and to-the-point. Humour can be particularly effective with such limitations. Facebook, however, allows for more storytelling where depth and nuance can be introduced.
Strategies for Ensuring Consistent Brand Messaging
One effective strategy is to create a content calendar that outlines your upcoming posts, the themes and messages you want to convey. Consistency is easier to maintain if you plan your content in advance. Involving your team in the planning process also helps maintain brand voice, even when you have multiple platforms to juggle.
Creating an effective social media brand voice relies on quality data collection. Analyse performance metrics. This feedback can help you identify areas where your brand voice might be slipping and allow you to make adjustments. By actively monitoring your messaging and encouraging open communication between team members, it’s easier to keep content on track.
Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Brand Voice on Social Media
Start by tracking engagement metrics such as likes, shares and comments to assess how well your audience is responding positively. High engagement rates often indicate that your messaging is resonating, while low rates may suggest you’re slightly off the mark.
Also, consider conducting surveys or polls to gather direct feedback from your audience. Ask them about their perceptions of your brand voice and how it influences their engagement. This qualitative data can provide valuable insights into what’s working and what needs improving. By regularly measuring the effectiveness of your brand voice, you can modify your approach in real-time without missing a beat.
Adapting and Evolving Your Brand Voice
When To Reconsider or Update Your Brand Voice
An occasional refresh keeps you ahead of the inevitable changes that occur in a thriving online culture. When you choose to make changes, these will depend on various factors. Audience habits and preferences may signal a swing in a certain direction. A new product or service similar to yours may change the game, and you may have to respond in kind. Staying on the bleeding edge of social change is how you can create a social media brand voice that can compete in any environment.
You may notice a drop in engagement because you’ve stayed in the same lane too long. It’s easy for complacency to set in when a formula overextends its appeal.
New platforms may emerge, bringing along a new language and a new kind of audience. You must stay engaged with emerging trends and technologies so you can benefit in any fresh environment. Regularly evaluate your brand voice against industry standards and audience expectations to not only stay in the game but to lead it.
Gathering Feedback To Improve Your Brand Voice
Start by creating opportunities for your audience to share their thoughts and experiences. Cultivate a sense of community amongst your user base. Use surveys, polls or even informal chats to gather insights on how your brand voice is perceived. Also, monitor comments and interactions on your social media posts to see what resonates most with your audience. This kind of real-time feedback will help you create a social media brand voice that maintains trust with its customers.
Engage with your community directly. Ask them questions about their preferences or what they enjoy most about your content. Social listening tools can also help you track sentiment and conversations about your brand across various platforms. By actively seeking feedback and being open to constructive criticism, you can fine-tune your content to create a more engaging and authentic social media presence.
The Role of Market Research in Evolving Your Brand Voice
Market research provides valuable insights into industry trends, audience preferences and competitor strategies. Keeping a steely eye on the market helps you identify swings in customer behaviour. Your brand voice can fall out of sync with your customer base if you miss important indicators that research would otherwise spot.
Market research can also help you uncover gaps in the market and opportunities to show your distinctive qualities. The methods used by your competitors are often out in the open, so take advantage of gathering that data and using it to your advantage.
Conclusion
Creating a social media brand voice means following the steps outlined above. Find out what, or rather “who”, your brand is. Give it personality and purpose. This way you’ll naturally find a tone of voice. Knowing your customers’ desires, needs, frustrations and worries will help you shape the language and turns of phrase that will lend the right kind of authenticity to all your social media content.
A well put-together brand guide will keep your team on message. They should be just as engaged and committed as your target audience. Social media, after all, is not just marketing. It’s a conversation between like-minded people, a community with shared values. There’s nothing worse than stiff and flat content that reads like a template. Life is breathed into your social media when you know and understand your audience. This means listening, gathering data and testing things out on an ever-evolving basis.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a brand voice, and why does it matter?
A brand voice is the distinct personality your brand uses in all its communications. It should resonate like a friend who understands your desires, challenges and expectations. It matters because your audience needs to know your brand recognises and identifies with these needs.
Can you give me some brand voice examples?
Of course. Consider the Nike adverts with the infamous “Just Do It” tagline. This communicates focus and assertiveness. In contrast, the Dove soap brand uses warmth and softness to communicate cleanliness and relaxation.
How do I create a brand voice for my social media accounts?
Start by defining your brand persona. Think about who your brand is and how it would talk at a party. Would it be funny, serious or a bit offbeat? Index all the components of your brand voice and make sure to maintain a consistent voice across all social posts. A brand guide will help your team stay on point.
What are the components of my brand voice?
Components of your brand voice include the tone, rhythm and language style. All these elements bring life and freshness to your social media, individualising details that make your brand unmistakable in a crowded marketplace.
How do I adapt my voice for different platforms?
While maintaining a consistent brand voice is important, you can still tweak your tone of voice for different platforms. For example, on TikTok, you can be wacky and playful, while on LinkedIn, that wouldn’t work so much. A more professional tone might be needed. Research each platform carefully so you get the appropriate tone (without sacrificing consistency, of course).
How does maintaining a consistent brand voice help my social media presence?
It makes your brand recognisable and relatable. It helps followers know what to expect from your content, builds trust and encourages engagement. Plus, it makes your social media profiles look cohesive, which is always a plus.
What if my brand voice changes over time?
A brand must adapt from time to time. Audience behaviour responds to cultural changes, and markets respond in kind. Just make sure to communicate any shifts clearly to your audience so they can still engage with your brand. After all, a powerful brand voice is one that grows with its audience and moves with the ebbing tide of markets and technological innovation.
How can I document my brand voice for my team?
Invest into creating a brand guide that outlines your tone of voice, key phrases and examples of how to respond to comments on social media. This way, everyone can stay on the same page, and your brand can keep its distinct voice across all social media accounts.
If you need help with developing your brand voice and keeping it consistent on your social media, check out our consulting and social media services and get in touch.
