What is a style guide?
A style guide for social media is a guideline that outlines the grammar, language, the tone and style of your brand’s presence on different social media platforms. If there’s an organization that who you like on social networks and whose posts are consistently well-known, they probably have the style guide they use for every post they make. That means they’re operating according to a set of rules that are consistent with their branding style and tone of voice.
If you already have a brand guidelines already, then it could be an excellent starting point to begin your style guide for social media.
Why would you need one?
One of the most significant and compelling reasons to have a style guide for social media is to maintain consistency. An individual or a company who uses different styles, styles or tone across social media sites could turn off or confuse the audience and come across as inefficient or non-professional. Having your brand’s voice consistent across every social media platform helps to stand out, and create an effective relationship with your followers.
What are the things you’ll need prior to begin
Like any other task, research is the best way to begin. It’s beneficial to focus on the fundamentals that you need to know, like:
- The image of your brand What do your customers or potential followers imagine when they look at your company’s name? What do they expect from you? What’s your tone of speech?
- Choose your platforms What platforms are you going to be using? Would you choose to use professional channels like LinkedIn or go to the image-based platform of Instagram? Or is it mixed? Which one do you think would best serve your brand’s image as well as its audience?
- Competitors How do they communicate their message? What is their approach to their customers on topics like handling complaints as well as making statements? Are there any jokes?
- Take pictures of examples! An excellent place to start is to gather images of the posts you enjoy. Make sure you have a variety of different types of content like texts, images, videos GIFs, and other types of content as well as posts for every social media platform, to observe how brands create content on every platform.
Remember that if your company already has an established branding identity then it’s important to reference it when designing imagery and writing for consistency throughout media. If you’ve already got a style guide, make use of it as a base to guide your social media strategy specifically for things like video and image formats, or the color scheme and font selections.
Create your social media style guide
After you’ve finished your research, it’s time to begin to put together your plan! This is the time to consider and decide on the language, communication and the content that you will use for your social media channels.
Social media accounts
Check out all of those social networks you use. This will make it easier to keep the track of all your accounts, and also which usernames you have. Not only your posts that need to be consistent. If your usernames are also consistent this will allow users to locate your account on every platform.
Examine whether any suffixes might be utilized, like @brand_name_US. Such suffixes could help users in the event that there are several global locations within your company. It lets your company focus on a specific market, and also allows your customers to connect with your brand to provide customer service.
The content you want to define
Once you’ve figured out each social network account you’ve got now is the time to decide the type of content you’ll share on each one. For instance, job announcements could be only for LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. However, behind-the-scenes postings could only be appropriate for Instagram. Maybe what you write on TikTok isn’t something you’d like to publish on Facebook and Twitter.
Take note of the character limits for every platform within your Style Guide. If there isn’t an upper limit on characters, it does not mean that you can’t include one to your style guide to social media. It could be that your Facebook posts can be as long as the maximum of two paragraphs. On Instagram, can be as short as one sentence, and one or two emojis is enough.
It’s also a great place to keep track of all dimensions of social media images and how you’d like your pictures to appear. For instance using vibrant colors for your brand’s background when posting product images which is related to giveaways, or using darker backgrounds when you post evergreen content and items.
Brand language
How do you speak regarding your company’s image? How do you address your employees? Make a list of key phrases or phrases that define your business and brand. It could be the way you create your company’s name, for instance, at 99designs, the name is lowercase ‘d instead of 99designs or 99 designs. Then there’s the word that concisely describes your business, what’s the word? What time and when will it be published?
Tone and voice
This is the type of tone you want your followers to recognize. It is helpful to brainstorm keywords. starting point to establish an overall tone and style for instance the attitude of your brand might be humorous and irreverent. Or even cheeky. Perhaps a more restrained professional, professional approach is the best. It’s all about your industry and your image as a brand. For that check out how to Instagram for Business.
It’s important to ensure that the style you select is compatible effectively across your selected social media platforms. Does your personality fit well on LinkedIn and Instagram? How can you get your fun personality to shine on LinkedIn? It could require adjusting for certain situations, such as tining it down to make it appear more
Check out Tony’s Chocolonely above. The social media posts they post communicate their values and message. In their Facebook as well as Twitter posts, there is an adjustment in size, however the most important issue is that the message, tone and value are the same.
Inclusive language
It is important to consider the way we communicate, and how we refer to people and whom we mention in our communications. For instance, don’t call an entire group of people “guys” and choose gender-neutral terms. It is best to begin to think about and determine the ways your language can be inclusive instead of trying to juggle later to incorporate it into.
Grammar, spelling and punctuation
Do you usually employ the Oxford comma in your writing? Do you prefer American spelling or British spelling? Be sure to define it in your style guide for social media. There is no need to write each spelling Just putting it the style guidelines for your social networks that you are using American spelling is sufficient.
This applies to punctuation and grammar too. Choose a style guide such as that of the Associated Press Stylebook or the Chicago Manual of Style. You can then modify or alter your style guide for social media when you discover something in the style guides that is different from your preferences or isn’t in line with your brand, tone or tone.
Emojis
Emojis are becoming a frequent feature, and are currently used by a huge portion of companies. They’re frequently employed to mark or illustrate and could be useful in making your posts stand out.Also check what social media pays the most.
In this case, Headspace, a meditation application, frequently utilizes emojis on their Instagram posts, making them an integral part in their content. This shows their casual approach to life. As with the written language, ensure that the emojis that you choose are representative of your brand’s character.
Hashtags
Hashtags are a part of social media. They’re almost an absolute necessity since they’re an effective method to let users find your company. In the event that your brand is certified vegan and you’re using it as hashtag, anyone looking for that hashtag could locate your brand and your product!
It’s also a great method to accumulate posts related to specific campaigns and products users can quickly look up and access other reviews or posts about your business or product.
It is also possible to take advantage of the influence that a trending hashtag could bring. Be careful, but do not use the most popular or trending hashtags when it doesn’t match your company’s brand or product. This will appear insensitive and make customers turn away.
Always make sure you check the hashtags you select to make use of to promote a campaign or to promote your product. It is impossible to know who else uses the hashtag and what they are using it for.
Start your social media style guide
Now it’s time to put together your official style guide for social media! Remember that this isn’t the all-encompassing guide, but it is a great place to start to set up. From here , you can alter and modify your strategy when new information comes to light. Maybe certain posts don’t perform well and should be changed. Additionally, more social platforms may need being added. Continue to add and refine your style guide as changes are taken.
In the end, it’ll be an important resource that can be added to your brand’s visual identity. It’s an important factor in keeping the same for your followers so they remains connected as well as loyal to the brand.
