How to: Define Your Brand Voice
…And make your life a million times easier in the process.
Brands you can hear when you look at them. Don’t worry though, you don’t need to be bold to find your brand voice.
As a content creator, are you hoping to work with brands? Any brands in particular? Why?
If you’ve ever come across a brand that you just feel connected with, that you feel like gets you, that makes you feel like a version of yourself that you love, or there’s something about them that just tickles your brain in a nice way, you already understand the power of branding.
Having a defined brand identity and voice of your own will help you get brand partnerships and deals.
If you can clearly tell them who you are and what you’re about, they can easily see whether you align with their own brand identity and values or not. Not to mention a consistent brand helps build trust with your audience.
A strong example of brand tone of voice: Go-To Skincare. Notice how they describe their products and how to use them.
But how do you get there?
In the simplest terms, you have to be able to answer the questions:
Who are you?
What do you believe in?
What makes you unique?
How do you stand out?
What do you talk about?
How do you talk about it?
That’s where defining your brand strategy comes in. Each piece of your brand strategy supports the next one. For content creators, the very basics of what you need are your brand identity, brand messaging, and brand voice.
Brand strategy in a nutshell
Your brand identity is who you are, what you care about, and why you do what you do.
Your brand messaging is a defined list of things you talk about that express the personality and values of your brand identity. This includes things you know your audience cares about, their interests, and their pain or pleasure points. This is what you would use to create content pillars.
Your brand voice, also known as tone of voice, defines how you talk, and is usually created by combining elements of your brand identity with what you know about your audience. It’s the secret sauce to bring your personality forward in your content and make you instantly recognisable in the ocean of content online.
If you’re clear on your brand identity, brand messaging and brand voice, creating your actual content becomes so much easier. Because you know who you are, what you want to say, and how you want to say it.
Three quick ways to uncover your brand voice
To discover and define your brand voice, you need to go through the brand identity and messaging process first.
Unfortunately, if you try to shortcut that process, you’ll end up with something shallow that doesn’t feel authentic to you, and doesn’t resonate with your audience.
And while branding can definitely be an extremely in-depth process, if you’re just starting out or trying to DIY, it doesn’t have to be.
Here are three things you can do to make it easier:
Look at your content and try to reverse engineer it. Are there patterns in what you post about? Do they reflect your personal values and interests?
If you have something you’ve already written that you love, or a transcript of you talking, drop it into chat GPT and ask it to analyse the text for brand voice. Of course, take the output with a grain of salt, but it can be a quick way to get a starting point.
I have a free Brand Manifesto Workbook you can download which will guide you through a series of questions to help you define your brand identity and voice. It’s designed to be simple, quick, and give you just enough to get things going without getting overwhelmed. You can grab that here.
A strong example of brand tone of voice: Fenty Beauty. Notice their caption, use of emojis and slang.
How can you use your brand work to make your life easier?
Ultimately, your brand is only powerful if you put it to use. Aside from building stronger relationships with your audience, you can use your brand work to:
Plan out your content
Use it in your media kit
Use it in your communications with brands
Use it to help make decisions about working with specific brands or not
This article was presented in partnership with Liv Steigrad: Brand strategist, copywriter and founder of The Branding Psychologist.