Written by Anna Zaslavska, multilingual copywriter at Writitude
I love writing aids and use them every day. Various tools you use to improve the clarity and flow of your text have become increasingly popular.
And with each passing year, they are evolving, becoming smarter and better so that our writing can become smarter and better. However..
Read in this blog article:
- Style vs Tone of Voice
- Step up Your Name Game
- Mind Your Vocabulary
- Keep It Short or Make It Long
- Save Time and Other Resources
..however, the versatility of today’s popular writing tools is both a blessing and a curse.
On the one hand, it’s great to have an editing tool that can help, whether you’re writing a business letter, an academic paper or a newspaper article.
On the other hand, precisely because these tools are built to improve your writing in general, they don’t take into account the specific requirements of your brand.
In this blog we’re going to break down why the editing tools we know and love do not quite cut it when it comes to brand communication … and how Writitude can save the day.
Style vs Tone of Voice
Today’s editing tools are great for keeping your grammar and style in check.
Some applications go as far as overseeing noun density (because sequences like “brand communication training program goals”, though grammatically correct, are so hard to comprehend that they require a machete to work your way through them).
But brand communication doesn’t just need a clear and eloquent style of writing. Every brand has its own stylistic requirements that make for its unique voice in the market.
These requirements are called the Tone of Voice, and they vary greatly from company to company.
Step up Your Name Game
The most obvious example that comes to mind is the spelling of a brand’s name.
All-purpose writing aids are very well trained to recognize incorrect spelling, but the thing is that a) most brand names are unique proper names (like L'Oréal, Starbucks or Writitude) and b) brand-name spelling is case-sensitive, and this is a very important factor.
Of course, you can simply add the company name (like Writitude) to your dictionary. But what if you get tired at the end of your working day and inadvertently add another spelling, so now both Writitude and TextOK look equally fine?
Writitude is trained to save brand names in a separate category, so it will keep only one approved version of each brand name and automatically correct all instances of misspelling.
Mind Your Vocabulary
Many published TOV guides may include long lists of words which are irrelevant to your particular company's communication and will never be used.
They may be derogatory (words we know shouldn't be used in brand writing) but more usually it's a case of style.
In fact, what one company may veto from its vocabulary, another company may welcome in their day-to-day communication.
For example, we’ve worked with private banking services who never refer to their clients as customers — only “clients” or “partners”.
We also know that many banks avoid using the word “debtor” because it causes a negative reaction in their target audience.
Depending on the market, every brand has its own set of values and priorities which are always uniquely reflected in their wording.
For some brands, it’s crucial to exclude gendered pronouns from their communications and their tone of voice guidelines are focused on building a completely gender-neutral environment.
Other brands may use all types of pronouns but their vocabulary is finely tuned to the sensitivities of older 60+ generations.
Today’s writing aids are not built to customize vocabularies depending on the preferences of each brand.
Writitude helps you keep track of those “no-no” and “yes-yes” words — even if they differ across diverse campaigns under one brand.
From now on, you don’t have to worry whether you or your colleagues have remembered the guidelines correctly — you can just write.
With Writitude, you don’t need to put in extra time and effort to find the exact page in the guidelines — once configured, it automatically keeps all texts in line with the desired ToV.
Keep It Short or Make It Long
Brand voice requirements are not always limited to the choice of vocabulary. They can include such parameters as sentence length, for example — and for totally opposite reasons.
For some clients, it’s essential that their texts are as approachable and uncomplicated as possible, so complex sentences are out of the question.
Other clients may prefer voluminous phrases that add depth to their narrative.
This is why Writitude is trained to oversee your sentence length and level of complexity.
Should you configure that copywriters need to write only in short, easily digestible sentences for your brand, Writitude will warn writers if they suddenly wander off into an overly long and complex passage.
This is a customizable feature — you can vary the desirable sentence length and complexity and, of course, you can choose not to use it at all if sentence length is irrelevant for your brand.
Save Time and Other Resources
Digital editing tools have been with us for two decades, helping us create cleaner, smoother and richer content.
Unarguably, they’ve made writers’ and editors’ lives much easier.
Regrettably, communication specialists, copywriters and managers still have to keep complex sets of rules in their heads — unlike grammar or style principles, brand voice guidelines aren’t universally known and aren’t easily googleable.
This makes life hard for brand communication managers and copywriters alike.
It is virtually impossible to keep track of all the recommendations and restrictions — and these details are what characterize a thorough brand tone of voice guide.
Which is why copywriters keep managers busy by making the same brand-specific mistakes over and over again.
A great deal of company-paid time is wasted searching, identifying and correcting mistakes that could have been easily avoided… if only such a special writing aid existed.
Writing Aid for Copywriters Who Care About Brand Voice
Writitude is hardwired to detect not just general grammatical and stylistic slips but has a detailed customisable tone of voice checker at its heart.
We automate specific brand tone of voice and ethics compliance (check out our latest gender-inclusive language guide!) thus freeing-up valuable company resources.
Not only does it help copywriters produce better quality texts, it also saves tons of time for text approval.
You don’t have to take our word for it. Register a free Writitude account, explore and show it to your boss and colleagues — Writitude is happy to help!
