Sunday, March 22, 2009

Your Digital Brand Voice - Humanizing the Printed Word

Kal Turner at Agency.com has offered some rules for finding the right Brand Voice across the newest Social Media. As creative communications professionals, we're all aware of the all important creative brief- the guiding principles for creating a branded identity and roadmap of communications. But marketing across social media- even in the internal sphere i.e. an intranet, means going back to the Branding 1.0 exercises we learned in school.

IF YOUR BRAND WAS A CAR...
In focus groups, we ask these questions to establish a brand personality- are you a Volvo, stable, safe and middle of the road; or a Jaguar - stylish, refined and sophisticated?

Matching your personality to your style of writing is critical in establishing a humanizing brand among your audience.

The Brand Voice of Starbucks is the voice of Brad, who posts on Twitter for them. Here he’s posting a picture of himself with some colleagues, just as any group of friends might do on Twitter.

Brands often go wrong on Twitter by thinking that in order to appeal to a certain demographic segment they need to somehow imitate that group. This is most obvious when brands go after the youth market and awkwardly pepper their language with outdated slang and a tone that is meant to sound ‘trendy’ or ‘urban’.










This post is both conversational, and informative. It’s what you would expect from Capgemini.










This Adobe developer posted about the product he’s working on, and since we’re getting a behind the scenes view of his work, it’s much more compelling than just having the link on its own.

Find Your Brand Ambassadors- they're closer than you think!

Kal cites a tech specialist who constantly improves the image quality of a camera lens. He could explain all the little details that go into creating a perfect image with such enthusiasm that you would be drawn into his world, and a topic you wouldn’t have guessed would be exciting– suddenly is. Adam Denison, “A PR guy at Chevrolet,” talks about cars without always directly promoting Chevrolet products.










Define your company's digital Brand Voice and incorporate it into your Brand style guide. Share it, hone it and spread it. It's as authentic as you make it.

And remember, when you think BRANDing, think BRANDEMiX.
Check out our newly enhanced website. If you haven't been lately, you're in for a treat.
Happy Spring!

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