Setting Up Your Brand Voice
Your brand voice is what makes your content unmistakably yours. Here's how to teach it to your AI team so everything they create sounds like you.
You can spot your favorite brands from a single sentence. Apple sounds different from Microsoft. Nike sounds different from Adidas. Your brand has its own voice too—even if you've never written it down.
The challenge with AI tools is getting them to sound like you, not like a generic assistant. That's where brand voice setup comes in.
Why This Matters
When your AI team knows your brand voice, every piece of content they create—emails, social posts, blog drafts, client responses—sounds authentically yours. No more editing out the "AI voice."
What Is Brand Voice?
Brand voice is how you sound when you communicate. It's the personality that comes through in your words—whether you're writing an email, a social post, or a proposal.
Brand voice includes:
- Tone: Are you formal or casual? Serious or playful?
- Vocabulary: What words do you use? What words do you avoid?
- Personality: Are you bold and direct? Warm and supportive? Technical and precise?
- Values: What do you stand for? What matters to your audience?
Most people know their brand voice intuitively—they just haven't articulated it yet.
Three Elements of a Strong Brand Voice
Character Traits
Describe your brand as if it were a person. Pick 3-5 adjectives that capture your personality.
Examples:
- • "Warm, knowledgeable, slightly irreverent"
- • "Professional, precise, trustworthy"
- • "Bold, creative, energetic"
- • "Calm, supportive, insightful"
Do's and Don'ts
Define the specific things you always do and never do in your communication.
Always
- • Use contractions (we're, you'll)
- • Address the reader directly (you)
- • Include actionable takeaways
- • End with a clear next step
Never
- • Use corporate jargon
- • Start sentences with "I think"
- • Use exclamation points excessively
- • Be condescending or preachy
Example Phrases
Share actual examples of how you say things. This is the most powerful way to teach voice.
Instead of / Say this:
- "We are pleased to inform you..." → "Great news—"
- "Please do not hesitate..." → "Just reach out if..."
- "At your earliest convenience..." → "When you get a chance..."
Brand Voice in Action
Let's see how the same message sounds with different brand voices:
Professional & Precise
"Thank you for your inquiry. Our team will review your request and respond within 24 business hours. If you have additional questions, please don't hesitate to contact us."
Warm & Friendly
"Got your message! We're looking into it now and will get back to you within a day. In the meantime, feel free to reply here if anything else comes up."
Bold & Direct
"On it. Expect a response within 24 hours. Questions before then? Hit reply."
Each of these is professional and effective—they just sound like different brands. Which one sounds like you?
How to Document Your Brand Voice
You don't need a 50-page brand guide. A simple document with the essentials is enough to transform your AI team's output.
Start Simple
If you're not sure where to start, look at your best-performing content. What do your emails that get responses have in common? What's the tone of social posts that resonate? Your existing work holds the answers.
Simple Brand Voice Template
1. We are:
[3-5 adjectives that describe your personality]
2. We always:
[3-5 things you consistently do in communication]
3. We never:
[3-5 things you avoid in communication]
4. We sound like:
[2-3 example sentences in your voice]
5. We don't sound like:
[2-3 example sentences that are NOT your voice]
Teaching Your AI Team
Once you've documented your brand voice, sharing it with your AI team is straightforward:
- Share your brand voice document: Upload it as a knowledge source so all your specialists can reference it.
- Include example content: Add 5-10 pieces of content that exemplify your voice at its best.
- Provide feedback: When output doesn't match your voice, explain specifically what's off and how to fix it.
- Reinforce over time: As you create new content you love, add it to your knowledge base.
The Compound Effect
Every piece of feedback compounds. The more you teach your AI team about your voice, the less editing you'll need to do. Most users find that after 2-3 weeks of consistent feedback, their AI team nails the voice 80%+ of the time.
Get Started Today
Your brand voice already exists—you just need to write it down. Take 15 minutes to fill out the simple template above, then share it with your AI team.
The difference between generic AI output and content that sounds like you starts with this one step.
Ready to Teach Your AI Team Your Voice?
Share your brand voice with your AI specialists and watch them create content that sounds authentically you.