4. What is your voice?
•what do you want people to hear when they see your tweets/Facebook
posts/blog posts/newsletters?
•brainstorm with others in your organization to come up with a list of words
that describe your brand
•ask your intended audience how they view you
5. tone vs. voice
remember: your personality, or your voice, doesn’t change, but your tone
does. when you’re speaking with your grandmother, you communicate
differently than when you’re talking to a friend. that’s fine for individuals, but
not for brands.
6. Experiment to determine tone and style
Try a few different styles, then look at analytics
•editorial tone vs. one person to speak on behalf of your brand
•personality vs. straight news
•headline vs. conversational intro to stories
7. Look at what others are doing
•follow other news organizations on Facebook and Twitter
•look for similar organizations with like audiences
•copy style of tweets and tone
8. The world’s most perfect tweet, via The Atlantic
•to reach maximum shareability, tweets should include compelling news
expressed in straightforward, not hyperbolic, language
•objective language does just as well as emotional
•shareability is largely a function of reliability
•technology is the most popular and shareable news category
10. Who’s in charge?
•just one person?
•or is it a team effort?
•if the latter, how are you going to communicate with one another to be
mindful about your presence?
11. Once you’ve figured it out, be steady and
consistent
•if it’s a shared responsibility:
• train others using social networks on behalf of your org
•use Buffer
12. Develop style guide
•address frequency of updates on each site
•fill out profiles completely and consistently
•discuss appropriate tone and language (formal vs. informal, slang,
abbreviations)
•how often are you tweeting your own vs other organizations’ stories?
•what can you reply to or retweet?
•what hashtags can/should you use?
•what is your policy on following people?
