Tips on How to Develop Brand Voice on Social Media

There’s no doubt that social media has become an important tool when building a connection with potential customers. With one-third of online users regularly using social media, it’s no surprise that 90 percent of all marketers state that their social media presence has improved public awareness for their business.

Along with the benefits of social media, this is also a common ground for bad publicity, especially in the online marketing space. Social media amplify the damage to a brand’s reputation if it isn’t used it correctly.

Know Your Brand Values

You can’t just assign your brand a random personality and hope that it catches on with your audience on social media. Your followers will easily spot if your values are not reflected in your brand’s voice, especially when consumers place a high value on authenticity. And you can’t be authentic if you don’t know what your brand stands for. Establish a clear vision, company mission and commit to reflect those in your activity and communication.

Establish a Unified Brand Voice

A company’s social media presence is often managed by several people, which can make it difficult to communicate with a unified brand voice. In order to have an authentic brand image across all channels, your team needs some guidance and pointers on how to reflect the company’s identity in all interactions.

An easy way to start this is to find words or phrases that match your brand values. These words don’t have to always show up in every piece of content, but they give your employees an idea how they should structure their social media posts.

Use a Style Guide

The guidance will help employees get your brand voice right, and a style guide will help them maintain consistency in the style used. Half of a brand’s image is based on what it says and how it says it. A style guide will help you get it right.

Consistency is important on all channels where your branded content is distributed, and discrepancies will be especially easy to spot on social media. Bring everyone on the same page by implementing a basic style guide and giving examples of what your brand’s voice does and doesn’t sound like.

Create Post Categories

After setting up the basics of your social media branding, you can start creating even more value with specific post categories your brand can share on social media. By combining persona research in with your digital marketing strategy you can identify what type of posts will resonate best with your followers.

These post categories don’t have to necessarily be set in stone. A list of basic post structures can help your staff create social media content that appeals to your audience while maintaining a consistent, professional style.