7 Things You Must Do to Establish Brand Voice on Social Media

Every piece of content you put out into the world adds to, or detracts from, your brand voice. That doesn’t just go for blog posts and ads, but social media posts, emails, and even customer service.

If you want to have as much control over how your customers view your brand as possible, you need to be clear on your brand voice and ensure that it’s used at every touchpoint of your customer journey.

One of the places it’s easiest to forget brand voice importance—but also one of the most critical—is on social media. Social media is a huge piece of the marketing puzzle, and underestimating how essential it is to your revenue and your brand is a huge mistake.

So, how can you ensure your brand voice is as strong on social media as it is across all your other content? Read on to find out.

How to Establish Your Brand Voice on Social Media

1. Get Clear on Your Brand Personality

The first thing you need to do is get clear on exactly who your brand needs to show up as on social media. You can refer to your brand guidelines or tone of voice document if you have one, but get reacquainted with what your brand stands for and how you communicate. Are you friendly, caring, bubbly, serious? Just as importantly, what are you not? Narrow your list down to 5 keywords that describe how you communicate.

2. Make a List of Words and Phrases You Do & Don’t Use

Your next step should be to make a quick list of some of the words and phrases you do and don’t use. For example, if you’re a young, trendy brand, you might use a word like “buzzing” to describe being excited, and you’d avoid using dry language. If you are speaking to Gen Z, you’re going to need to be familiar with the language they use, and if you speak to Gen X, you’re going to need to use very different language, especially in the B2B space.

3. Write How You Talk

This isn’t just about being understandable and conversational; you need to be conscious of how you talk within your business and to your customers. This is usually easy to do in B2C spaces, but if you’re in B2B, you often need to be more conscious of making your language accessible without dumbing anything down. For example, if you own a B2C business selling sporting equipment to experienced mountain bikers, your language shouldn’t be so simple that you come across as patronising.

4. Zone in on What’s Important to Your ICA

It can be easy to get swept up in the desire for more – more clicks, more likes, and more views. While of course this is necessary, many people get so swept up in the question of “how can we have more?” that they lose sight of how important a deeper connection is. Think about what is important to your ICA (ideal customer avatar), and only share things that actually matter to them and your brand values. The moment you start sharing things from a desire to get more attention that’s not aligned with your ICA’s interests, you’ll shoot your business in the foot and lose the interest of the people who matter most.

5. Focus on Consistency

Social media platforms differ some, but your brand voice should be consistent across all your channels. Inconsistency can give your customers and followers a sense that something’s off, which creates mistrust. Make sure that your content is being created from a place of wholeness – whether that be one person creating the content or a team, make sure everyone isn’t so isolated that all the platforms feel disconnected. (Not sure why brand consistency matters? Read more here.)

6. Engagement Matters

Try not to get your voice down and be so focused on churning out on-brand content that you fail to engage with your followers. It can be easy to do so if your social media accounts are new, as you often spend a month or two largely shouting into a void or dealing with spam comments. However, when you get those genuine comments, questions, and see that your content has resonated with someone, engage with them. You don’t need to write essays or offer them something, but go back to your brand personality and reply in a way that makes sense. If you cultivate a brand voice on social media that feels like seeing a post from a friend, reply with an emoji – even these seemingly small interactions will help create a connection and show that there are real people behind the brand.

7. Audit Your Brand Voice

Finally, set a date quarterly, bi-annually, or annually to audit your social media channels and see if your brand voice is still aligned with how you want your brand to come across. This is also a great opportunity to review and tweak if you have pivoted or narrowed your market focus to ensure you are still speaking directly to your ICA.

Everything we’ve discussed here depends on one thing: a solid brand foundation. If you try to develop a brand voice on social media without knowing what you stand for, your values, or your brand visuals, you’re going to build your brand voice on a foundation that may collapse underneath it and require complete restructuring. If you don’t have this foundation in place or need help with an aspect of your branding, we’re here to help. Click here to find out more about our brand services. 

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