Understanding Voice and Tone When Creating Content

How your content sounds to your readers or listeners is one of the most important parts of your brand's identity. That's why ensuring content meets your company's voice and tone is a key part of the editing process. A voice helps you build relationships and trust with your audience. It helps add authenticity and defines the personality behind your brand throughout all of your content. ​

​It's also a critical factor for creating consistency across communication channels, regardless of who creates the content. Brands with a strong voice will sound the same on social media, email communications, and blog posts — even if three different teams create content for those channels. It helps consumers remember and relate to your brand. That's why it's important for editors to determine whether the content they're reviewing aligns with their brand voice in terms of what they stand for, what makes them unique, and who their market persona is. Whether your company's voice is casual, clever, humorous, professional, or another personality type, voice is key.​

​Let's use the company REI as an example. They're an outdoor apparel company devoted to encouraging people to explore the outdoors. They even promote their hashtag, #OptOutside, to support their mission. Imagine you're a top fan of their brand because their content is simple to understand and welcoming, so it boosts your confidence to participate in outdoor activities. But, they recently hired a new writer for their blog who uses lesser-known industry jargon and advanced technical terms, making them sound pompous, and leaving you confused and hesitant to #OptOutside — the opposite of what their voice is meant to do. It's your role as an editor to spot this type of misalignment and work with the writer to ensure their content speaks to the brand voice and speaks to your users. The last thing you want is for your audience to second guess who you are and who you're for.​

​With voice comes tone. Tone is how you express yourself and your company's voice. This includes the words you choose and the order in which you put them, and it applies to all the content you deliver — website content, social media posts, emails, and any other formats. It can vary depending on the content, but identifying the right tone will always depend on your user, your message, and its purpose. Consider the user's context, like their background, goal, and current mood for each piece of content. You need to ask: ​

• ​What is the purpose of this content? ​

• ​Who am I writing to, how do they feel, and what do they want to understand? ​

• ​​Is this tone appropriate for the situation, given the context?​

• ​​Is this language my user would use?​

​​Let's continue with the REI example. Imagine you're the editor and the blog team is ready to publish a few blog posts about outdoor safety tips to help prevent wildfires in the summer and avalanches in the winter. These are serious topics that could save lives and the environment. It's likely individuals who click these posts are highly concerned with safety and are looking for direct tips. As you begin to edit this content, you realize the tone isn't appropriate for the context. It's humorous, sarcastic, and it downplays the importance of outdoor safety and the severity of its consequences. Instead, it should be sincere, direct, and emphasize the points made. This is an example of the tone not considering the context and when the content needs to be re-written. ​

​Editors need to be able to determine which tone best supports the content and course-correct the elements that don't. You can either provide direct edits, or you can leave suggestions on how the content should be changed. ​

​Now, let's review a brand whose voice is witty and whose tone clearly captures that. Spotify is a well-known music streaming app who uses their Twitter (now known as X) account to keep their followers up-to-date on the latest releases. Their wit shines through via their short posts that are a play on words related to the artist and song they're promoting. In this first example, "Tip your hats" is playing off the fact that the artist is a country music star and wearing a Stetson hat. And in this second example, "Game, set" is referring to the artist wearing a tennis outfit and holding a tennis racket. Both examples are consistent in that even though they have different context, they both speak to Spotify's voice and tone.​

​Remember, it's always important to consider your target audience and buyer personas during the editing process by thinking about whether the content's voice and tone will resonate with them. This will keep your company's content consistent across channels, helping you to build relationships and trust with your audience.