5 ways your brand voice on social media can help engagement & loyalty

Everything you do as you operate your business builds your brand, and everything you put out into the world whether written, visual, or spoken builds your brand voice. That means brands that are clued-in quickly build and manage a brand voice that engages their ideal audience, and those that don’t appear clumsy and amateurish at best, and vague and messy at worst.

So, how do you build a brand voice effectively on social media? It can seem like there’s a lot at stake, but it’s important to remember that it’s okay to miss the mark from time to time as you experiment. What you need to aim to do with every post and comment is to ensure your brand voice has the same feel throughout so your customers have something familiar to connect with.

Fortunately, with just a little planning, you can ensure everything you do on social media increases your customer engagement and loyalty. In this article, we’ll go through how to do this, but if you need help establishing your brand voice on social media in the first place, pause here and read our last article 7 Things You Must Do to Establish Brand Voice on Social Media.

5 Ways to Use Brand Voice to Increase Customer Engagement and Loyalty

1. Define How You Reply to Messages and Comments

Interacting with comments and messages are some of the most important things you can do on social media, but many businesses fail to define how their social media manager should engage with this critical outreach from their audience and customers.

Make sure you check in with your brand and ideal customer documents and review your brand’s personality. Do you want your replies to be witty? Should they feel like you’re chatting to a close friend? Are you motivational, reassuring, or serious? Make sure those managing your social media platforms are clear on how to interact with your audience, not just what to post in the first place.

2. Define How You Deal with Customer Service on Social Media

Social media has given customers a way to reach businesses and have their customer service issues dealt with publically, either because they believe that they’ll demand more attention if they do so, or because they only remember to bring it up when they see your post.

Your brand voice may be the same for dealing with customer service enquiries one-on-one behind closed doors or publically on social media, but make sure that anyone managing your social media platforms has guidelines on what language to use and what steps to take so that any customer who reaches out (and anyone else who sees it) gets a consistent experience.

This consistency will help give your current and future customers more faith that they can rely on you for the same customer experience, and so you can quickly develop trust that will make them much more likely to purchase from you.

3. Develop a Reputation for Being Helpful or Inspiring

Most brands on social media will have a focus on either being helpful or inspiring – aiming to educate or inspire their audience. For example, a skincare brand may choose to focus on educating its audience, while a fashion brand will focus on inspiring its audience. Some brands also do both, such as a fitness clothing brand, but make sure you’re choosing what to post with intentionality.

Remember that it’s not just the words and visuals you use, but also the tone. If you’ve only ever posted inspiring images, your educational post better have the same kind of tone, otherwise, you may come off as being “preachy” because it’s not in alignment with the brand you’ve built.

4. Avoid Hyperbolic Language

Have you ever unfollowed a brand because every email, video, or blog post they shared became a bait-and-switch? There’s little worse than clicking on an (admittedly) juicy headline only to find that there’s only a sliver of truth to the headline. Yes, clickbait works, but only temporarily. Over time, your audience will stop trusting you, start ignoring your messaging, and may stop following you entirely.

Worse still, it can take time to figure out how much damage has been done by the clickbait posts because you will likely still be getting clicks from people who are attracted to the headline but not interested in your brand. You may only realise you’ve made a mistake when your ideal audience reaches out to tell you they’re disappointed in your new content or, worse, if your sales plummet.

If your ideal audience really does love a bit of drama, use it intentionally and monitor what resonates and what doesn’t.

5. Make Sure Your Voice Aligns with Your Product or Service

We all want to stand out from the competition, but make sure you’re not manufacturing a brand personality that’s outlandish and detached from what you do – ensure that it is still firmly rooted in your product or service. For example, Sharpie is “just” a brand of marker, but they emphasise their fun, creative, and practical side on social media.

Using a Sharpie certainly doesn’t have to be fun, but they know that the people who follow them are crafters, artists, students, and teachers, and so they lean into those qualities on social media.  

Remember that none of this will matter if you aren’t consistent. You need to make sure that your brand is consistent on all channels, even if the tone differs, and make sure you don’t waver from week to week. If you’re still not sure what you should be doing to develop a strong brand, we’re here to help. We can help you find clarity around your branding and create brand assets that will ensure you stand out from the crowd while resonating with your ideal customer. To find out more about how we can help, click here.

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