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AI doesn’t sound like you (yet)
Published 6 months ago • 5 min read
Defining your tone of voice is key in branding.
How you sound, how you structure sentences, the points of view you hold, the way you format content, your word choices — it all creates a perception about you and your business.
The right voice will resonate with and attract your ideal customers.
Think about it.
If you're trying to attract 8-figure founders in the manufacturing sector, you'll need a different tone of voice than if you were trying to attract a 7-figure financial planner.
Voice matters.
And if you ever want AI to write for you, whether creating or repurposing content, your tone of voice matters even more.
So, how do you create a tone of voice document that your team and AI can use?
Let's dive in.
Steps to Create Your Tone of Voice Document
Here's the process we use to create an extensive tone of voice document that gets AI to write like our customers.
Step 1: Map Your Adjectives
Start by defining the adjectives that align with your brand strategy.
These are the high-level descriptors that serve as the foundation of your voice.
Most brands have between 4-7 voice descriptors, with descriptors and examples of what to do and what not to do.
Shft's Tone of Voice Descriptors
These should be based on your brand strategy and what resonates with your ideal customers.
Step 2: Define Your Points of View
Next, think through the hills you'll die on in your industry.
The lessons you teach, the methodologies you use, the arguments you have with competitors and influencers, and the perspectives that align with your ideal customers.
These are your points of view — the key messages that should show up in your content and copy.
Some of Shft's points of view.
AI and your team need these to frame your expertise within your content. Be as thorough and detailed as possible.
Step 3: Upload Content and Strategy into Claude
After you've set the foundation for your voice in steps 1 and 2, it's time to put AI to work for you.
Upload your brand strategy document and all the content you've ever created into a project in Claude. Include:
Brand Strategy
Tone of Voice from Steps 1 and 2
Blog posts
Email newsletters
LinkedIn or other social media content
Video transcriptions
Lead magnet and digital products
Courses you've created
The more you add, the more thorough your tone of voice guide will be.
Just a bit of my content in a Claude project.
I created an automation that takes my completed content out of Notion and puts it into a Google Doc that I can update in Claude every week.
Step 4: Get Claude to Create an AI Tone of Voice Guide
Don't try this step until you have completed steps 1-3, or you won't have an accurate tone-of-voice guide.
I used to craft one of voice guides manually. But, if you have content you or someone on your team has already created, you can have AI analyze and craft this guide for you.
Here's the prompt I use:
Hi Claude - you are a brand strategist specializing in crafting tone of voice guides that allow teams and AI to stay consistent across all forms of copy and content. You are exceptionally thorough, documenting nuances, word choices, and formatting preferences to accurately replicate a brand voice. I want you to help me create a tone-of-voice guide for my content.
Step 1: Access the brand strategy and initial tone-of-voice document I uploaded to this project to understand our brand and the direction we want to go with our voice.
Step 2: Read through the existing content I uploaded to this project to understand our voice.
Step 3: Access our website at {URL} and read through every page to understand how our voice is used on our website.
Step 4: Access the Anti AI Writing Style document in this project to include any elements that are relevant to our voice.
Step 5: Create a tone of voice guide from our existing copy and content that our team and AI can use to know how to mimic this voice. Please be thorough and give concrete examples where possible.
The document should include these sections, plus any other that you would need to write for us:
How this guide works: an introduction explaining how to use this guideCore voice: take our tone of voice adjectives and adjust them as needed to reflect what's already in our contentDifferences in voice between channels (blog, social, website copy)Writing Rules: structure, choices, and punctuation rules for writing content. This can be broken out per channel if these elements vary per channel.Sentence and Paragraph structureTone and word choicesPunctuation patternsStructural Patterns: structure and layout of content. This can be broken out per channel if these elements vary per channel.IntroductionsSection transitionsLists and bullet pointsSteps and frameworksProof and examplesDo/Don't Do Quick Reference: direct examples pulled from existing contentBanned words and phrases: list of words/phrases not to use and what to use insteadSEO-specific Voice Rules:Titles and H1sMeta DescriptionsKeyword IntegrationInternal LinkingContent callouts and imagesThe Rewrite Test: a checklist to use before publishing any piece of content. If any are a NO, then you need to rewrite
Once the document is created, please put it in a Word document for easy review and editing.
Part of Shft's Tone of Voice Guide
In this prompt, I referenced Ruben Hassid's Anti-AI Writing Style document (step 4). I recommend you grab his MD Files for Claude. They will save you time getting AI to write like a human.
Once created, it's time to use your tone of voice guide.
Here are a few quick recommendations to get the most out of your guide:
Use Google Docs or similar word processor that documents revisions
Host it in a central place for your entire team to access
Document revision dates and times on the first page
Upload into your Claude or other AI projects
Inform your team when it's been updated
I also ask team members to indicate any guidelines that weren't clear or easy to digest.
This will help you understand if data should be displayed as a list or table, if you need more examples, or if highlighting certain parts would make it easier to follow.
Remember: this guide is only useful if it is actually used.
Get feedback from your team to make it as useful as possible.
Until next week,
#SassyJason out.
✌🏼
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PS - We create AI tone of voice guides for our clients who have existing content as part of our BrandOS service. Learn more here.
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