Whether you’re the face of your brand or the wizard behind the curtain, figuring out your business’s voice and then how to make it actually sound that way on your website and social media is always a challenge.
Add to that, it’s not just your words that form your voice — your brand voice is shaped and sharpened by the content and media you produce.
Creating a Brand Voice Chart helps you remain consistent across platforms, helps with writer’s block, and keeps your team on the same page.
Grab the chart template below and scroll down read the 1-2-3 guidelines for applying your voice to your content, IRL.
Brand Voice Guidelines
1) Choose your words
Begin by choosing three adjectives to describe your business, as if it were a person. Sometimes it’s helpful to think about how a friend or someone not attached to the business might describe it or some of the words clients and customers have used in the past when giving feedback or testimonials.
2) Describe the DOs and DON’Ts
Next, write out how each voice characteristic applies to your business and what you should DO or NOT DO to make that characteristic come to life. Maybe it’s keeping language dead-simple and sentences short, or maybe you want to be known for longer-form descriptions and sentences. Maybe you’re bold and sassy but make it a point to keep things positive and supportive at the same time.
3) Apply these to each platform
Go in and rewrite these voice characteristics in the chart columns and fill in examples of how you would give voice to that adjective throughout each of your chosen platforms. Sometimes this looks like drafting a few Instagram captions talking about how the experience of working with you has been described as [insert something like, relaxing, here.] Another idea is to jot down a few blog post ideas that will help your client demonstrate how they are [community-oriented].
The magical thing about this exercise is that there are a thousand different ways you can apply your voice characteristics to your business. You could have the exact same adjectives as someone else and apply them completely differently.
For further reading, be sure to check out:
✏️ How to write with personality
✏️ Brand Personality Workbook (Freebie)
✏️ 9 tips to write more persuasive copy (without the ick-factor)
✏️ 8 behavioral psychology tips to make your copy more persuasive
Download your Brand Voice Chart
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