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Brand Voice Guidelines — 7 Tips For Polishing Your Brand Voice

Learn how to create engaging brand voice guidelines that resonate with your ideal audience. Create your brand identity and keep it consistent with these tips.

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Introduction

Our text compare tool is a fantastic, lightweight tool that provides plagiarism checks between two documents. Whether you are a student, blogger or publisher, this tool offers a great solution to detect and compare similarities between any two pieces of text. In this article, I will discuss the different ways to use the tool, the primary features of the tool and who this tool is for. There is an FAQ at the bottom if you run into any issues when trying to use the tool.

What makes Originality.ai’s text comparison tool stand out?

Keyword density helper – This tool comes with a built-in keyword density helper in some ways similar to the likes of SurferSEO or MarketMuse the difference being, ours is free! This feature shows the user the frequency of single or two word keywords in a document, meaning you can easily compare an article you have written against a competitor to see the major differences in keyword densities. This is especially useful for SEO’s who are looking to optimize their blog content for search engines and improve the blog’s visibility.

Ways to compare

File compare – Text comparison between files is a breeze with our tool. Simply select the files you would like to compare, hit “Upload” and our tool will automatically insert the content into the text area, then simply hit “Compare” and let our tool show you where the differences in the text are. By uploading a file, you can still check the keyword density in your content.

URL compare

Comparing text between URLs is effortless with our tool. Simply paste the URL you would like to get the content from (in our example we use a fantastic blog post by Sherice Jacob found here) hit “Submit URL” and our tool will automatically retrieve the contents of the page and paste it into the text area, then simply click “Compare” and let our tool highlight the difference between the URLs. This feature is especially useful for checking keyword density between pages!

Simple text compare

You can also easily compare text by copying and pasting it into each field, as demonstrated below.

Features of Originality.ai’s Text Compare Tool

Ease of use

Our text compare tool is created with the user in mind, it is designed to be accessible to everyone. Our tool allows users to upload files or enter a URL to extract text, this along with the lightweight design ensures a seamless experience. The interface is simple and straightforward, making it easy for users to compare text and detect the diff.

Multiple text file format support

Our tool provides support for a variety of different text files and microsoft word formats including pdf file, .docx, .odt, .doc, and .txt, giving users the ability to compare text from different sources with ease. This makes it a great solution for students, bloggers, and publishers who are looking for file comparison in different formats.

Protects intellectual property

Our text comparison tool helps you protect your intellectual property and helps prevent plagiarism. This tool provides an accurate comparison of texts, making it easy to ensure that your work is original and not copied from other sources. Our tool is a valuable resource for anyone looking to maintain the originality of their content.

User Data Privacy

Our text compare tool is secure and protects user data privacy. No data is ever saved to the tool, the users’ text is only scanned and pasted into the tool’s text area. This makes certain that users can use our tool with confidence, knowing their data is safe and secure.

Compatibility

Our text comparison tool is designed to work seamlessly across all size devices, ensuring maximum compatibility no matter your screen size. Whether you are using a large desktop monitor, a small laptop, a tablet or a smartphone, this tool adjusts to your screen size. This means that users can compare texts and detect the diff anywhere without the need for specialized hardware or software. This level of accessibility makes it an ideal solution for students or bloggers who value the originality of their work and need to compare text online anywhere at any time.

Few things have the power to set you apart from your competition quite like your brand voice. After all, when it comes to content marketing, standing out includes not just what you say, but how you say it. 

Whether you’re writing a press release or a social media post, being consistent with your messaging across every channel and platform is a must. 

To help you keep your content on-brand across every post and page, we’ve developed this step-by-step guide to creating brand voice guidelines. Plus, get seven tips on how to polish your brand voice.

Short on Time? Here’s What’s in This Article:

  • Key questions to ask yourself to develop your brand voice.
  • How to audit your existing content in order to determine how you’re currently communicating.
  • How to define your brand voice and make sure it attracts your ideal customer.
  • Tips on how to polish and refine your brand voice.

What Is Your Brand Voice?

Your brand voice is the “personality” of your business that you communicate to others. Your brand is much more than your logo or slogan; instead, it’s a combination of your voice and values in a way that’s consistent and, over time, easily recognizable. 

To determine your brand voice, there are a few questions you should ask yourself. 

Think of this exercise as taking the first steps toward sketching out what kind of “persona” you want to convey to your audience or ideal customer. 

Once you identify your brand voice, it’s something you can consistently highlight in content briefs, to encourage consistent communications.

Questions to Ask to Identify Your Brand Voice

First, consider: What is your brand?” and “What do I want to be known for?” 

It seems like a basic question but it’s meant to go deeper. 

Example: A hypothetical cosmetics brand may prioritize eco-friendly beauty. 

Considering not just what your brand is, but what you want to be known for will provide you with a goalpost to evaluate how well your brand voice meshes with the audience you’re looking to attract.

