This document summarizes a presentation on developing an organizational voice for social media. It discusses identifying the organization's mission and audience, researching to understand them, and determining the appropriate tone, language, content and frequency of posts. It provides examples of social media voices and emphasizes the importance of consistency, timeliness, speaking directly to the audience, and using style guides to manage the voice.
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Agenda!
This course teaches the importance of a strong organizational
voice and how to communicate your organizationʼs value
through social media.!
Topics covered:!
• Voice fundamentals!
• Identifying your mission and audience!
• Identifying your voice!
• Social media voice best practices!
• Examples of social media voices!
• Managing your voice!
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Why social media voice matters!
Social media requires organizations to
communicate more rapidly in conversational
contexts!
Challenges of social media:!
• Rapid communication!
• Constant changes require new processes and
training!
• Multiple formats feature unique benefits and
challenges!
• Blogs!
• Twitter!
• Facebook!
• YouTube!
Barack Obama communicating on Facebook
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Your voice self!
A clear organizational voice requires a deep understanding of your
mission and audience!
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Who are you?!
Your voice must accurately reflect your
organization and its mission!
Answer these questions to ensure that your
voice is authentic and deliberate:!
• Are you representing an agency or program?!
• What is your mission?!
• What unique information do you have to offer?!
• Why are you speaking?!
• Why do you want people to subscribe to your
updates?!
• How long will your organization exist?!
Know thyself!
Japanese woman with mirrors
from George Eastman House on Flickr
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Research!
Perform research to gain a better understanding of your organization and audience!
Internal research methods! Audience research methods!
Stakeholder interviews! Site traffic analysis!
Online surveys! Online surveys!
Competitive analysis! Focus groups!
Content audits! Ethnographies!
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What language do you speak?!
Your language depends upon your audience
and mission !
Consider the following: !
• Does your mission require you to speak a
particular language?!
• Does a significant portion of your audience
speak a particular language?!
• Is your audience diverse and large enough to
mix languages?!
• Would you benefit from creating a new
communication channel in a particular
language?!
The White House has a widely varied audience
and communicates in a variety of languages
GobiernoUSA.gov exists specifically to
serve a Spanish speaking population
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Plain language or jargon?!
Use jargon if your audience will benefit from
it, but always write clearly!
• Use language and terminology that is
meaningful to your audience!
• Clear and direct language is always good, but
jargon is not inherently bad! What? This message is not intended for me. That’s OK.
The Argonne National Lab communicates
in plain language about technical topics
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What do you talk about?!
Communicate value by providing useful
information to your audience!
Common types of content:!
• News updates!
• Research findings!
• Public service announcements!
• Emergency notifications!
This was the best I could come up with
Ostrich reads newspaper of caretaker
From Nationaal Archief on Flickr
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Your social media voice!
Adopting social media requires you to communicate faster, more
personably, and more directly with your audience!
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Be authentic!
Stay true to your mission and audience!
• Your audience has certain expectations of
you. Meet them. !
• Using social media should not change your
objectives or core content!
• Do not confuse your audience by sounding
like a different organization on different
channels!
Honest Abe
Abraham Lincoln, January 8, 1864
From The Library of Congress on Flickr
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Be more social!
Social contexts require that you sound more…!
• Casual – Your social media communications will
be mingled with personal messages from usersʼ
friends and family. Try to fit in.!
• Human – Social media are designed primarily to
allow people to socialize with people. !
• Concise – Your content on social media outlets
is forced to compete with countless personal
messages, jokes, and games. Get to the point. !
The White House competes
with baby pictures on Facebook
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Speak directly to your audience!
Use social media to speak directly to your
audience in their language!
• Social media allows you to communicate directly
with your audience, without going through
traditional media organizations!
• Traditional media may gather leads from your
social media communications, but always cater
to your primary audience!
• Posting too many press releases and other self
serving updates may alienate some users and
damage your reputation!
A librarian's assistant telling a story
from New York Public Library on Flickr
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Be consistent but flexible!
A consistent voice allows your followers and
fans to build a relationship with you over time!
• People typically subscribe to your social media
updates through an RSS feed or by “following”
or becoming a “fan.” Maintaining a consistent
voice over time will foster loyalty from your
subscribers.!
