This is my voice and my tone.
This is my voice.
This is my tone. Hey, everyone.
My name is Chris Duarte and today we're talking about voice.
And tone.
What is it?
Why does it matter?
What's the difference?
Let's go over the basics,
and then I'll give you five tips
that we use here at Salesforce
that you can take to build out a voice
and tone program for your business.
Now, this is a new series
we're calling Salesforce on Salesforce.
It's a look at our marketing,
sales and service businesses
with helpful tips on topics
like how to launch a product,
how to engage your sales team,
how to deliver self-service and more.
Now, voice and tone
are one of the most important investments
that you'll make in your company's brand
and having a clear and well-defined
voice and tone that you apply
consistently across the content.
You make That's one of the strongest ways
to reach and engage your audience.
Now, if you're new to voice and tone,
the first thing you need to understand
is that voice and tone are two different things.
Your voice is a reflection of your brand.
It's an expression of your personality and your values.
And your tone is the feeling and emotion of your words.
It's the way you express yourself.
So right now you're hearing my voice, which
quite frankly, probably sounds a little like Trailhead.
That's the product I work on here at Salesforce.
I try to be direct, honest, and helpful.
Occasionally. I'm a little bit weird.
Hopefully all of that is coming through the tone I'm using for this video.
It's informal and courteous and upbeat.
I'm not normally in front of a camera, so I'm dialing it up a little bit,
but this is still genuinely me.
A company's voice and tone works the same way.
Their voice aligns with their brand,
personality and values and their tone.
That's the way they express themselves.
Now a company is voice shouldn't change
unless there's a rebrand in the works,
but a company's tone, it changes all the time
it has to for each audience and situation.
We need to revisit our tone.
The way we say something in a blog
is different than the way we'd say something in a knowledge article.
And the tone we use for architects
is different from what we do
for administrators in each of these situations and audiences.
A different tone is needed, but the voice stays the same.
So, for example, in a Knowledge article about Slack,
we'd include step by step instructions to complete a task
but in a blog post, we might also include this fun tidbit.
Slack is actually an acronym that stands
for Searchable Log of All Conversations and Knowledge.
Tip number one, make it simple and memorable.
Do you remember the saying I before E?
Except after C?
That's a common way to remember
how to spell tricky words in the English
language.
And it's effective because it's simple and memorable.
The most successful voice and tone
frameworks are just like that.
If you've got more than one person
making content for your company,
or if you're hiring an outside agency
to help you, you're going to need
those people to understand your company's brand and style guidelines,
and they have to be able to apply them consistently.
If your guidelines are lengthy, complex or inconsistent,
then it will be really hard to use them and to trade secrets.
If your voice and tone guidance has more than five
key concepts to remember it's probably too complicated.
Tip number two Create a library of samples.
Once everyone understands
the guidelines, you'll need to show
how the guidelines work in practice.
You're going to need to show people
what good looks like to do that.
Create a searchable library
with samples of your voice
and tone done right across your different content types
videos, blogs, knowledge articles, and other content.
Keep your library up to date
with your latest and greatest content.
Now, my advice to you on this as you add to your library,
explain what makes each piece of content so good.
This is going to help new people
to better understand your guidelines
and better equip them to create content
aligned with your voice and tone.
Tip number three
Publish your voice and tone guidelines.
Once you have your guidelines written and
you've started your library of samples,
you need to publish them where people can find them.
Now you can publish on an internal site
or in a collaborative document,
or you can pin the guidance to your Slack
channel for your content creators.
Make sure your guidelines are available
to everyone who is creating content
for your company and be prepared
to update your guidelines over time.
A Word to the wise.
Go big and publish your guidelines
on your website for everyone to see.
This is two important things.
Number one, it helps people better understand your brand.
And number two,
it makes it easier for you to work
with external agencies and consultants.
Tip number four, Collaborate with your content creators
when you're starting up
a new voice and tone program,
your content creators will have questions.
They'll want to get quick feedback on their ideas,
pitch new content, and talk to each other.
So create a collaboration channel
where they can work together.
They can share proposed content, drafts
with each other, give each other feedback,
and work together to hone their skills
by collaborating online.
You're creating a searchable
reference tool for future content creators
as your company grows.
I heard Salesforce.
We have Slack channels for all of our writers
and those channels. We work on content together
and give each other real time guidance and feedback.
I'm in those channels too,
pitching my own ideas and giving feedback
with our community of writers.
Tip number five Retire Bad Content.
If you've already created content that doesn't align
with your newly established voice and tone guidelines.
Now is the time to take it down.
You can temporarily retire it, revise it and republish it,
or you can simply put it away
for good and focus on building the new.
If you leave content out there
that doesn't align with your voice
and tone, you risk confusing your audience
and damaging the trust
you're working to build.
Now, our recommendation is use data
to determine your strategy
on what gets revised and republished
versus permanently retired.
For example,
if a content asset has high engagement
on social media, then take the time
to revise it so that it better aligns
with your voice and tone.
Now on Trailhead, we take brand seriously.
Any badges on Trailhead that aren't up
to date on our brand guidelines?
We fix or retire them within two weeks of discovery.
Well, there you have it.
Five Tips to help you get started building
out your business's voice and tone.
Click the link on screen and check out
more resources down in the description
and we'll see you next time.