In the vast world of social media, it can be challenging trying to make your voice stand out in a sea of endless content. We completely understand. You’ve got to choose your platform, grow it, create content, and post. It can be consuming and exhausting. Social media isn’t a mountain to conquer overnight, it takes time to integrate your brand or company onto a platform that best fits your audience.
Your voice is what should entice visitors and create a genuine connection that doesn’t just translate to a “like,” or “follow,” but a relationship that brings engagement to your site.
Here are 3 ways to keep an authentic voice on your social media accounts.
1.) Create a Style Guide
If you’ve been trying to harness a cohesive experience across each of your accounts, creating a style guide is a great tool to keep on hand. Style guides include important brand items like your official colors, logos, and any distinguishing items specific to your brand. For brand’s with multiple social platforms, you can differentiate the voice or images used on that one account versus another.
Writing out a style guide is great for onboarding new employees who could be writing content or selling products. Having an established guide with language, grammar, and terminology relevant to your brand can ensure you keep consistency across any social media platform.
What are you waiting for? Time to start writing.
2.) Reinforce Your Brand Values
Does your brand have a mission statement or core values you’ve laid out? If not, it’s time to define them. An initial question to consider is, What’s important to you? Make a list and write it out.
Aligning your voice with your brand values is an excellent way to identify how your brand represents itself to a larger audience. Are you helpful? Political? Do you care about being funny? If these aren’t characteristics inherent to your overall values, then your voice will fall flat.
Visitors won’t understand what you’re about and therefore won’t be able to develop a connection that keeps them coming back for more content.
If you can’t describe what your brand represents, you can’t expect audiences to either.
3.) Monitor Your Audience Engagement
Building engagement is an important factor when maintaining a social media voice that resonates with visitors. Social media engagement is defined as “a measurement of public shares, likes, and comments on a platform that helps users evaluate the performance of an account.”
If audiences aren’t engaging with any of your content, it’s a strong indicator that your voice may need to be tweaked on the platforms.
A few ways to avoid a stagnant page is by making sure your voice is being evoked in your content. Are your posts robotic? Do they lack personality? There are hundreds of posts coming in hourly on social media, how is your brand standing out in the crowd. You want to be active and consistent in how you respond to comments and messages. Genuine reactions and responses to your comments will help maintain a voice that shows your brand is friendly and cares about their customers.
There is no one way to strike gold on social media, but these few tips can help your voice stand out among the crowd. Staying true to your brand persona and audience will help keep your voice consistent across any social platform. Don’t forget that resources like style guides and social monitoring tools can help you strategize and identify where your voice can improve
2 Comments
Thank you for the article. I run a small air conditioning business knowing were to spend your time can be a bit challenging at times. I have had a little success on face book. How often do you recommend posting?
Greetings Gerard,
Your posting schedule depends on several factors like your audience, content, and overall goal of your site. Check out our bluehost.com/blueprint E-Book for more information on scheduling.