Latest / #ContentChat / 5/11/26 #ContentChat: Building a Scalable Brand Voice

Transcript

5/11/26 #ContentChat: Building a Scalable Brand Voice · #ContentChat

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Good afternoon and welcome to Content Chat.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Erica Heild, and today we're on the second of our 12-week series where I'm walking you through chapter by chapter my book, Content Foundations.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: So while it's not going to be a word-for-word audiobook recording, I promise you it's going to be a whirlwind tour through everything I cover in the book, with the exception of those templates and prompt examples that just don't lend themselves to extemporaneous conversation, if you know what I'm saying.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so today we're talking through chapter one, defining your brand voice.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know about you, but I've probably worked more places that did not have a fully defined brand voice than I've worked places that did a good job of thinking through how all of those brand visual elements really parlayed themselves into content on a whole, including the way that you communicate with other people and the way that you're that you sound and differentiate yourselves from your competition.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, is that today there's so many people who are using AI without having any of these content foundations in place to help the tools understand who their brand is brand is.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of sameness and genericness out there.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: So that means that when you do take that step and you go from just having those brand style guides that focus on your brand colors and your logo and how to design things, when you take it a step further into thinking through how that's going to turn up with all of your content and communications, that becomes a competitive differentiator and helps people start to build that more trusted relationship with you because they have that consistency, they have that unique perspective and maybe that little bit of spice that you bring to the content you create, which makes it easy for them to recognize hey, that's content from this brand that I already trust that I know is going to be bringing me something worth my time.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the thing is, is that probably in your organization, there probably is somebody who feels like you do have that defined brand voice because they have it in their head.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: I know I've certainly had that situation arise where while nothing was in writing, there was somebody who, with their red pin, sure made sure whenever I wrote something to let me know if something was off brand.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, is that's the worst way to communicate your brand voice.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: You need to actually have documentation that helps any person creating content, whether they're in your organization or if they're a trusted freelancer or an agency or today, AI, you need to have the documentation in order to train them on what makes you uniquely you.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: So what does it mean?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: What do you actually have to do in order to define your brand voice?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, you have to understand what your brand voice actually is.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not just a few pithy words such as, oh, we're disrupting the industry and we're forging a whole new category, we're innovators.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: That is not a brand voice, that is directional, and it's better than nothing, I guess.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: But as somebody who has to write for um a living, you know, that is not a brand voice.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Those are just some pretty words that actually are not going to help anyone understand.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Does this mean I should be casual with my words that I'm using, or should I be very formal?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Am I going to be doing inline citations for this?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or am I going to be putting customer voice in everywhere I go?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: None of that is being given to the person if you just have a few vague thrown-off sentences, or worse yet, three bullet points of those brand traits.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have the documentation in place, you absolutely cannot scale because you can't scale what you have not defined.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: If every piece of content has to go through that one person who is the keeper of the brand voice and they just have it internalized, then that means if that person should ever go on vacation or win the lottery, your brand is going to go back to the starting point, figuring out how to create content that sounds like you.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not, I mean, that's a huge risk.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's not sustainable.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't believe it.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: I can't believe that somebody would make the choice to do that.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but it happens.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, the other issue is a lot of folks don't even have that starting point of having the well-defined brand in the first place.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if that's where you're coming from, you know, take a look at what you do have.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: You probably somewhere within your organization have at least mission, vision, value statement.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: You have what you stand for, what you don't stand for, you have any kind of employee handbook.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: So even if you don't have those brand assets clearly defined as such for marketing, you probably have other things in your organization that can help you, you know, figure out what kinds of messaging really is on brand for you and what are some of the adjectives that would describe that messaging.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And from there, you can start working to create that minimum viable brand voice where you are starting to at least collect and describe the things you already have in place.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when you do that, then you can actually get further along on the path to creating that well-documented brand voice and gaining consensus around it.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're really stuck because you don't feel like you have anything in place and content just sort of gets created, everyone's communications sound like the person who wrote them.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Kate DeLeo was on content chat a while back, and you can find the full conversation in the archives on EricaHill.com and on YouTube in the content chat channel.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Kate had a really simple prompt that could get you started if you're having a conversation with whoever is in charge of marketing, communications, or even your CEO.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's the, you know, if your brand were a person, kind of a framework.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: If your brand were a person, would it be, you know, a cheerleader?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Would it be a specific celebrity?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Would it be a character from a movie?