If you’re struggling to come up with ideas, start with a blank sheet of paper and add adjectives that describe the personality you want your business to have. 

Is your brand:

  • Innovative
  • Approachable
  • Nostalgic
  • Modern

Write down as many as you can, since you can always revise later. 

Next, ask: “Who is your ideal audience?” 

Example: Going back to the aforementioned cosmetics company, your audience may:

  • Prioritize natural ingredients.
  • Look for sustainable companies that reduce packaging.
  • Search for brands that source ingredients locally.

Identifying who your audience is and what they are most interested in can help you create a niche content strategy that aligns with your brand voice and connects with your readers.

How to Do a Brand Voice Audit

One of the best ways to determine your brand voice is to look at your existing communications

If you’ve already published pieces, such as blog posts, or even internal communications, looking at how you phrase them can help you narrow down your brand voice. 

Ideally, you’ll want to gather material from a variety of different channels, including blog posts, social media posts and customer service emails, to name a few. 

Look at each communication carefully and ask: 

  • Is it consistent across every channel? 
  • Does it accurately relay what you want the brand to reflect? 
  • Is your audience engaging with it?

Example: there’s a significant difference between receiving an email that reads: “Thank you for contacting us. Your inquiry will be processed in 3-5 business days” versus “Hey! Thanks for reaching out! We got your message and you’ll hear back soon!” One relays a more formal tone, while the other is more approachable.

As you do the brand voice audit, make a spreadsheet of important attributes you want your brand voice to have. 

Example: What does “friendly” mean to your brand? What kind of example would denote that? What about “professional”? When you include specific examples, it makes it easier for everyone on your team to understand the style and tone you’re going for. 

How to Develop Tone Guidelines for Different Uses

One of the most challenging parts of developing brand voice guidelines is maintaining them across different channels from social media to web content to customer support.

If your brand voice is approachable and friendly, this should be the tone across all channels from a social media post to a customer support email.

Example: A gourmet coffee brand that projects an image of being friendly, energetic, and helpful. In this scenario, your brand voice might be reflected like this across different mediums:

  • Website Copy: Enjoy the distinctive taste of fresh-roasted coffee beans made by a team that’s as passionate about a good latte as you are.
  • Social Media: Great coffee starts with great beans! What’s your go-to roast on a day like today? 
  • Customer Support: We’re so glad you love your gourmet coffee! Please make sure you spread the word and tell friends and family about your experience by leaving us a review at (Review Site).

How to Train Your Team 

Being consistent with your brand voice means that everyone, at every touchpoint and every stage of interaction with the customer, knows how to properly embody the brand’s voice. This means more than just hosting a one-off workshop or webinar.

Have templates in place that exemplify the brand voice, not just for your website, social media, customer service and email newsletter, but also: 

  • Press releases
  • Video scripts
  • Ad copy
  • Internal communications
  • Slideshows
  • Event Invitations
  • FAQs
  • Proposals
  • Case studies

It’s also a good idea to do periodic content reviews or audits to be sure you’re staying on track with the tone and style across all of your content. 

While you’re periodically auditing content for brand voice you can also use the Originality.ai Site Scanner to identify potential instances of AI text across your website in 1-click. That way you can review areas that may need additional editing to keep brand voice consistent.

Revising and Updating Your Brand Voice

Now, that’s not to say that you can’t ever change the brand voice you’ve created. 

What was popular even a year ago in terms of approach might not connect with your audience the same way today. 

Your audience and trends may change over time and as your business grows, so it’s important to monitor and adapt to these changes. 

A good approach is to collect feedback via surveys and or AI tools to do sentiment analysis and make sure you’re staying on the right track. 

7 Tips For Polishing Your Brand Voice

Now that you’ve got the main foundation set up, it’s time to do a little polishing and refinement. 

These little steps can make a big difference in terms of how your brand is perceived!

1. Consider vocabulary and jargon

Include the words you want to use (for example, saying “clients” versus “customers”). Then, also make a list of words to avoid that don’t align with the brand voice. 

In general, unless your audience is extremely knowledgeable about your product, you should avoid using industry jargon. 

2. Sentence structure

Consider these questions when it comes to sentence structure:

  • Does your brand use short, punchy lines or more descriptive, longer sentences? 
  • Do you typically use active or passive voice when communicating? 

3. Stay aware of passive vs. active voice

The active voice is direct and engaging, speaking directly to your audience. Alternatively, the passive voice can seem more aloof and detached.

4. Grammar structure

Is your brand a proud supporter of the Oxford comma? Is it acceptable to use casual grammar (like starting a sentence with “And” or “But”)? Is there a preferred style for when you’re citing a reference, such as APA or MLA style? 

If you’d like your editorial team to incorporate a grammar checker in their workflow this is also a great spot in your guidelines to note this.

5. Inclusivity and accessibility

No matter what type of brand voice you want to exemplify, it’s always a good idea to use inclusive and accessible language wherever possible. 

