Consistency and fun brand voice: how to make it as easy as possible
Most business advice contains the word “consistency”. But hearing that word bandied about over and over again can get a little irritating, can’t it?
Because, like most brand advice out there, it doesn’t actually tell you what to do.
Sure, being consistent sounds lovely. But it’s about as useful as asking someone:
“How can I make more revenue in my business?”
And they reply:
“Win more work and bring in more high-ticket clients.”
Ah, perfect. How come I never thought of that?
Frankly, I’ve had enough of vague business advice. That’s why in this blog we’ll be looking at:
What consistency actually means
Why it’s important to be consistent
How to make it at easy as possible to be consistent with your own content
that laptop screen is probably blank ngl
What does “being a consistent brand” actually mean?
There are two different definitions of consistency when it comes to brands.
Definition 1: How much and how often you show up
This is what most people mean when they say consistency. A lot of people hear the advice “be consistent”, and think that it means:
Posting every day on instagram without fail
Posting every day on LinkedIn without fail
Writing and sharing a blog every month without fail
And sure, it is important to stay top of mind by sharing content and copy with some sort of regularity (more about that later), but this is only half of the story when it comes to “being consistent”.
Definition 2: How you show up
This is the definition of consistency that people tend to overlook. It’s important to share content and engage your audience when you say you’re going to (more or less), but it’s all for diddly squat if you’re showing up with a different personality every time.
Let’s say you go to a coffee shop every single day (what a flex btw, in this economy). When you go in, you order your usual, and you have a quick chat with the barista.
Which barista do you trust more?
The barista who:
Brings up the same topics, and talks to you about the same things consistently
Uses the same sense of humour to engage with you
Has a rant every now and then, but more or less chats to you with the same mood/vibes
Or the barista who:
Has a super changeable mood
Is friendly and chatty with you one day, and then super corporate and “professional” the next
It’s the first one isn’t it? (please say yes or the blog doesn’t make sense).
The takeaway from this elaborate metaphor? How you show up is just as important as how often you show up when it comes to building long term relationships with the right people.
Because frankly, that’s what being a fun brand is all about.
Why does consistency matter for brand voice?
1. You build trust with your audience
Like we demonstrated in the barista metaphor, it’s easier to build trust with people you have consistent and regular interactions with. The same goes for how you communicate as a brand.
2. You stay top of mind
When you can use fun, personality and humour to show your dream clients again and again how well you understand them and their view of the world, that’s when you stand out.
3. You turn into the brand whose content people are actually excited to read (and then buy from)
When you build that trust, and build that reputation for yourself as being the brand that genuinely engages your audience, always has something entertaining and human to say, and is always full of personality, that’s when you become the brand whose content people are actually excited to read.
You know the type of brand I mean. You probably have one in your life. You see their newsletter come in, and rather than sending it to junk or marking it as read, you ACTUALLY read it and get value from it.
You see their name on your LinkedIn feed, and you already know whatever post they’ve written is about to be a corker.
That kind of excitement and anticipation you can create with every piece of content you share is built with consistency.
But annoyingly, like most good things in life, that takes time and effort.
So, what can you do as a brand to make putting in that time and effort as easy as possible?
How to make it as easy as possible to be consistent with your fun brand voice
Do what comes easily to you
It’s soooo hard to be consistent with stuff you hate doing. When you’re responsible for researching, drafting, writing, editing, and publishing your own content, you’re simply not going to do it if your heart isn’t in it (not only because you’ve got HUNDREDS of other things to do in the meantime).
So, if you love making videos, commit to doing more reels.
If you love going off on a ranty piece of writing, commit to writing more blogs and thought leadership pieces.
Lean into the stuff you already enjoy, and the stuff that already comes naturally to you.
Be authentic
It’s really hard to be consistent if you’re having to pretend to be something you’re not. And unless you are a copywriter and brand voice expert who works on multiple different brand voices at any one time (👀), adding this layer of pretense to how you show up just makes writing your own stuff take soooo much longer.
The best brand voices are a clarification of what’s already there. Not a complete fabrication based on what you “think” your audience wants from you.
Codify what your authenticity looks like
Even if you’re in a 1-person team or business, getting as much detail about your own personality and authenticity just makes writing content so much easier.
Having it written down makes it so much quicker to check against your own rules and guidelines for writing, and to check if something feels “off” or not for you.
“What do I do now?”
Stress not. I’m not about to load you up with all that sweet sweet insight but no plan on how to bring it to life.
Here are some questions to think about, and some action points so you can start implementing this in your business as ASAP as possible:
Understand what comes easily to you:
Write down what content you really enjoy making
Write down what types of content feel like they take forever to make, and you just never have any inspiration for
Make a commitment about what consistency looks like for you, in terms of:
What content you’ll be sharing
How often you’ll be sharing it
Give yourself permission to be authentic:
Think about what’s blocking you from showing up authentically in your own brand. Is it fear of being disliked? Fear of not being taken seriously?
Where do those fears actually come from? Experience, assumption, or someone else’s rules about how a “professional” brand should sound?
What evidence do you really have that being more yourself would backfire?
What would “being taken seriously” look like for your audience? And could your authenticity actually help, not hurt, that?
If you gave yourself full permission to show up however you wanted for one month, what would change about how you write, talk, or market?
Get down on paper what your authentic personality actually looks like:
How would I describe my personality?
What does feel like you?
What doesn’t feel like you?
What situations do you want to feel more serious in?
What situations are you happy to sound more playful in?
What gives you the ick (in general)?
What are some brand voices that you LOVE? And why?
What are some brand voices that you HATE? And why?
What are the rules of writing you never break?
CBA to be consistent with your own brand copy ALL THE TIME?
Simply, don’t.
Just let me do it instead.
Take a look at my retainers to see how I can help.
OR
If you wanna be consistent, but just need to figure out what that actually means, check out my Nailed in a Day service.