Branding and consistency are essential for any company, but does that mean that you need the same voice and tone across social media platforms? Take a look at the breakdown of what you need to consider when adjusting your social media presence depending on your platform of choice.
Voice & Tone
First things first, let’s get down to what voice and tone really mean. Voice refers to who is doing the talking. Is it you (using “I”), or is it us (using “we”)? For branding, choosing a voice and sticking with it is essential so your content has flow, and clients can feel like they’re getting to know the people behind the brand. Tone, on the other hand, is the emotion conveyed by the text. Is your brand super-duper up-beat and excited?! Or are you striving for a more cool, confident, and professional existence? The tone will let your audience determine who you’re trying to be.
Determine Your Audience
The tone of your posts are greatly influenced by both your company's brand and your audience. To start, you'll need to get a handle on who should be seeing your messages (aka your demographic). If you know who you’re posting to, you can quickly narrow down where and how to post it. Advertising on Twitter, posting jobs on Snapchat, or using short, sassy quips on LinkedIn will significantly diminish the views you get and, therefore, traffic to your site. It’s more than okay to post on all these platforms and stay true to your overall company brand, but make sure your posts resonate with your audience. You need to tailor your tone to match.
Posting Schedule
Each social media platform also has a sweet spot for how often you should post. This is based on your presence on the platform, as well as its overall algorithm. Up to ten times a day for story-based or board-based platforms such as Snapchat and Pinterest will serve you just fine. However, if you're posting the same on something like Instagram, you'll be slowing down traffic and views.
This is a handy little article to help you discover the best posting schedule for your platforms of choice.
Type of Information
Lastly, the type of information you’re posting about will help you figure out which tone and platform you want to use. News on Instagram can come out as a snappy caption with an intriguing photo engaging users to click on your bio and read an article. On the other hand, news on Twitter should be short, informative, and to the point. LinkedIn leaves a bit more room for an informative ramble, where users can stay in one spot to get everything they need or click to read further. This is an excellent insights list to deep dive into what kinds of posts trend on which platform, as well as who you’ll target by using them.
Here’s a quick lowdown on some of the major platforms, their demographic, and your overall tone:
LinkedIn: Professional, informative, young and seasoned professionals.
Facebook: Ads, news, older generation with more money to spend.
Instagram: Ads, videos, younger generation.
Twitter: News, higher-earners, informative, quick.
Sound complicated and time-consuming? It doesn’t have to be. Here at Ghostit, we can adjust the tone for each platform based on your business’ brand and schedule the posts for you — all you have to do is give us the green light.
