You communicate with your customers in a multitude of ways online. Perhaps you send them targeted emails or e-newsletters, but you also have information on your blog, 
messaging on social media and in your online advertisements. Given all of these touch points, it’s critical that you business develops a consistent tone of voice that helps to engage customers, builds credibility, develops relationships and helps to solidify expectations.
If you have a number of different people communicating on behalf of the brand, it can become difficult to establish the right tone of voice and style for your brand – and keep it going on a consistent basis.
It’s not an easy skill to master, but here are five steps to help you develop a consistent online brand voice:
- Know Your Audience: In order to build your brand and your voice, you first need to know who you’re talking to. Understand your audience and tailor your communication strategy to them. There are a number of analytics tools that will help you identify your target audience, and narrow down their age, gender, income and location (and more.)
- Secure Your Name: This is more of an overall branding tip, but it’s really important to make sure the username you use across all of your online social media platforms is consistent. There’s a great website called namechk that will tell you if a name has already been taken and/or where it’s available. You should find a username that’s available on most of the sites, especially the big ones like Twitter and Facebook..
- Define Your Tone and Personality: Now that you know who you’re talking to, and the name you’re using, determine your customer’s needs and wants in order to tailor your messaging to them. Define your personality and key messages; and once you do, you’ll be able to pinpoint the tone easier. Make sure you know how you want people to feel when they interact with your brand. Consider the personality of your business and remember to speak with, not at.
- Educate: Make employees aware of the key messages, tone, and how to best deliver them. Give clear examples, and provide tips and tricks that help to create consistent copy and grammar – perhaps even create a style guide.
- Evaluate, Get Feedback: Take a look. How does the messaging on your blog hold up to the tone of your Facebook posts? Do they sound like they’re coming from the same person? If it sounds like your business has multiple personalities, it’s time to tweak your strategy. Also, note the comments on your Facebook page and Tweets on Twitter to see what customers have been responding to (or not).
Remember that it’s especially important for small businesses to present a strong and consistent voice online – it’s key to growing your business and establishing strong relationships with customers. While you may have multiple authors working on a number of different touch points, you can certainly create and manage a consistent brand voice.
Drop AdMix Social a line to find out how we can help you further develop your online brand voice!
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