Previously you learned some tips for writing engaging content on social media. One best practice we discussed was writing in your brand's voice. In this video, we'll further explore what a brand voice is, why it's important, and how to develop one for social media. To review, a brand's voice is a distinct personality a brand takes on in its communication. It's how the attitudes and values of a brand are reflected in all of its content. Developing a clear, consistent brand voice is essential for a number of reasons. To start, it helps you stand out on social media. In the crowded social media space, having a distinct brand voice can make you more memorable and distinguish you from your competitors. Having a distinct brand voice also helps make your brand more recognizable. This can increase your current and potential customers' familiarity with your brand and your overall brand awareness. Creating a brand voice is all about delivering consistent language and messaging across all of your marketing content. This consistency helps build customers trust and loyalty. Now that you understand why having a distinct brand voice is important, let's discuss how you can go about developing one for social media. To start defining your brand's voice on social media, first think about how you would like to describe your brand's personality. If your brand were a person, what would they be like? What would they say? How would they act? What would their relationship to the customer be like? Would they act like a coach, a friend, or a parent? Think about some adjectives you might use to describe your brand's personality. Are you friendly, upbeat, and helpful? Smart, confident, and formal? Casual, sarcastic, and bold? In order to further define your brand's voice, review your company's current and past content. Study examples from all of your marketing communication to get a sense of what your brand voice is like currently. How does your target audience speak and how do they interact with you? What content has resonated with your audience in the past? What language do they use? From here, you'll be able to get a sense of what your brand's personality is currently like and begin thinking about how to shape it further. It's important that your brand voice be honest and authentic. Avoid complicated terminology, acronyms, jargon, and anything else that might get in the way of your audience, understanding your message. Rather, speak naturally to your audience as you would if you were saying something to them in person. Audiences need to feel comfortable engaging with you online and want to speak to a real person. Having authentic brand voice will help you form connections and build relationship with your customers. In addition to developing your social media brand voice, you can start thinking about a related concept, finding your tone. While voice is an expression of your brand's personality, tone is how your brand's voice is applied. The tone of your content can differ based on factors like audience, situation, and platform. For example, you might use an upbeat, excited tone to describe the launch of your latest product whereas you would use a serious empathetic tone to convey support for community members who've just been through a natural disaster. Essentially, you will have one brand voice, but it'll use many different tones to express that voice. To help maintain consistency across all marketing channels, companies often create brand voice guidelines. These guidelines describe the way your brand should be presented in writing. They include things like your brand's mission and values, personality, target, audience, common vocabulary and phrases, tone in different situations or on different platforms, and examples. Brand guidelines are a useful reference when you have to write in your brand's voice or review the work of others. They can help multiple contributors create content that reflect your brand and ensures a brand consistency. As someone new to the field or organization they could provide helpful direction. It's important to express your brand voice on social media because it helps you stand out from your competitors, makes your brand more recognizable, and builds your customers' trust and loyalty. Coming up, we'll tell you about Black & Bold, a coffee company that values investing in communities who are presenting diversity and producing and providing access to quality drinks. We'll explore how Black and Bold expresses these values through their brand voice on social media. Meet you in the next video.