Chances are, the true voice of your practice isn't reflected in your social media channels. But the most successful brands know who they are—and make sure their audiences do, too. It all starts with a strong "brand voice," the tone and feeling that's used consistently across all channels.
Your practice should already be using the same logo and wordmark in all marketing materials to build a brand identity. The brand voice is part of that identity, and every nugget of content for your practice—Twitter responses, blog posts, Facebook updates—should be based on it.
If your marketing is implemented by numerous staff members, most likely the voice isn't consistent from item to item. To establish the core defining attributes of your brand voice and put them into action, follow these steps.
Take the time to reflect
Imagine your practice is a guest at a dinner party: What would you want people to remember? That it told the best jokes, that it was the most intellectual, that it was the friendliest, or that it was the most tech-savvy? What does your practice stand for most?
Set the tone
Think about your practice and describe what you want it to be in three to four words. For example: innovative, affordable and friendly. Next, take those words and create a chart that outlines why each was selected and how the concept should manifest in your practice's communications. Share your ideas with your team. For example:
Innovative
Why: We're the only provider of Acme braces in the market. Our team was instrumental in developing and testing this new orthodontic technique that provides amazing results, fast.
Do: Use an excited tone; use verbs that evoke confidence and progress; include posts relevant to practice innovations as well as innovations outside the industry to show how the practice lives for innovation; include the benefit the innovations have to consumers.
Don't: Use too much technical language; focus on technical process; be condescending.
Listen to the competition
Take some time to monitor the social channels of your competitors. Do they have strong brand voices? What characterizes them? What qualities could your voice have to be different and stand out on its own?
Define and communicate
Define what your practice is. Believe it and be consistent. Then, use a formula for social media postings. Give it to your team so they can communicate properly, and keep the formula simple. For example, a simple social media post formula can be:
- State the topic and why it's relevant in one to two sentences.
- State the benefit to the consumer.
- End with a positive sentiment and practice hashtag.
By providing your team with the language document and the social media post formula, you've set the foundation for consistency. If you have different locations with different demographics, your team can rely on this foundation to set the tone while threading the messages with localized content relevant to that market.
Adjust your brand voice to each context
Should you use the same brand voice across all social media platforms and marketing materials? The answer is "yes" … to a degree. The core of your voice should remain the same, but there will be situations where you should dial it down or turn it up a notch. For example, if you're responding to questions in a customer service capacity, save the humor and focus on solving the problem or answering the question quickly.
Here are a few sample guidelines for your social channels:
- Twitter: While they've eased up on the character cap, it's still limited—
so get to the point quickly when interacting with users and answering questions. Provide the appropriate customer service, and keep it professional in this platform.
- Facebook: Here you can have more fun. Use your posts to show your personality. (Keep in mind that the audience of Facebook continues to skew older.)
- Instagram: This is the channel where you can have the most fun. Instagram, where the audience is younger, is made for compelling content and beautiful photos. Live it up in this more casual social space!
Circumstances always change. Employees leave, policies need to be altered, and roles shift, but you can always make sure your brand voice stays true to the heart of your practice.