How do you audit your brand voice?

1 Step 1: Define your brand voice attributes

The first step of a brand voice audit is to define what you want your brand voice to be. What are the key characteristics that describe how you want to sound to your audience? For example, do you want to be friendly, professional, humorous, authoritative, or something else? You can use adjectives, nouns, or phrases to capture your brand voice attributes. Try to limit yourself to three or four attributes, and make sure they are specific, distinct, and relevant to your brand.

3 Step 3: Identify areas for improvement

Based on your analysis, you can identify areas where your brand voice needs improvement. For example, you might find that your brand voice is inconsistent across different platforms, or that it is too generic and does not differentiate you from your competitors. You might also find that your brand voice is not resonating with your audience, or that it is not reflecting your brand values or goals. You can use a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) to summarize your findings and prioritize your actions.

4 Step 4: Create brand voice guidelines and best practices

The final step of a brand voice audit is to create brand voice guidelines and best practices that will help you maintain and enhance your brand voice in the future. Brand voice guidelines are a set of rules and recommendations that define how your brand voice should sound in different contexts and situations. They can include elements such as tone, style, vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, and formatting. Brand voice best practices are examples of content that demonstrate how to apply your brand voice guidelines in practice. They can include dos and don'ts, templates, checklists, or samples of content.