Guide · 7 min read
How to Develop a Consistent Content Voice for an Agency or Brand
Build a voice the whole team can hold so the brand sounds like a person.
The core problem with brand content
A brand account sounds like a brand account because it was written by committee: a draft, a round of edits, another round of approvals, and by the end the opinion has been sanded down and the voice has been averaged out. The audience feels this even if they can't articulate it - the post has no one in particular behind it.
Anchor the voice to a person
The most effective brand content voices are anchored to a real person - usually a founder, a lead, or someone with genuine expertise and strong opinions on the topics the brand owns. The brand's content voice isn't invented from scratch; it's borrowed from that person and codified into a guide the team can use.
This means the first step in building a brand voice is identifying whose real voice is closest to the content identity you want, then studying and documenting it before you start systematizing.
Codify rules, not adjectives
A voice guide that says "conversational, direct, and authoritative" is useless because every team member will interpret it differently. A voice guide that says "open with a claim, not a setup" and "maximum one subordinate clause per sentence in the opening paragraph" is actually enforceable.
Concrete rules that a writer can check a draft against produce consistent output. Style adjectives produce subjective arguments in review meetings.
Use real examples as the guide
The best voice guide is a selection of ten to fifteen pieces of content that nail the voice, with brief annotations about what each one does well. "This one works because..." is more useful to a writer than a list of principles. Examples set the standard; rules explain the standard.
Create content in your voice - at scale
SelfScale learns how you write from your own posts, so every draft sounds like you, not a generic chatbot.