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thinking about who your brand is and who your brand competitors are is really an easy way to start that conversation if you don't have some of those defining characteristics, so that way you can at least start putting the putting together those those thoughts and getting people to start having the conversations necessary to define really well how you want to be turning up in your content so that it's not just random content that sounds like whoever wrote it, especially if you're going to be using any tools like AI for any part of your content uh creation or publishing process.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the worst case scenario for me when I've been in an organization is when I've been asked to be a ghostwriter for an executive.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: I have been asked to ghostwrite for executives that I've never met.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: I've been asked to ghostwrite for executives that I could never get on their calendars with.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really demoralizing because inevitably what happens is well, maybe you get a few minutes of their time, maybe you don't.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you're trying to write something, you look at some things, maybe with their byline on it, or some emails they've sent, and you try to get that rough idea of who they are and what they sound like.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then inevitably, when you send it by that person to review it or to whoever their gatekeeper is, then they vomit all over it and just say, This doesn't sound like me, this is terrible.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, of course, it doesn't sound like you if you've never defined your voice.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Further, your senior executives, your leadership team, their voice is not your brand voice.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to fit within that framework.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to not stand out and be jarringly different than your brand voice.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: But each person on your leadership team is going to have their own unique perspective because they're different people, they have different experiences, and they probably have different areas that they're focused on for thought leadership, that they are going to need to be coming at these things differently to reach different audiences and to maximize achieving your business goals.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't just need to have brand voice defined at the highest level for your brand to guide things like your website, your emails, etc.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: You also need to think through how the personal branding and the personal voice for all of those leaders that are going to be out there speaking and writing and being interviewed on behalf of the organization, how they need to sound.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Once you actually have that kind of framework, that means you're not going to end up with some of those institutional knowledge risks of somebody leaving the organization and all of a sudden nobody knows how things sound or how things do.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And frankly, it's also once you do have these things in place, a brand voice chart and all of the do's and don'ts makes a fantastic onboarding tool.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: It gives the new person on the team confidence that they're going to be able to put forth a really good first effort instead of you setting them up for that, oh gosh, did I make a bad decision to come to this company?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Which is what happens when you're given an assignment, like writing for the CEO on your first or second day of the job, and you get it back where it's you know full of red marks.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants this wants that in their inbox.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so what should you include in your brand voice chart?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first you're going to define personality traits, your brand's personality.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: So pick, you know, as little as three and up to maybe five things that really resonate with you and show how you're different from your competition.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: But you don't just stop there.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: You need to actually define what that treat means specifically to your organization because different people have very different ideas about what words mean.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever looked at a comment section or any kind of a social media feed, you'll see there's so many people who have differences of opinion when it comes to what words mean.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you got to actually take that time to define that trait and also make sure that you're looking at it through the lens of what does this trait mean specifically for creating content in our organization?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: So the example I always give is irreverent.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: I've worked one place that irreverent was an accurate, attainable brand voice trait, and that was at KPBS on Air Magazine where I had my college internship.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was irreverent.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was cheeky even.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: But every other place that I've worked, irreverent has not meant what the dictionary version of irreverent means.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's meant more like, hey, let's use an unexpected example.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Let's use fresh stock photography.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's meant a bunch of things that aren't how I would define irreverent, which is why it's so important to take that time to put that definition into place so that way it's there for whoever is creating content.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Next, you want to add real-world do's and don'ts.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, here again, if you're using ethical as one of your key traits, you might say, do uh make sure that you cite anything that you are inspired by in the creation of some content.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Create, you know, include that citation.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you'd also include, hey, make sure to note when you're using AI and how you've used it, the way that like Christopher Penn does at the top of his newsletter each week.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then you'd also include don'ts, such as don't take somebody else's words and use them as your own without giving them credit.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's something that you see a lot of on social media, and guess what?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: You'll get caught.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: So don't do it.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: But those things you put them in there in the do's and don'ts, so that way you bring those words to life.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: But you don't just stop by putting it into that chart.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: You need to take that chart and make sure it is everywhere that people who are creating content will see it.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you put it in that style guide, you put it into your meeting agendas for anything content-related, you make sure that it is there in any of the AI tools that you use, and you put it at the top of any kind of content submission form.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that way it's part of the process that people are checking to make sure that they are on brand with the content they're creating.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: You just make it absolutely unavoidable that they are aware of the brand voice.