How To Find Your Brand Voice On Social Media

Finding your brand voice on social media

If you want to build a stellar social media brand, you have to have a powerful brand voice, but how can you find it? Here is how you can discover your brand voice on social media.

Talk The Talk

Think about it. Whatever you post, write, design, show and respond to online all play a key part in displaying your brand voice to the world. That is why it is important to have content that is streamlined, consistent, and brimming with a distinct personality.

While it is easy to recognize that you should do this, knowing exactly how to do it is a lot more complex. Keep these tips, hacks, and strategies in mind and you will be well on your way to finding your brand voice on social media.

Get Your Adjectives Down

Get your adjectives down to boost brand voice on social media

It is important to do some deep thinking and ask yourself a lot of important questions about your brand. If you find yourself lost, your questions might be too broad. For example, many people start with:

What do I want my brand’s personality to be like?

This is a fine question and an important one. However, it is incredibly open-ended. The answer could be three words, or it could be three thousand. There are also hundreds and hundreds of words that can relate to describing personality. This is why you might want to narrow it down and opt for more specific questions such as:

What three adjectives do I want to describe my brand’s personality?

If my brand’s personality was a combination of two public figures, who would they be?

For starters, these questions are direct and force you to focus. You need to have a strong and direct focus to build a consistent brand voice that pops.

SEE ALSO: 3 Keys to Defining Your Digital Brand Voice

Consider Tone

Once you know what three adjectives you want to describe your brand’s personality and which two public figures inspire it, you have an anchor from which you can develop tone. This next exercise should be a lot easier than the first two.

Based on the work you have done, pick up to five adjectives to describe your ideal tone.

For example: Say you want your brand to be fun, relatable, and quirky. Based on that, your two figures of inspiration could be Jennifer Lawrence and Ellen DeGeneres.

Based on that, pick up to five adjectives that describe your tone. In this case, those could be:

  • Goofy
  • Genuine
  • Friendly
  • Upbeat
  • Whimsical

Write Like You Speak

Depending on your background, it may come naturally to you to use industry-specific jargon. While this makes sense in many cases, you have to remember that many people on social media do not share your specific level of expertise.

If your Tweets are all jargon, they are going to be inaccessible to people. In fact, if people cannot understand your message in a short tweet, they will feel alienated by it. This will make them feel dumb and they will express their insecurities by disliking you.

You want to bring outsiders in. By using simple and effective language, you can accomplish this and make your brand voice on social media an inviting one.

Don’t Be One Of Those Clickbait Brands

Sure, everyone wants clicks. However, while a sensational headline may get you a few more clicks, it will not get you the conversions you need to grow.

This is because, ultimately, it looks bad for you and turns people off of your products and brand if you cannot deliver on your headlines. Also, many people are turned off by blatantly gimmicky headlines. Consumers are smart. If you use phrases to describe your product like “the best ever” or “life-changing” few people will believe you.

People make purchasing decisions based more on their lifestyle, mood, and emotions than features or exaggerations. You want to develop a cohesive and persuasive brand voice on social media over time based on a central focus. You cannot rely on theatrics alone.

People are so tired of clickbait that there are multiple social media accounts dedicated to spoiling clickbait. The Stop Clickbait Facebook Page has over 200,000 likes and followers and regularly makes posts like this:

Stop clickbait Facebook page

Consistency is Key to Building Your Brand Voice on Social Media

Everything you do and share online is a reflection of your brand voice. It all needs to be consistent. However, having a uniform brand voice on social media can be a challenge.

Few business owners have the time to manage multiple social media platforms and create all of the content for them on top of their other daily tasks. In fact, even if you hired one lone person to do it all full time, it would be quite a task for them to manage. This is why many brands have entire teams working on their social media content.

SEE ALSO: Why Brand Consistency Matters in the Ad Tech Age

Make Sure Everyone Is On The Same Page

However, if you have one person posting for you on Instagram, one person creating your blog content, and a whole separate team creating your video content, there is a good chance that they are not all using the same tone of voice.

So, you need to make sure that everyone who works for or with you making your content knows exactly what your brand values, voice, and goals are. If you do not provide them with a clear direction, you cannot blame them for failing to come together to create a unified voice.

If you want to learn more about how copywriting can impact digital branding, take a look at our blog post on the topic here.

Be A Listener

Most people talk more than they listen. Have you ever spoken with someone who did not allow you to get a word in edgewise? How did that make you feel?

Likely, not great. And if they suggested something to you, how likely would you be to consider it based on how they made you feel?

Probably not very likely, even if their suggestions were valid. This is because people are largely emotional decision-makers.

Don’t Just Post, Engage

This is why, when it comes to developing your brand voice on social media, you want to do more than post. You want to engage.

If you post consistently but don’t engage with others, you are basically talking to yourself. Use social monitoring and social listening tools to be a part of the conversation. There are various tools you can use, or you can even delegate the job of responding to comments and questions on social media to someone on your team.

Some popular social listening tools include:

Final Thoughts on Building Your Brand Voice on Social Media

Ultimately, before you do any tweeting or blogging, you need to have a clear idea of exactly what your brand’s personality is. Especially if you will have a team of people working on different aspects of your social media content, it is key that they are all on the same page.

So, if you have focus, are authentic, and put your audience first, your digital brand will thrive on social media.

Which brands have a voice that draws you in? Why is that? Comment below…

Written by
Juntae DeLane

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