As 2022 comes to a close, I’ve been thinking more about how I can expand my freelance writing business in the new year. I recently realized what a big problem it is that I don’t have any public social media profiles for my business. For the four years I’ve been self-employed, I’ve simply used my personal LinkedIn page and Facebook profile to generate work.
I know that it’s crucial for businesses to be active on social media if they want to build a loyal client base, so I’m planning to rectify this issue in 2023. But I know that simply posting on Facebook and Instagram a few times a week isn’t enough—I need to develop social media guidelines for my business first.
Why Your Business Needs Social Media Guidelines
In this day and age, customers want to connect with the businesses they follow and get to know brands through their social media pages. So as small business owners, we need to ensure that our posts have a consistent brand voice. Creating a social media style guide that you and your employees can follow will help ensure your company’s personality shines through in everything you post.
Another reason your company needs concrete social media guidelines is because employees are increasingly active on social media. According to Business Insider, many employees are becoming “workfluencers” and sharing details about their jobs and employers on their personal accounts.
Instead of trying to prevent your employees and contractors from discussing work online, marketing experts suggest you collaborate with them. Provide them with guidelines on what they can and can’t say online and how to best represent your brand. Then they can act as ambassadors for your business and spread your brand message to new audiences.
For all of these reasons, I’m currently putting together social media guidelines for my business. If you want to join me in leveling up your social media in 2023, here are some tips to help you put together your own style guide.
How to Create Social Media Guidelines For Your Business
Define Your Brand Voice
The first step to creating social media guidelines is defining your brand voice, which is how you want your company to sound in your posts. If you currently have a brand guide for your blog or website, you can probably carry that style over to your social media accounts with a few tweaks.
Social media tends to be less formal than blog content and website copy. Most companies use emojis, slang, and abbreviations in their social media posts to make their content more relatable and approachable, so keep that in mind as you’re editing your content guidelines for social media.
However, if you don’t have any kind of content style guide and you’re starting from scratch, it’s helpful to choose a few adjectives you’d use to describe your ideal brand voice, such as:
- Trustworthy
- Sarcastic
- Funny
- Upbeat
- Compassionate
- Intelligent
- Youthful
- Helpful
- Punny
- Relatable
- Quirky
Once you have a few adjectives picked out, you can use them to flesh out a full description of your brand voice. For example, say you want your brand to come across as trustworthy and your customer base is mainly young women. You may define your brand voice as “a trustworthy, stylish, cool-girl older sister or best friend who our customers can look up to.” The more detailed you can be with this description, the better!
Vicky Monroe is a freelance personal finance and lifestyle writer. When she’s not busy writing about her favorite money saving hacks or tinkering with her budget spreadsheets, she likes to travel, garden, and cook healthy vegetarian meals.