When creating a digital marketing strategy, you must first determine your business’s goals. If you want to build your relationship with your customers and provide customer service, then using social media marketing is your best bet. This type of marketing uses social media platforms to promote your products and services.

It is an easy way and affordable for businesses to connect with their customers. A key component of any social media marketing strategy is creating a social media style guide. This guide helps set your brand’s presence on social media. Whether you decide to do your company’s social media yourself or hire a social media management Austin company, here is why you need a social media style guide.

What is a social media style guide?

A social media style guide maps out how a business should appear and act online. In other words, it is a guide to a brand's personality. Wendy's is an excellent example of a brand with an identifiable online personality. This fast food chain restaurant is known for its witty, sharp-tongued tweets that have gained lots of attention. 

Why your business needs a social media style guide

Whether you have one person doing your company’s social media or have a social media management Austin company doing it, you need to create a social media style guide. This guide keeps your company’s social media consistent. 

It makes sure all brands on every social media platform stay aligned to your brand’s core values and customer experience. So if your social media manager is out of town on vacation or you get a little extra help from a social media agency, they can ensure your presence stays streamless. It keeps everything in one convenient place. 

How to create a social media style guide

Define your voice 

Defining your brand's voice is the first step to creating a social media style guide. This refers to how you will speak to your audience and how it will affect your audience's perception of your brand. You want your company's voice to connect with your audience on an emotional level. Some examples of voice are:

• Soothing 

• Inspirational 

• Motivational 

• Family-friendly

• Clever

• Helpful

• Casual

• Corporate 

Grammar and spelling

Does your brand have specific grammar rules or emoji uses? If so, you need to highlight that in your social media guide. This should cover if the oxford comma is included, using gender-inclusive or certain spellings. The use of emojis should also be included in this category. You want to indicate which emojis are appropriate for your brand and where they should be placed. 

Formatting 

To keep your brand consistent, you want to indicate how each post on social media should be formatted. This means determining if your brand will great long formatted posts on certain platforms or stick to short posts. 

Hashtags

A key part of social media is hashtags. These little symbols help your content get noticed online. As a brand, you should define the use of your hashtags. You should set rules for the number of hashtags you use on each platform and if you are using branded hashtags. 

Hire a social media management Austin agency!

If you need help creating a social media style guide or managing your social media, hire OMG Austin! Our team can oversee all of your company’s accounts. Contact us to learn more about our social media management services.