Does your brand have a Social Voice on Facebook?

I came across this very interesting article about how brands should come up with a “social voice” when the engage their communities on Facebook. The concept is pretty simple – adjust the tone, style, and words you use to fit your target market. Giving personality to your brand’s Facebook page makes it more interactive, fun, and definitely much more engaging for your community.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

“We’ve hired someone who just knows how to talk to people. He has a background as a journalist and he has banter with our Facebook audience. We have meetings every month about culturally relevant things that he will be talking to them about, but it’s really all quite natural – it’s about knowing your consumer,” she adds.

This is something that we’ve already done with previous clients and I agree with the article that this approach is more effective. Because the page has a personality you’re able to build a more human and personal bond with your community. They’ll see the page as a “friend” and won’t look at it as a PA system for announcing promos and new products.

Maybe the best local example I can think of that got national acclaim was Bayantel’s Lola Techie campaign. Not only did the tri-media campaign do wonders but it was also amazing how they were able to build Lola Techie’s personality into the Facebook Page. As of this writing the Facebook Page now has over 170,000 “likes”.

Don’t be a loose cannon
This method though can be a double-edged sword. It can backfire especially if the Facebook administrator/Community Manager doesn’t have specific editorial and response guidelines. If ever you’ll be employing this for your social media strategy make sure that everyone is on the same page with the personality your administrator will portray on Facebook. Set boundaries and limits. It would be better if you come up with a formal personality document that can serve as your administrator’s Facebook bible of sorts.