In today’s saturated market, audiences seek authentic brands with a clear mission and recognizable persona. In fact, defining and consistently using a voice and tone unique to your company is a key component of a successful B2B social media strategy.
How can you use your social media voice and tone to reach, attract, and connect with your target audience?
Differentiating Between Voice & Tone
Voice is your brand’s personality, unique perspective, and communication style, while tone is how you apply your brand’s voice in communicating with your audience.
Think of it this way: you, as a person, have a specific, unique personality that colors how you communicate. You most likely use different phrasing or tone when speaking to your boss versus your family, but your overall personality never changes. Similarly, your company has unique values and perspectives that define its personality, or voice. While your brand’s overall identity doesn’t often change, the way it expresses itself — its tone — can slightly shift depending on the situation and the audience.
It’s essential to define your brand’s voice and tone for easy identification and loyalty-boosting consistency. If an audience can quickly identify a brand by its voice and tone, they are more likely to be engaged with that brand’s mission. Audiences also desire consistency in how a brand communicates, as this allows for a deeper understanding of the brand and a feeling of intimate trust.
Positive Effects of Implementing a Defined & Consistent Voice & Tone
Implementing a defined and consistent voice and tone across your social media channels is an effective brand differentiation strategy with clear benefits.
First, it increases your revenue. Both B2B and B2C respondents to a 2021 Lucidpress Brand Consistency Survey said that consistency in tone and voice substantially impacted their revenue, 32% of respondents by 20% or more, 35% by 10-20%, and 21% by 5-10%.
It also gives you a competitive edge. Your social media brand voice is your chance to communicate to your target audience quickly and persuasively why your brand is different and better than the competition. Finally, voice and tone are essential for effective employee advocacy. An authentic, dependable brand voice can inspire employees to fully buy in to your company’s culture and vision, which can only benefit your bottom line.
How to Develop a Strong Voice & Tone
But how do you create your brand’s voice and tone? These tips can help:
- Identify Your Audience and Persona — Consider your target market when developing your voice. How do they speak? How do they like to be spoken to? Use insights from your brand’s audience and personas to make high-level decisions about your voice and tone. For example, a CRO who seeks to work with large pharmaceutical companies should have a very different voice than an organization serving clinical research patients.
- Write a Brand Guide — Create a voice and tone guide, just as you would a visual brand guide or marketing strategy, to help keep your voice consistent across all social platforms and other marketing channels. Make sure the guide includes brand personality traits, common vocabulary, brand phrases, and examples of each.
- Audit Your Current Voice — What is and is not working in your current voice and tone implementation? Review samples of all social media posts and brand communication to look for inconsistencies and ways to improve. Pay attention to how your followers interact with your posts, determine which ones resonate with them most, and lean into the voice and tone of those successful posts.
- Review and Adapt — Creating and implementing a voice and tone for your brand won’t happen overnight. Refine until you nail the voice and tone that most resonates with your audience and keep examining and testing it to ensure it evolves and grows as your audience does.
Need some examples? Review this content guide for inspiration.
From creating a defined voice that connects with your target market to developing strategic tactics in tones ideally suited to your brand’s persona, SCORR is your partner for increasing your brand visibility. Contact us today for a B2B social media strategy that ignites maximum results.
About the Author
Brandon Rakes