What is the brand voice?
When branding, business owners usually prioritize appearance features such as font type, color, and design style and are often indifferent to the category of brand voice. In addition, today, due to the growth of social networks and their use in marketing strategies, brand voice has received more attention than ever before.
Although the word brand voice may be unfamiliar to you, you have most likely experienced it. For example, a company that sells mountaineering equipment uses the terms and attitudes in its content. A children’s clothing brand must use colloquial language to interact with its target audience. Today, we will fully examine the brand voice category, so stay tuned for the rest of this article.
What is the brand voice?
Brand voice is a unique personality that a brand uses in its social interactions. Suppose you are invited to a party and chat with guests. You suddenly meet someone who speaks in a unique style and language and brings you a very enjoyable experience, so every time you want to describe the memory of that party, you immediately remember that person.
You could think of that guest as the brand voice and ask yourself if your brand was a person, what personality traits it had, and what behavioral traits did it prevent? Or what style and terms did he usually use to express himself?
This character applies wherever your brand speaks; For example, the brand voice should be used in sections such as newsletters, social media posts, company internal communications, announcements, and advertisements.
The importance of brand voice
You may be wondering why brand voice is important to a company. Or why not use different styles to express the brand? Virtual and digital space is so noisy that people are always talking about different brands or other people, and you need to optimize the appearance elements of the brand, such as the logo and the specific design of the products, to be seen; Of course, you should also pay attention to the written content of the brand.
The brand voice makes you better seen in a crowded and competitive market environment. Research shows that 40% of the audience considers unique content. 33% unique personality, and 32% of people believe compelling storytelling is why a brand is seen and popular. The brand voice plays an important role in all three issues. Your company can not have a unique personality without a distinctive brand voice.
Content is not limited to images and videos but includes words and graphic designs. How to introduce and express the brand is very important for customers. Studies show that 45% of users unfollow a brand because of irrelevant social media content. Sharing content that is not compatible with the company’s usual style will cause many customers to be branded.
Increasing brand awareness is another important point in brand voice; In other words, if you want users to recognize you before they see the brand name and only through the content, you have to use a unique brand voice.
How to create your brand voice?
1- Publish your content in different forms.
If you want to find your brand voice as soon as possible, you must publish your content in various text, audio, and video on social networks and look at your published content with a critical eye. Then find the best content and place it at the top of your content production schedule.
2. Describe the sound of your brand in 3 words.
With the help of content production and brand identity, write three words to describe each of the content you selected in the previous step and insert them in the table of brand voice elements. If you represent a brand as a personality, you should choose these three words as human personality traits. (In this case, you must also describe your competitors with human characteristics.)
Examples of human characteristics of different brands: powerful, expressive, strange, pragmatic, witty, attractive, reliable, real, credible.
3- Creating a table of the obtained elements of brand sound
To use your desired details in your future content, you must have this table as an important brand management tool and produce your content. In this table, consider three columns for each attribute (description, should be done, should not be done) and then complete it carefully.
4- Make sure that the items obtained from the table are observed in the production of future contents.
5- Update your brand voice over time and the changes that occur in the organization.
Five golden tips in brand voice development
Now that you are familiar with the importance and definition of brand voice. It is better to learn its development tips as well. Here are five golden tips.
1- Save all the points related to the brand voice
All points related to it, such as design guidelines and social media strategies, should be fully documented. You can also hire someone to manage all communications and marketing; otherwise, writing and storing brand voice tips is useful for different company departments.
This document is a reference for all people associated with the brand voice. So that the posts on social networks and advertising messages are published seamlessly. This document should include the company’s core values, mission, and statement so that individuals can extract certain personality traits from them.
Other elements of this document include personality traits, brand expressions, common words, and most important examples. In fact, with a few examples, you can show people in different departments how to write the desired content based on the brand personality. In addition, they will understand what options are outside your defined framework.
2- Examine the sound of the company’s current brand carefully
Do you need inspirational options to personalize your brand? To do this, look at the company’s current communications. You can get an overview of the brand voice. For example, inconsistencies may be in some sections due to the diversity of authors. Consider how your target audience interacts, and consider the commonalities of your high-traffic posts. In fact, by doing this, you can determine the current personality of your brand and add the desired features to it.
3- Identify the audience and the personality of the customers
Another way to develop a brand voice is to identify your target audience and customer persona on social media. For example, if young people make up the bulk of the brand’s target audience, you need to use a certain language to communicate with them. Using traditional language will make the younger generation feel alienated from your brand.
You should write down a list of behaviors and terms related to your audience and customer personality. For example, if the inhabitants of the Caspian coast are the target audience of a brand, learning the colloquial language of that region is one of the most important factors for the brand voice.
4- Know the tone of your voice
It is what you say, and the brand’s tone is how it is. The style of the brand may be different for some audiences. So you need to specify the exact time of its use. For example, the tone of a new product introduction should be further from responding to customer complaints. You can identify and categorize the different situations you encounter like a brand.
5. Always check the brand voice
Developing a brand voice is not something you do only once. But you should review it at certain times, such as once a year or at important events. The language and vocabulary you used five years ago may be vague for today’s audience. For example, the uGIF files have been very common in the last five years. But today, they are easily accessible on all social platforms, so you can also use them in your content.
Apple’s unique brand voice
Apple’s video and video ads are quite different from other companies, but the company’s written content is also very recognizable. The words that the company chooses in the visual elements have been selected very carefully so that the sound of the Apple brand. Its website can be easily identified using simple, direct, and obvious language.
The language used in the Small Business Page section of Apple’s website is similar to very small companies that speak directly and very briefly about the benefits of their products. The company is asking people to use Apple products. Technical explanations are not very appropriate for customers who visit the website first, confusing them.
