Charles Dickens was born about 200 years too early to enjoy the pleasures of getting in Twitter fights with book reviewers and fellow authors all while posting snippets of his upcoming work to adoring fans on Facebook and Instagram.
Often called the first modern celebrity, Dickens would have loved social media.
After all, he knew how to build his own brand in his distinct voice and was a Victorian era would-be blogger with most of his work published to the masses in monthly or weekly installments.
It seems, especially since the pandemic started, that we are all little Oliver’s with our out-stretched smartphones when it comes to social media (Please, sir, I want some more!) with nearly 4 billion total social media users across all platforms as of January 2022.
Sprout Social says that the time spent on social media now is greater than ever with adults spending some 95 minutes per day consuming content from an average of seven different social networks per month. Some studies put the average time spent consuming social media at 144 minutes per day!
“Social media recently overtook paid search as an advertising channel, growing 25 percent (year over year) and exceeding $137 billion (just edging out search’s $135 billion),” says Sprout Social.
For brands, this should be the “best of times” as the guesswork has been taken out of where to reach their target audiences, but as in any good Dickens novel, there is a twist, and it is also the “worst of times” as brands find it tough to cut through the digital clutter.
“It’s no secret that organic engagement on social media has been on a downward trend,” Brent Barnhart wrote for Sprout Social in May. “More users and brands on a network mean that you’re quite literally competing for the attention of customers and followers. After all, there are only so many interactions to “go around”.”
Now, more than ever, brands need to concentrate on developing their brand voice and tone to stand out in the crowded digital landscape.
When it comes to branding there can be a hyper focus on the visual, but your brand voice can be just as important as logos and other design choices.
“In branding work, people often think about how a brand looks visually, from fonts to colors to design styles. What is sometimes overlooked is brand voice,” writes San Francisco-based digital strategist Jenn Chen. “With the inclusion of social media in marketing efforts, brand voice has become more important than ever as a way to stand out from the crowd of digital chatter.”
HubSpot says that “brand voice is the personality your brand takes on in all of its communications”
Chen agrees and takes it one step further, saying that your brand voice is not just a personality your brand takes on but a “distinct personality”.
This personality is applied to everywhere your brand speaks, including:
Social media in 2022 is rooted in so much visual imagery that brand voice can be overlooked with just 1 in 3 brands having a documented content strategy in place, including brand voice as an integral component.
“We often pay a lot of attention to how brands look on social media, but brand voice can be as influential as logo design, imagery and visual content,” wrote Rebecca DiCioccio, marketing manager at Paperform.
HubSpot’s Caroline Forsey says that brand voice is a critical factor for creating consistency across communication channels, regardless of who creates the content.
“Good brand voice makes your brand stand out from the noise, and helps consumers remember and relate to your brand. This, in turn, creates stronger brand loyalty. Plus, brand voice can help attract new prospects before they even learn about your product or services,” writes Forsey.
Sprout Social asked consumers why some brands stood out online and found that:
And on the flip side, when asked why consumers unfollowed brands on social media, Sprout Social found:
Chen says the “digital landscape is crowded. It’s filled with chatter from brands and individuals alike. You can only stand out so much on the basis of your visual content, logo or product features alone. Your written content needs that same attention and consistency you give to the other elements of your brand presence.”
As DeCioccio puts it: “Having a brand voice enables businesses to showcase their unique personality.
Before diving into some surefire ways to develop a consistent brand voice, we need to differentiate between your brand voice and your brand tone.
Sprout Social says that brand voice is “what you say” and brand tone is “how you say it.”
While you want to always have a consistent brand voice, your brand tone will vary depending on the message and channel you are delivering it on.
How you hype a new product release will have a much different tone than how you will respond to a customer complaint online.
There are situations where humor will be appropriate and situations where humor will do more harm than good to your brand.
You can strengthen your social media brand voice by using these seven steps:
Just remember, whatever your brand voice is, make it distinctively your own unique voice and embrace it like your favorite Dickens character because as Shopify’s VP of Marketing Morgan Brown says, “the brands that speak to everyone speak to no one.”