LinkedIn describes its voice in concrete terms. Anyone reading the guidelines can imagine one specific colleague they’d keep in mind when they write for the brand.

2. Guidelines for Everyday Words & Phrases

Your team will use many words and phrases most days, such as times, dates, greetings, and company descriptions. These can all be expressed slightly differently, for example:

• Our meeting will be on Monday, 12 June at 14:30; or
• Our meeting will be on 12 June at 2:30 PM.

You want to achieve a consistent brand voice and style across all types of content you produce – from multichannel marketing campaigns to individual, two-line emails. Help your team communicate consistently by creating a company style for these phrases and including them in your brand voice guidelines. This guidance may feel a bit granular or ‘in the weeds,’ but little things add up and contribute to your overall brand consistency.

For example, the BBC has an extensive style guide that allows its journalists to “demonstrate the highest standards of English” and ensure “accuracy, fairness and impartiality”:

Providing guidelines for using everyday words and phrases helps to develop your company’s own style. It enables employees to communicate confidently, without worrying about whether they’re describing something in the right way.

3. Guidelines for Different Types of Content

Your employees create many types of content, with different people and teams responsible for each piece. If your brand voice guidelines include guidance tailored to different types of content, it will help your employees achieve consistency across content types and departments.

The University of Dundee includes guidelines for different types of writing in its brand style guide.

This example clearly explains who the target audience is for each type of content and the appropriate tone of voice to use. It also includes a practical example to demonstrate how to use different tones for the content types.

These guidelines show how to adapt your tone of voice to different types of content. They turn your brand voice and tone from something abstract into something tangible.

4. Guidelines for Different Channels

Your team creates content for lots of different channels, like email and social media. The content format and tone will be very different in a blog post, an email newsletter, a 280-character message on Twitter, or an image caption on Instagram.

Your brand voice guidelines should help your team create content that’s recognizably ‘you,’ even across different channels. So you should include specific guidelines for creating content for different marketing channels. For example, Mailchimp’s content style guide has a section on content for social media.

Mailchimp’s style guide provides examples of what to publish on its social channels. It also has guidelines to help its content creators write social media posts.

5. Company-Specific Words & Phrases

Words relating to your company – like your company name or tagline – are the most important ones to communicate consistently. You should include a list of them in your brand voice guidelines so that everyone on your team knows how to use the words and phrases that are most important to your company.

Other examples include brand messaging, the name of your products or features, and the names of high-profile team members who represent your brand, such as your CEO.

These company-specific words are essential for building brand and name recognition in the market. But if your employees are inconsistent with how they write your product names or company tagline, it looks unprofessional and creates a negative impression of your brand.

Greenpeace’s style guide contains a section on how to describe Greenpeace and its work.

It includes different variations of the company’s tagline so employees can choose the version that best fits their needs based on space or character constraints. In your brand voice guidelines, you could include similar guidance on product names and descriptions.

6. Glossary of Common Terms

There are lots of other words that aren’t specific to your company but that you might use a lot in brand communications, such as content marketing materials and press releases. These frequently used terms relate to your industry, technology, or field of expertise rather than everyday phrases.

For example, we have a common words section in our brand guidelines. The section includes a short definition and how to pronounce each word.

You should include a section like this in your brand voice guidelines to ensure all your employees understand the industry-specific or technical terms you use a lot and can confidently use them in their own messages. This glossary can also become a cheat sheet that you can share with new employees during onboarding. This will help them get up to speed on your industry and familiarize themselves with your company’s internal language.

7. Dos & Don’ts

Companies often have dos and don’ts to show you how to use the visual elements of their brand, like logos and design assets. You can do the same with your brand voice to show examples of on-brand and off-brand voice and tone.

Sunrun provides do and don’t guidance in its Brand Guidelines to help its team understand how to communicate its brand values in its content.

Including dos and don’ts in your brand voice guidelines will help employees see the difference between on-brand and off-brand content. It will give them the confidence to spot when their content is drifting off-brand. The don’ts – examples of what not to do when creating content in your brand voice – are particularly useful because they provide specific examples and guidance about what isn’t in keeping with your brand voice and tone.

8. Practical Examples

Practical examples help turn your brand voice from something abstract into something real. So your brand voice guidelines should include real examples of your brand voice in lots of different types of content. Providing your employees with a point of reference will give them the confidence to create similar content in your brand voice.

Monzo includes real examples in its tone of voice guidelines.