The other day
I asked AI to write something for me
for the very first time.
Now, I’m not saying this to open up the oh-so-topical can of worms that is AI and its role in copywriting. I’ll save my two cents on that topic for another day when I need some cheap engagement bait 😎(kidding.)
Instead, let’s call this an exercise in empathy.
Communication Guidelines
WHAT IT IS
The principles that dictate how your brand delivers information
WHAT IT’S NOT
Your brand’s values. Those are far more important, and you can learn how about to write them here.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
Brand tone determines your brand’s word choice and formatting, but it doesn’t keep it consistent on how it chooses to communicate.
The glorious combination of tone and conversation is a major component in how you differentiate the heck out of your brand.
When it comes to writing communication guidelines, the adjective world is your oyster.
This is the one time you can fire up powerthesaurus.com and go nuts.
Because they’re more subjective, they need to come with a lot of context to be effective.
I write them with both upper and lower boundaries, and a deeper definition.
Here’s the format:
“[this] NOT [this]”
Definition
Communication guidelines exponentially expand the possibilities
of your brand’s voice.
By pushing and pulling on tone and communication guidelines, you can use your brand’s voice to evoke entirely different feelings from an audience and (as a result) have a wildly different relationship with them.
Since we’re officially in the wilds of Lexicon’s methodology, let me show you some examples.
Brand Tone
Concise, Warm, Pragmatic, Accessible.
Communication Guideline
Educational not Scholarly
DEFINITION
“We don’t make assumptions about how much our audience knows about our industry, and we educate them whenever possible.
However, we are careful to make sure our education is practical to their needs, and not hypothetical or navel-gaze-y.”
But now, let me tinker with that a little.
Brand Tone
Concise, Warm, Pragmatic, Accessible.
Communication Guideline
Inspirational not Educational
DEFINITION
“We assume that our target audience has a solid grasp of our industry, and we don’t bore them with fundamentals.
Instead, we push the envelope, introducing new concepts and big ideas in a practical, easy-to-understand format.”
Reader, I could go on. And on. And on.
We hear day in and day out that brands need to be “authentic.”
And since we’ve chewed that word until there’s no more flavor in it, let me rephrase.
We want brands that feel human.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is a very human approach to constructing a brand’s voice.
But the differentiation train doesn’t stop here.
If you really want your brand to leap off the page and capture your audience’s attention?
It has to be genre-defying.
