maintaining your brand's voice

18
Alexandria Sadorf Content Marketing Winter 2017

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Page 1: Maintaining Your Brand's Voice

Alexandria SadorfContent Marketing

Winter 2017

Page 2: Maintaining Your Brand's Voice

“A brand’s voice articulates its personality, culture, and

positioning within its industry. It’s not something to be made

up on the spot, but rather developed over time.”

http://www.cision.com/us/2016/08/3-keys-to-creating-great-brand-content/

Page 3: Maintaining Your Brand's Voice

https://blog.bufferapp.com/social-media-marketing-voice-and-tone

Page 4: Maintaining Your Brand's Voice

A few tips from The Content Marketing Institute on Voice:

http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2015/03/consistent-brand-voice/

Page 5: Maintaining Your Brand's Voice

Word Choice1. Word Length

Would it be odd for you, as a consumer, to read a blog post and watch them deliberately switch back and forth between elongated, sophisticated words and short, plain words?

Page 6: Maintaining Your Brand's Voice

Word Choice2. Pronouns

Stick with a consistent pronoun choice for your company. Is it always “WE” or maybe a third person styling? Pick what fits and stick with it!

Page 7: Maintaining Your Brand's Voice

Word Choice3. Jargon

If you’re in law, finance, or engineering, chances are you have some jargon. If the people reading your content are likely to know what your jargon means, then it is useful to include. Knowing your audience is useful for knowing whether or not jargon should be part of your voice.

Page 8: Maintaining Your Brand's Voice

Word Choice4. Buzzwords

Like jargon, you need to know that your audience will understand your industry buzzwords before using them. If your voice is very modern and up-to-date, then buzzwords could elevate your brand by elevating your voice.

Page 9: Maintaining Your Brand's Voice

Word Choice5. Colloquialisms

Though it varies culture to culture, how familiar will your language be with your readers? Are you going to throw in slang and profanity, because you know that’s how your readers speak and you want to be on their level? Or will you maintain a formal tone of voice, creating an image of prestige?

Page 10: Maintaining Your Brand's Voice

Word Choice6. Contractions

A colloquial brand won’t shy away from using contractions to connect with their audience. They’re trying to connect with the people they want reading their content! A formal or high-end brand might prefer to avoid contractions, on the other hand. It is all part of the voice!

Page 11: Maintaining Your Brand's Voice

Sentence Choice7. Sentence Length

Like word length, consistency with a bit of variety is important in sentence length. Are you a “to the point!” brand or more of an “I’ve got a lot of points that need to go in one sentence” kind of brand?

Page 12: Maintaining Your Brand's Voice

Sentence Choice8. Tempo

Your sentence length is a big part of tempo as well. Are you going for more a stream-of-consciousness type of writing or straight to the point? This can vary slightly based on the post and type of content, but it will be hard to maintain your voice if you switch this up every single time you write a post.

Page 13: Maintaining Your Brand's Voice

Sentence Choice9. Conciseness

Do you get to the point or are you an eloquent brand, adding in adjectives and descriptions? Again, some variety in sentences and words is important though.

Page 14: Maintaining Your Brand's Voice

Sentence Choice10. Mistakes and Rule Breaking

This, again, goes with the formality of your brand often. A more colloquial brand might choose to forgo some of the common grammar rules because it feels like a more natural conversation.

Page 15: Maintaining Your Brand's Voice

Where in the Journey Are You?

The SageThe “Recognized Expert” in their field

The SherpaThe “Trusted Guide” in their field, though not an expert.

The StrugglerThe “Fellow Traveler” also on a journey.

https://michaelhyatt.com/traction.html

Page 16: Maintaining Your Brand's Voice

In what instances do you think it is smart for a brand to change their

voice?

Page 17: Maintaining Your Brand's Voice

Do you think it is wise for a company to entirely change their voice if

they rebrand?

Page 18: Maintaining Your Brand's Voice

What are some companies that you think do a really good job maintaining their voice?