#SMMW15: The Secret Sauce in Your Content Barbecue

Ann Handley is the author of the book Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content and co-author of the best-selling Content Rules. Cited in Forbes as the most influential woman in social media and recognized by ForbesWoman as one of the top 20 women bloggers, she is chief content officer of MarketingProfs; a columnist for Entrepreneur magazine; a LinkedIn Influencer; a keynote speaker, mom, and writer.

According to Ann, you don’t need more content, but better content. Don’t overlook your brand’s tone of voice – because, hello, that is the coveted secret sauce! Tone of voice is not what you say, but how you say it. Tone of voice reflects your culture, amplifies your story, and communicates empathy.

Culture x Story x Empathy = Tone of voice

Now that you have the sauce, here’s the barbecue:

5 steps to creating a quality, engaging tone of voice

1. You do you. What makes your company unique?
2. Find your words.
3. Reframe them.
4. Write it down.
5. Sweat the small stuff. *Find interesting ways to say boring stuff (the rule of FIWTSSBS) and apply that technique to your company’s about us, popovers/landing pages, microcopy, Instagram captions, and FAQs, for example.

 

Follow Nicole at @WTWH_Nicole.