Why You Must Establish a Brand Voice on Social Media and How

One of the most crucial factors to being successful in business in today’s day and age is to build and maintain an authentic brand voice on social media. How does a brand ensure they are being authentic on social media? What is a brand voice and what does it mean to implement the same brand voice across all social platforms? Read on to learn more!

What Is a Brand Tone of Voice, and Why Is Having One Important?

Your brand tone of voice emulates how your company/brand communicates with your existing and potential customers, and how you want people to receive your message. Think of your company’s tone of voice as your company’s very own personality. The words chosen, sentence structure, and even the photos you choose to share all apply to this.

Your tone may vary depending on if you are trying to sell products, make customers read your blog, invite others to an event, or wishing a well and safe weekend. Whatever the case, keep it fluid but also stay cohesive for your brand. Think of it this way: Every single time you write, design, talk, post, respond, and connect with others, you are exercising your brand voice.

The tone should certainly reflect your company’s goals and values but does not necessarily need to hold the tone of a corporate website. It is OK to let loose and have some fun with jokes, emojis, and memes. You want your community to feel like they can have a personal relationship with you; someone who understands their needs and concerns, not a robot. Creating a tone that relates to your community on a personal level will ensure long-term success.

Now, why is all of this important? Because as a business owner, your goal should always be to stand out from the crowd.

What is going to separate you from your competitors? You need a solid reason for your core audience to want to keep coming back to do business with you. Ensuring that you have a friendly and personable online relationship with your customers goes a long way to both retain old customers and also acquire new ones. When you show that your company has good values, pure intentions, and great customer relations, you will succeed.

How to Establish a Brand Voice in 4 Steps

How will your brand be remembered online? Are you funny, informative, casual? No matter which direction you choose, here are 4 steps to establishing your unique social media brand voice for your business.

1. Consider Your Core Values– Arguably the most important step is determining what your company’s core values are and being sure to stick to them through your presence online. Using your company’s goals and values as the foundation of your brand voice helps you to ensure it always matches and reflects your business. So ask yourself the following questions: What kind of image do you want to portray? What are the personal values of your key employees? From there you can develop your company’s mission statement. This should be a clear statement about what your company does and how and why it does those things.
2. Determine the Message You Want to Communicate– So what main point are you trying to get across to your target audience? This is where your core values and mission statement come into play. By using your core values and mission statement as a guide, you will be able to develop a list of adjectives and goals to define your brand voice. Keep in mind that your brand voice should always be positive, encouraging, direct, and informative in order to assist with driving innovation and helping your customers to solve any problems they may have. Now it’s time to put it into action. Keep these characteristics in mind at all times, when you write blogs, respond to emails, whenever and wherever you have the chance to be seen, heard, or noticed as a brand.
3. Implement a Brand Style Guide– Not only do you want your brand to sound the same across all social media platforms, you also want your brand to look the same. This is why creating and implementing a brand style guide is crucial. If you have many employees posting to your social networks, you want to ensure that it always appears as though the information is coming from the same person. This will keep your brand voice consistent. When creating your brand style guide you should pay attention to elements like tone and personality, keywords and phrases, typography, and imagery. In other words, which phrases, fonts, colors, and images will you use to reinforce your brand on social media?
4. Apply What You’ve Learned– Now it’s time to be seen and be heard on social media. Always remember that each and every email, tweet, reply, and post your company puts forth should always maintain the same voice and personality. Remember that at the end of the day, you want to think of your business as a person. You want your customers to easily recognize this person and build a relationship with them.

Determining your business’ brand voice and applying it effectively will help you stand out amongst the crowd. Allow your business to be perceived consistently in a deliberate way for ultimate success.

Need Help? Call Efferent Media

If you feel overwhelmed trying to establish a brand voice or keep falling behind in managing the social media for your business, let Efferent Media handle your social media presence. Give us a call for a free consultation.