Banner Image: Bought and used with permission. Source: Freepik
Companies focus too much on the technical aspects of a product. They believe that telling about their product will get them more customers. This is where I and other content strategists differ. We believe a sole product doesn’t attract more customers. It’s the message we communicate and the way we communicate to the people that help in attracting customers to a brand.
The way one communicates with the customer is just as important as the message it communicates.
Communication Banner Image: Bought and used with permission. Source: Freepik
For brand building and marketing, finding out the message you give to your product when you present them to the public is essential for a good business.
Associate your product with a message that triggers human emotions and values, and you will engage more audience towards your content and the brand. Apart from having content that targets human emotions, one should also target adding value to the brand image.
Content that focuses only on the features and benefits is useful to some extent. Whereas, content marketing on human values associated with the brand and its products is today’s core need.
Apart from the message, the voice and tone that you incorporate can help you stand out from the crowd and catch consumer’s attention.
Are the voice and tone synonyms?
People often think voice and tone are synonyms but in reality, they are not. Let’s understand the difference in terms of your own voice and tone. You have only one voice, but while talking with different people you have distinct tones. For example, your tone might be funny while talking to friends whereas with clients you are formal.
A voice makes a brand unique. It expresses the brand’s personality and clearly shows who they are. Whereas, the tone makes the brand sound more human. The tone of your content can be funny or serious, formal or casual, respectful or irreverent, and enthusiastic or stating a fact. Thus, the voice of a brand is one whereas the tone of a brand changes as per the content and marketing channel. It is the tone of voice on any media platform that makes or breaks the brand.
Building a meaningful interaction with the customers requires a strategic voice with a human tone.
Why does a brand need a tone of voice?
Communication Banner Image: Bought and used with permission. Source: Freepik
Brand’s tone of voice is important as it helps in building the brand’s connection with its audience. A tone of voice helps build an emotional connection that encourages audience interaction with a brand on social media or any other media channel. On social media, it’s the tone that humanizes your brand. According to Lauren Indvik, a former associate business editor at Mashable, “Social networks are platforms for personal connection and dialogue, a reality that has proved challenging for many companies that are not used to speaking to their customers in conversational tones. As companies have established profiles on different platforms, many have had to develop their brand voices anew.”
According to the Harvard Business Review study, companies that have built an emotional connection with their audience, have generated the trust of their audience in their brand and the work they do for society. This generates a profit in terms of customers’ loyalty and a huge payoff.
Banner Image: Bought and used with permission. Source: Freepik
One such example (of brand tone of voice) is the beauty and self-care brand—Dove. On social media and on their website, they have crafted the tone of women’s encouragement and empowerment in their campaign. Most of the advertisements they have created, do not use any trained model but testimonials of their consumers of different age groups, ethnicity, and skin tone. Their advertisements are as interviews, which display questions about the benefits and changes in the women’s skin and confidence because of the use of their product. They even show how others have appreciated these women over the change.
The 3 Cs of brand voice—Culture, Community, and Conversation.
As explained on Marketing Land, you can start developing a voice for your brand by examining your culture, community, and conversation.
3C’s Banner Image: Bought and used with permission. Source: Freepik
Culture–When we talk about culture, ask a question what does your company stands for and what does your brand represent? Another thing that one should ask is what makes you stand out from all the other brands that target the same audience? What makes you different?
Unique qualities, special features, and benefits that make a brand special and culturally acceptable, and respected should be part of developing a voice in marketing campaigns.
Community–There is a saying that you should be a good listener before becoming an excellent speaker. Listening reveals the inclination of a community towards a topic, a product, or a brand. Listening can help you communicate in a better way. It makes you understand the language of the community and their needs.
Conversation–For striking a conversation, one should be confident and aware of the facts, their surroundings, and their target audience. Personality and authenticity also play an important role in the conversation. Information and facts help you guide the flow of the conversation and offer something tangible to the audience. This helps create a better picture of where your voice fits and will make the needful impact.
The 3 C’s will direct you to the right marketing voice for the target audience.
Translating your voice into tone.
After the voice, we need to establish a tone that will emotionally connect the target audience to the brand. The best way to identify your tone is to create a game plan. An efficient game plan should cover the following information.
Content-type–What are you writing about?
Reader or Audience–Who are you talking to and in what scenario?
Reader or Audience feelings–What is the feeling or what feelings might arise in the reader in this scenario?
Your voice–Use the adjectives that best describe your brand, use complimenting and supportive words.
Let’s look at some major brands and their social media tones.
- Target
The social media tone used by the target is whimsical and personable with lots of relatable products of the brand.
Screenshots are taken from the Facebook and Instagram pages of Target
- Disney
Disney is one of the powerful brands. The social media tone of Disney is nostalgic and takes you down the memory lane of your childhood.
Screenshot is taken from the Facebook page of Disney
- Adidas
The social media tone of Adidas is energetic that pumps you to exercise.
Screenshot is taken from the Facebook page of Adidas
In the end, you can say that the right tone and voice will help generate trust and loyalty among consumers and make them accept the brand as one of their own. For any social media campaign to grow and create desired results, it should follow the right tone and develop a relatable voice among the community and consumers. Connecting with the audience as an individual helps generate a stronger and more intimate bond increases brand loyalty and followership.
An important tip to keep in mind is to be authentic and consistent. Consumers dislike and unfollow companies that change their tones and voice-over different communication channels and locations.