08/16/2022
I've been doing some pretty fun work lately, helping an organization find its voice through its content.
Identifying a target audience, setting objectives for that audience, creating a corporate persona with a voice and tone is only the first part of getting your content on track.
To have everyone consistently creating content that is on brand (and we're talking everything from executive speeches, board reports, advertising campaigns and social media posts), it's a great idea to have an editorial style guide.
I've seen a lot of style guides. As a journalist, I can easily recall The Globe and Mail's full binder of "Globe-isms", as well as an editor who would read the paper each day looking for style infractions. You did not want to open your email inbox to learn you've broken a style rule.
This very strict Style Guide led to hilarious errors like its once-inflexible honourific style rule that had the newspaper quoting "Mr. Meatloaf."
Just like the editorial style guide at a news organization, a company or organization can benefit from having a tool that helps multiple content creators with conflicting style preferences (let's say you've outsourced your content to one freelancer with a Dickensenian rhetorical flourish, and another with a penchant for bullet points) find your organization's true north.
Without an editorial style guide, Content Marketing World warns, you’re asking your content teams to reach a destination without a map and compass.
And if content creators don’t know where they’re going or how to get there, CMW advises, you may have to do some explaining to your CMO when their expectations don’t match your outcomes.
Worse, I'd add, your audiences won't ever connect with you and your unfocused, schizophrenic voice and tone.
A style guide doesn't need to be a biblical effort. The best style guides are strategically sharp and brief.
You don't necessarily need a binder of stringent rules, you need a shared understanding across your content team on who your audience is, how you want to sound, some do's and don't's as well as some awesome key words. Generally, we're talking four pages, max.
More tips on style guides on my LinkedIn.
