Finding Your Social Media Voice

Jed Sundwall jed@measuredvoice.com @measuredvoice

Finding Your Social Media Voice

Social media is a critical interface to government.

Government organizations must now communicate in new ways: briefly, frequently, and directly. While social media sites are designed for individuals, Measured Voice makes them usable by organizations. Measured Voice helps mission-driven organizations run professional social media operations. Customers include:

Agenda

Why voice matters

Why governmentese exists

Finding your voice

Social media voice best practices

Your voice through images

A guide to creating guidelines

Why Voice Matters

How you communicate – the words you use and the ways you organize them – brands your organization as much as that little logo you use or those razzle dazzle graphics or those expensive ad campaigns.

— Candi Harrison

candioncontent.blogspot.com

People hear your voice in:

Press releases

Brochures

Web content (FAQs)

Customer service calls and chats

Emails

Interviews with spokespeople

Twitter, Facebook, and whatever comes next…

Christina is a customer. Victoria represents AT&T.

Christina is a customer. Victoria represents AT&T.

Your voice is the basis of all your communication.

It is what people hear wherever they encounter you and it’s how they remember you.

It doesn’t change.*

*much

Your voice sets the tone.

Your voice communicates authority, energy, professionalism, and personality.

Your voice sets the tone. Yikes.

Invest in your organization’s voice.

Pays off over the long term.

When new social media platforms arise, you bring your voice with you.

Beware of social media experts. Having individuals represent your organization can be useful, but when they leave, their take your audience with them.

Why Governmentese Exists

Communicating is governing.

Governmentese gets in the way.

Governments are ostentatious. For example: government buildings are intentionally set apart from other buildings and they usually look historical – even if they’re new. This fosters an impression of authority and stability, that the government has been here for a long time and will be here for a long time to come. Governmentese does the same thing with highfalutin language. Yes, that’s how you spell highfalutin.

Louisville City Hall

From an email I received from an unnamed federal agency:

“Hi Jed: I hereby confirm that Oct. 9-10 would work just fine.”

Misunderstandings can be fatal.

“A typical poor citizen comes to you poor in money and poor in mental bandwidth. When you give them a 30-page application form for social assistance, you’re putting a pretty massive charge on their bandwidth.”

— Eldar Shafir, Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University

Governmentese creates real costs.

Use jargon carefully.

Being understood is paramount.

As guardians of the public, governments have a duty to communicate in language that people understand.

Finding Your Voice

A clear voice comes from a deep understanding of your organization.

Why do you exist?

What gets your staff out of bed in the morning?

Who do you want to reach?

What do you do that no one else does?

Why do care if people hear from you?

Your voice should reflect an understanding of your audience.

Who wants to hear from you?

What does your audience need?

How does your audience prefer to communicate?

What do people expect from you?

Why do people subscribe to your updates?

Photo (cc) Dave Dugdale– http://www.flickr.com/photos/davedugdale/7767672620/

We want people to go outside and look up. – @VeronicaMcG / NASA-JPL

“[The federal government] is just using [social media] as an announcement system, like you used to listen to in class: ‘The cafeteria will be serving roast beef, and I will be at this place or that place’. But that’s not interaction, that’s not collaboration.” – Cory Booker

“[The federal government] is just using [social media] as an announcement system, like you used to listen to in class: ‘The cafeteria will be serving roast beef, and I will be at this place or that place’. But that’s not interaction, that’s not collaboration.” – Cory Booker

Hey! There’s nothing wrong with that! Also, that’s not really true. – Jed Sundwall

Social Media Voice Best Practices

Social media voice best practices:

Write in first person.

Talk to people, not about them.

Be authentic.

Be relevant.

Be clear.

Be direct.

Understand your medium.

Use guidelines.

Write in first person.

It saves characters and makes more sense on social media.

Talk to people, not about them. It saves characters and it’s polite.

Be authentic.

Be authentic.

Your audience has certain expectations of you. Meet them.

Be authentic.

It’s ok if people don’t want you to be their friend.

Be relevant.

Honor your audience by sharing things that matter to them.

Be direct.

There’s no need to wait for traditional media to get your news out.

Be direct.

There’s no need to wait for traditional media to get your news out.

Be clear.

Hard writing makes easy reading. Speak clearly and make sense.

Understand your medium.

The strengths of social media services should shape your content.

For instance: images are very effective on Facebook.

Be cool.

Everyone, everyone, is still figuring this out. 😎

Use guidelines…

…but not rules. Your voice should be like a river, steady but adaptable.

Your voice through images

Over one million nerve fibers send signals from the eye to the brain, and an estimated 20 billion neurons are devoted to analyzing and integrating visual information at rapid speed.

Source: Visual Language for Designers by Connie Malamed

Good images are good content:

Timely

Relevant

On brand

Interesting (avoid stock photography)

Timely and educational

Source: @NASAKennedy

Informational

Source: @FullMoonDriveIn on Instagram

Educational

Source: @NOAA on Instagram

Metaphorical

Source: @WWF on Twitter

Documentary

Source: @NTSB on Twitter

Evocative

Source: USA.gov on Facebook

Novel

Source: http://tumblr.austinkleon.com/post/35679224723

Aspirational

Source: http://topodesigns.tumblr.com

Source: @interior on Twitter

Strategic

The Department of Interior shares great photos to attract a teachable audience.

Massive image on Twitter, can only scale as tall as the browser window.

Massive image on Facebook, can only scale as tall as the browser window.

Massive image on Tumblr, scales down to 750 pixels tall.

1:1

4:3

16:9

Stick with common aspect ratios.  

They’ll look good and won’t use a lot of bandwidth.

Learn from Nancy. © Fantagraphics Books Inc.

Learn from Nancy – embrace constraints. © Fantagraphics Books Inc.

A Guide to Creating Guidelines

Guidelines are…

not rules

short

unifying

research-based

leader-supported

Guidelines are not rules.

Guidelines provide guidance. They shouldn’t prescribe and should allow for experimentation.

Guidelines are short.

You want your team to know your guidelines by heart – distill them to the bare essentials.

Guidelines are unifying.

Guidelines should reflect the expertise of your team and their passion to serve the public. Your entire staff should feel proud of your guidelines and what they encourage.

Guidelines are research-based.

Do internal and external research to create unifying guidelines.

Survey your audience to find out what they expect from your agency, what they think of you, and how they think you can improve.

Then survey your own people to find out the same things.

Guidelines are leader-supported.

Get the bosses to sign off on the guidelines. Someone should be able to make executive decisions based on your guidelines.

Visit measuredvoice.com/usagov to see USA.gov’s social media guidelines.

“They are a thing of beauty.” — Actual quote. Really!

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. jed@measuredvoice.com

@measuredvoice