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's the payoff if you do all of this?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, it's gonna be a lot faster for people who are trying to create content because they're not going to have to send emails around or dig through dead files to figure out what on earth they're supposed to be doing.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if they're allowed to use certain verbiage or what somebody's supposed to sound like, they're gonna be able to get their work done a lot quicker.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then whoever is editing their work is gonna be able to do so a lot more quickly as well, because it's not going to be a rewrite for brand voice, which is the most boring, boring thing to have to do as a content leader.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to be spending your time on that.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many more important things for you to do.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's also going to give you way better AI outputs because once AI understands fully who you are and how you want to sound, it's able to replicate that.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you just give them some copy and say sound like this, they don't know which part of that copy is what you want to sound like or how it's going to apply to anything else.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't just stop with these little basics.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to actually go forth and spend that time to document your brand voice.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: You'll also have that stronger stakeholder alignment.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: People are not going to be saying, oh, this sounds off-brand.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think we should approve it.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And in the end, it's all in service of creating more recognizable, consistent content for all of the people that you're trying to reach and persuade and build those relationships with.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: So in the book, we also go through some of the biggest brand voice pitfalls.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And those common mistakes include having overly generic traits like friendly.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, great, you're friendly, or here's my favorite.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's brand in the uh 90s was uh professional.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody wanted to sound professional.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Today it's the understated luxury.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, I cannot tell the difference between any of the uh the quiet luxury and understated luxury brands who send me emails about sheets and towels.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: They all look the same, they all sound exactly the same.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: They really should all merge already because they might as well be the same company.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Another mistake I see a ton is those aspirational but unachievable voice goals.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Looking at you, irreverent.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Your typical employee in your customer service team or on your engineering team isn't gonna be able to nail irreverent, so don't put it in there.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Irreverent is a great brand voice trait if you're going to be having professional writers polish every single communication with the public and that they can actually do that.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's probably not gonna be most organizations.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Another mistake is just sounding like everyone else, having unclear guidance for creators and feeling to evolve.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because guess what?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Spoiler alert, you're gonna define this brand voice and it's gonna evolve over time.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna get different examples of what to do and what not to do, and of the voice trait in action, and you're going to be changing it over time as the company's brand changes over time and as the marketplace changes over time.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I personally think that it's worth it because when you have your documented voice, then AI can become that BFF you didn't know that you needed on your content team.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: It is the thing that for me really does unlock the ability to have AI be a collaborator and not just an expediter.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: It gives you the ability to have that consistency at scale because it's taking that approach.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's the first step of taking that approach of training AI like a teammate.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can also use it as a coach.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you've trained AI on your brand voice and you've given it all these examples of what good looks like, then you can say, hey, coach me, grade me, how good of a job did I do on brand, you know, on nailing our brand voice, on reflecting our brand voice in this piece.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: How can I do a better job?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: What can I change to make this stronger?
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that is a whole new use case that so many folks aren't yet using AI for.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: But to me, it is one of the most valuable because I want to become a better content creator.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: I want every piece of content I create to be more on brand than the last.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: And AI is able to help me do that in a way that feels really unthreatening.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: It feels really unthreatening, it feels really helpful, it feels very neutral in a way that even in some of our best workplace relationships, it feels personal frequently when you get feedback about your content creation.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't feel personal when AI gives someone feedback, even if it's the exact same feedback that their human colleague would have given them.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so if you need more support on defining your brand voice, the book goes really in-depth into everything I've talked through here and includes some practical templates and implementation examples, including a brand chart template, showing you how to work through the trades, definitions, do's and don'ts, AI prompt templates for documenting and scaling brand voice, content brief and intake templates, style guide checklists, all sorts of good stuff that will help you document your brand voice and start making it a core part of your content foundation.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: So that way you can be scaling your content with consistency.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Next week, we're going to be diving into chapter two, which is content style guides, why they're one of the most underrated tools for scaling consistent on-brand content across humans and AI.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'll cover the key elements every style guide should include, plus how to turn your guidelines into something people actually use instead of just creating another forgotten PDF to go and die in your SharePoint.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: So if you found today's episode to be useful, please be sure to like and follow so you don't miss any of the upcoming chapters.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, for more content foundations, you can go ahead and visit us at contentfoundationsbook.com.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Catch you next time.