New Year’s resolutions aren’t just a good idea for your storefront—they are also a great way to improve your online marketing! No matter what your social media goals—whether they include starting your social media presence, gaining more followers, or posting more often—you should consider creating a style guide as part of your plans for the new year. Here’s what you need to know about having a social media style guide.
What’s a Social Media Style Guide?
You might not think of social media as having a particular style, but having a style guide for your social media posts will help your social media have a more consistent feel. Just like you might have guidelines for print ads or a basic script for talking to customers, your style guide is a way to help customers get to know your business and your brand.
What Should Be In Your Social Media Style Guide?
Once you have decided that you want to create a style guide, you should take some time to figure out what you want to convey to your customers. Here are a few of the elements that you should include:
- Grammar Guidelines—Grammar ranges widely on social media sites, so knowing how strictly you want to stick with grammar guidelines is an important. Using perfect grammar can convey a professional tone, while loosening up on grammar rules can come across as more casual and friendly.
- Formatting—Having formatting guidelines for your social media posts is an important addition to the grammar guidelines. Will you include hashtags with every post? Or will your posts be primarily text-based? Do you need to have a photograph with every post? If you want a consistent format, this is a chance to establish that format.
- A Tone—What personality do you want your customers to perceive when they see your social media profile? Are you cheerful and upbeat or formal? Are you energetic or calm? Keeping this tone in mind can help ensure that these personality traits come across to your customers.
- Image Guidelines—Images have a lot of appeal on social media, so it’s a good idea to consider what types of images you will use. Consider what fonts you’ll want to use on images, what colors you want to use, and what size those images should be.
- Schedule—While your schedule isn’t necessarily part of a traditional style guide, it can still be a good addition while you are collecting other guidelines for your posts. Want to post once a week, or twice a week? Make a note of that.
Are You Ready to Put It Into Practice?
Ready to go? Once you have your guidelines in place, all you have to do is get posting to your social media sites! These guidelines might take a bit of practice at first, but your style guide will give you an easy-to-reference document to work from.
Do you have a style guide for your social media posts? How do you use that guide? We’d love to see your advice in the comments below.
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