• You cannot anticipate or control the makeup of
your audience. Be prepared to adapt your voice
to your followersʼ needs as you learn more
about them.!
Be like a river, steady but adaptable
Deschutes River horseshoe
From Oregon State University Archives on Flickr
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Avoid social media jargon!
Social media may require some
abbreviations and new syntax, but being
understood is paramount!
• Always aspire to write clearly within restraints !
• Do not assume that your audience is as savvy
as you are!
• Being understood is paramount!!
This was ironic and embarrassing
Found via Kathy Sierra
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Social media voice best practices!
• Be authentic!
• Be timely and relevant!
• Be more social!
• Speak directly to your audience!
• Be consistent but flexible!
• Being understood is paramount!!
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Blogs!
Blog posts allow for long, rich
communication!
• Long prose provides plenty of room to
demonstrate personality and provide rich
information!
• Conversational prose can lead to inflated and
rambling paragraphs. Avoid this because your
readers are likely distracted by other tasks,
emails, and browser windows.!
• Remember William Strunk, Jr.ʼs axiom:
“Vigorous writing is concise.”!
TSA’s Blogger Bob has a great voice
http://www.tsa.gov/blog
30. 30!
Updates & tweets!
Facebook and Twitter updates require
vigorous writing!
• Character restraints on Twitter and Facebook
require careful editing and precise word choice !
• Each update should be focused on a single
topic!
• Social media updates are forced to compete
with a lot of other information, make yours
clear and valuable!
• Short form communication is here to stay!
• Remember that users are commonly
annoyed by too frequent posting!
Tweets have a hard time standing out
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Video, photos & podcasts!
Language used to describe multimedia
content should match your voice!
• Strengthen your multimedia content with clear
and explanatory titles and descriptions!
• Remember your audience when writing titles
and descriptions!
• What do they need to know about your
content?!
• Why does your content matter to them?!
• Seek to use keywords in titles and descriptions
to facilitate discovery through search!
Content titles and descriptions and video scripts
are opportunities to reinforce your voice
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Styleguides!
Styleguides and editorial guidelines help
maintain a consistent voice by training and
unifying staff!
• Styleguides need executive support to be
effective!
• Create styleguides that address issues unique
to your organization!
• Styleguides should not be rule books!
• It is ok to leverage existing 3rd party
styleguides!
• USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov have created
guidelines specifically for social media
outreach!
The best journalists appreciate that
writing well is not a tiresome duty but a
necessity. This guide is intended as a
small contribution to achieving that end.
It is, though, just what is says it is – a
guide. It is not a collection of rules and
regulations. It is not a dictionary and it
is not a list of what is acceptable and
what is not. The aim is to stimulate
thought and to highlight areas of
potential difficulty.
From Why does the BBC need a style guide?
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Practice, practice, practice!
Your voice will develop over time with
practice!
• The relatively high volume of communication
required by social media provides many
opportunities to develop your voice!
• Stay focused on your mission and your
audience!
• Good writing is good social media writing, so
practice writing!!
Clear writing leads to clear thinking. You
don't know what you know until you try
to express it. Good writing is partly a
matter of character. Instead of doing
what's easy for you, do what's easy for
your reader.
— Michael A. Covington, Professor of Computer
Science at The University of Georgia
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Styleguide resources!
Free styleguides available online!
• The Economist Style Guide!
http://www.economist.com/research/StyleGuide/!
• The BBC News Style Guide!
http://www.bbctraining.com/styleguide.asp!
• Wikipedia Manual of Style!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style!
Email me at jed@capturagroup.com
for a copy of the latest USA.gov and
GobiernoUSA.gov social media editorial
guidelines.!
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Writing resources!
Some of my favorite writing resources!
• WebContent.gov – Writing for the Web!
http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/managing_content/
writing_and_editing.shtml!
• PlainLanguage.gov!
http://www.plainlanguage.gov/!
• The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr.,
and E. B. White, 1918 !
• Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples,
1932!
• Politics and the English Language by George
Orwell, 1946!
• Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy, 1985!
• Copyblogger !
http://www.copyblogger.com/!
Good writing is timeless