Biz Tips: How to Create the Ultimate Social Media Style Guide
GROWTH:
How to Create the Ultimate Social Media Style Guide
If you read our post, “Who has time for Social Media Marketing”, you know that a social media style guide is crucial for business success today. It’s the rule book for how social media managers will create messaging on social. It’s similar to a writing style guide or content style guide, and will cut the time you spend debating what to post in half!
There’s a lot of information swimming around on the internet about this topic, and we spent a lot of time sorting through it to piece together a style guide for MINDSCAPE. To save you the time and hassle, we’ve compiled all of the useful tidbits of knowledge we found into one all-encompassing social media style guide with 9 must-have parts.
1. Company Overview
Even if you already think you know this, the new hire might not, so briefly state your company’s mission, vision, unique brand benefit, and anything else you see important. This will help the rest of your style guide to stay in line with your company’s existing goals.
2. Personas
Your social media style guide should start with a clear and detailed description of your buyer personas. Dig into demographics, job roles, goals, challenges, etc. Go beyond their profession into what their hobbies might be or what music they listen to. Research what keywords they use to find you and document those keywords in your guide. Any bit of information will help you reach them on social media!
3. Writing Style/Tone of Voice
Know your brand’s voice. Is it conversational or is it factual? What “language” do your personas best respond to? It’s OK to let your hair down on social media.
People don’t want to be sold to via social media, so keep your tone conversational, not sales-y. A lot of people use social media as an outlet to relieve stress, so give them something light to engage with. Humanize your messages, and don’t take yourselves too seriously!
4. Branding
Get in touch with your design team to see what the design standards are surrounding your brand, specific to social media. (If you don’t already have brand standards for design, you might want to start with a brand style guide) You want your personas to have a seamless brand experience, and the design of your social pages is important to that experience.
The branding that you use on your social media profiles should align with the branding that you use on your company website. Here’s an example of how MINDSCAPE’s website stays consistent with their social channels. Notice how the gradient on the website is displayed in our cover photo and we use our logo as our profile picture.
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