That means checking the readability of text while also using language that’s welcoming to all audiences and being mindful of diversity. 

6. Formatting and punctuation

Be consistent in terms of how you want to structure headings, lists and bullet points, as well as the use of emojis in communications.

Clear formatting is also a fantastic way to improve visual readability in web publishing.

7. Offer clarity around AI use

Does your brand incorporate AI in content marketing? With the rapid developments in AI, it’s essential to be clear about how your brand approaches AI use, especially considering that one of the common issues with AI text is that it’s often bland or unengaging.

So, to make sure your brand voice stays consistent and ensure everyone on your publishing team is on the same page it’s essential to highlight AI guidelines.

You can also incorporate a Site Scanner to check web content for potential instances of AI that require further review. That way you make sure that you’re consistently aligning content with brand voice.

Final Thoughts: Getting Started With Your Brand Voice

Creating a brand voice isn’t a “once and done” exercise. It’s more like an ongoing evolution that changes over time with core company values as its anchor. 

By keeping these points in mind and training your team on how to use the brand voice in their own communications, whether that’s through web design, social media posting or PR management, together, you can continue to carry your brand forward and create lasting impressions with your audience. 

Get more insight into content marketing in our top guides:

Sherice Jacob

Sherice Jacob is a seasoned copywriter and content professional fluent in English, Spanish, and Catalan, with over 25 years of experience crafting high-converting copy. Passionate about AI, she enjoys exploring the new innovations and possibilities it brings to the world of content creation.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it important to check for plagiarism?

Tools for conducting a plagiarism check between two documents online are important as it helps to ensure the originality and authenticity of written work. Plagiarism undermines the value of professional and educational institutions, as well as the integrity of the authors who write articles. By checking for plagiarism, you can ensure the work that you produce is original or properly attributed to the original author. This helps prevent the distribution of copied and misrepresented information.

What is Text Comparison?

Text comparison is the process of taking two or more pieces of text and comparing them to see if there are any similarities, differences and/or plagiarism. The objective of a text comparison is to see if one of the texts has been copied or paraphrased from another text. This text compare tool for plagiarism check between two documents has been built to help you streamline that process by finding the discrepancies with ease.

How do Text Comparison Tools Work?

Text comparison tools work by analyzing and comparing the contents of two or more text documents to find similarities and differences between them. This is typically done by breaking the texts down into smaller units such as sentences or phrases, and then calculating a similarity score based on the number of identical or nearly identical units. The comparison may be based on the exact wording of the text, or it may take into account synonyms and other variations in language. The results of the comparison are usually presented in the form of a report or visual representation, highlighting the similarities and differences between the texts.

String comparison is a fundamental operation in text comparison tools that involves comparing two sequences of characters to determine if they are identical or not. This comparison can be done at the character level or at a higher level, such as the word or sentence level.

The most basic form of string comparison is the equality test, where the two strings are compared character by character and a Boolean result indicating whether they are equal or not is returned. More sophisticated string comparison algorithms use heuristics and statistical models to determine the similarity between two strings, even if they are not exactly the same. These algorithms often use techniques such as edit distance, which measures the minimum number of operations (such as insertions, deletions, and substitutions) required to transform one string into another.

Another common technique for string comparison is n-gram analysis, where the strings are divided into overlapping sequences of characters (n-grams) and the frequency of each n-gram is compared between the two strings. This allows for a more nuanced comparison that takes into account partial similarities, rather than just exact matches.

String comparison is a crucial component of text comparison tools, as it forms the basis for determining the similarities and differences between texts. The results of the string comparison can then be used to generate a report or visual representation of the similarities and differences between the texts.

What is Syntax Highlighting?

Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors and integrated development environments (IDEs) that helps to visually distinguish different elements of a code or markup language. It does this by coloring different elements of the code, such as keywords, variables, functions, and operators, based on a predefined set of rules.

The purpose of syntax highlighting is to make the code easier to read and understand, by drawing attention to the different elements and their structure. For example, keywords may be colored in a different hue to emphasize their importance, while comments or strings may be colored differently to distinguish them from the code itself. This helps to make the code more readable, reducing the cognitive load of the reader and making it easier to identify potential syntax errors.

How Can I Conduct a Plagiarism Check between Two Documents Online?

With our tool it’s easy, just enter or upload some text, click on the button “Compare text” and the tool will automatically display the diff between the two texts.

What Are the Benefits of Using a Text Compare Tool?

Using text comparison tools is much easier, more efficient, and more reliable than proofreading a piece of text by hand. Eliminate the risk of human error by using a tool to detect and display the text difference within seconds.

What Files Can You Inspect with This Text Compare Tool?

We have support for the file extensions .pdf, .docx, .odt, .doc and .txt. You can also enter your text or copy and paste text to compare.

Will My Data Be Shared?

There is never any data saved by the tool, when you hit “Upload” we are just scanning the text and pasting it into our text area so with our text compare tool, no data ever enters our servers.

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