How can you use brand tone to reflect company values?

1 Define your brand values

Before you can craft your brand tone, you need to be clear on what your brand stands for and what makes it unique. Your brand values are the core beliefs and principles that guide your actions and decisions, and should be in line with your mission, vision, and goals. To define your brand values, consider questions such as: what is your purpose and why do you exist? What benefits and value do you offer to your audience? What emotions and feelings do you want to evoke in your audience? How do you want to be perceived and remembered by your audience? Once you have a better understanding of your brand values, use them as a foundation for your brand tone.

2 Choose your brand tone attributes

Your brand tone attributes are the adjectives that describe how you want to sound in your content. They should reflect your brand values and personality, and match the expectations and preferences of your audience. For example, if your brand value is innovation, you might choose attributes like creative, bold, and visionary. If your brand value is trust, you might choose attributes like reliable, honest, and helpful.

To choose your brand tone attributes, you can use a brand tone matrix, which is a tool that helps you map out different dimensions of tone, such as formal vs. casual, serious vs. humorous, or respectful vs. irreverent. You can also look at examples of other brands in your industry or niche that have a similar or different tone, and analyze what works and what doesn't for them.

4 Test and measure your brand tone

To make sure that your brand tone is effective and resonates with your audience, you need to test and measure it regularly. This means that you need to collect and analyze feedback from your audience, such as comments, reviews, ratings, surveys, or interviews, and see how they respond to your content and tone. You also need to track and monitor your content performance, such as traffic, conversions, retention, or loyalty, and see how your tone impacts your content marketing goals and metrics.

To test and measure your brand tone, you can use tools like Google Analytics, Hotjar, or BuzzSumo to gather and visualize your data, and identify what works and what doesn't for your content and tone. You can also use tools like CoSchedule Headline Analyzer or Emotional Marketing Value Analyzer to evaluate and improve your headlines and titles, and see how they affect your click-through rates and emotional appeal.

5 Review and update your brand tone

Your brand tone is not a static or fixed element of your content marketing strategy. It is a dynamic and evolving one, that should adapt to the changes in your brand, audience, and market. Therefore, you need to review and update your brand tone periodically, and make sure that it is still relevant, consistent, and authentic. You also need to train and educate your content team, and ensure that they understand and follow your brand tone guidelines and standards.

To review and update your brand tone, you can use tools like Brandwatch or Mention to monitor your brand reputation and sentiment, and see how your audience perceives and reacts to your tone. You can also use tools like Loomly or CoSchedule to manage your content calendar and workflow, and ensure that your content is aligned with your tone and goals.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?