One of the most effective ways to find and express your voice is on social media, an ever-growing digital space that gives your company access to a vast audience of potential customers all over the world.
Every time you put out a piece of content or communicate with the public you are expressing your brand’s voice, and social media offers the platform to post more content and communicate more extensively than ever before.
It’s therefore vital to come up with the right strategy for finding your voice on social and using it to achieve real results for your business.
THE POWER OF A STRONG VOICE
It’s essential to have a clear voice on social media because it puts you in a much stronger position to establish and develop relationships with customers. When people are familiar with your voice on social and how it fits into your wider brand personality, they will feel more affinity with your business.
Once you have this key component of your marketing in place, you can use social media to convey clear messages about what your brand stands for, what it has to offer consumers and how you are different from your competitors.
This all goes towards building trusting, loyal relationships with customers, through consistent messaging and a strong identity across all channels, not just social media.
There are many examples of brands whose strong voices and identities have helped them to succeed, with social media playing a huge part in their efforts.
Calm, the meditation app, does a good job of promoting its brand themes of relaxation and positive, inspirational thinking on platforms like Instagram and Twitter. Other companies, such as Innocent Drinks, have built their brands and earned customer loyalty by being funny on social media.
Your firm’s voice should reflect what you stand for and what makes you unique.
FINDING YOUR VOICE
One of the fundamental steps towards finding your voice on social media is having a detailed, consistent profile of your brand, which is then reflected in every piece of content you publish.
Here are some questions worth asking to build up this in-depth picture:
- What are our core values?
- Why should customers choose us over our competitors?
- How do we want people to view our brand?
- Do we want to always be taken seriously, or are we willing to laugh at ourselves?
- What sort of language do we use – slang, colloquialisms, or even swearing?
- Are we willing to discuss topical issues and engage in debates outside our industry?
- What subjects are off-limits?
Another useful exercise is to come up with four or five powerful adjectives that describe your business and can inform your social media content. This could be anything from ‘bold, adventurous, innovative and unconventional’, to ‘traditional, professional, honest and reliable’.
Furthermore, it can be beneficial to think about what you are willing to discuss in your social media content, and what subjects should be avoided to minimise the risk of controversy or reputational damage.
The YouGov report ‘The Social Voice of Brands‘ revealed that 61 per cent of consumers in the US and 52 per cent in Britain feel brands should be able to express how they feel on a certain topic. However, the majority (59 per cent) of people in both countries said companies should steer clear of stating their views on social or political issues, although this varied depending on the industry and the subject matter.
“This indicates that it’s up to the brand themselves to weigh up the risk versus the reward and understand what causes will resonate with their own audience and what will put them off,” the report stated.
As well as creating a picture of your own business and expressing this in your brand voice, it’s vital to research your audience and to understand what is important to them.
A Global Voice
If your business operates internationally, or has ambitions to do so, a strong brand voice on social media can be an extremely powerful tool as you seek to grow and establish yourself in new markets.
This raises the question of whether it’s possible to have a single, global voice, or if you need to tweak your content and communications for different destinations and local audiences.
With such wide variations in cultures, customs, social norms and religious beliefs across the globe, it’s often necessary for brands to tailor their voice to particular markets. A bold or cheeky social media post that earned strong engagement in one country might not perform so well in another location, where people might be more accustomed to reserved language, for example.
The trick here is to adjust your voice for maximum local engagement, without sacrificing the fundamental personality of your brand – the sense of character and uniqueness that distinguishes you from the competition and helps to build affinity with customers.
This is where expert localisation and translation can prove vital, helping you to ensure your social content is infused with your unique voice and represents your brand, whatever language it’s in.
Find out how Locaria can help you achieve this by giving us a call on +44 (0)20 3948 6800, or share your contact details here.
