1. Overview
Brand narrative: What we say
Our brand narrative is what we say. It’s the message that we’d like to get out to the market, and it should guide the meaning of the content that we produce. Our brand narrative is our story.
Brand voice: How we say it
Our brand voice is how we speak to the world. It dictates not only how people think about us, but it also influences how people feel about us. It is our personality. Our voice should be cohesive across all communications, no matter how big or small. It builds trust and affinity. It creates a connection to the heart, not just the mind. And in an undifferentiated market, that can make all the difference. Our brand voice is our personality.
Tone: Brand voice, in context
Our brand voice should always be consistent – across all formats, to all audiences. However, we take on a different tone to meet a particular audience or content need. Our tone is our brand voice in context. It is the particular attitude our content takes on as needed. Our tone is our attitude.
Style: The mechanics of our writing
The style of our writing is a set of principles that help create consistency across our brand voice. Our style is a set of more mechanical guidelines that will keep us sounding like us. Our style is not something to be overthought, and where we generally align with industry best practices.
Corporate Narrative: Our Company Story
Our new story is clear and simple. Aligned to our customers’ needs. Evidence-based. And easy for you to tell.
Company Description: The standardized way we describe our company
Giving an outline of the company’s products, services, clients, awards, its purpose and positioning.
2. Our Brand Voice
Our brand voice is bold. We speak in clear, concise language that is up front and easy to understand. We should speak as people speaking to people (not as a company speaking to prospects) in a way that is sincere, honest and helpful.
Our brand voice should be a reflection of our brand narrative—to simplify the connected world. When we speak as a brand, we simplify the complex. We take big ideas that may be difficult to grasp and communicate them in a way that our audience can understand, apply and get excited about.
Everything we say should follow these three principles:
It is bold
Say everything with boldness and conviction so that our messages are delivered with unapologetic clarity. We stand firmly by our words, embracing a direct and confident tone that drips of authenticity.
It is human
Echo the everyday conversations of real people, steering clear of corporate jargon. Our language is crafted to connect deeply with the universal human experience, making our messages relatable and unmistakably human.
It is simple
Keep your sentences straightforward and your emails concise. When you really have something to say, you can communicate it in as few words as possible.
A few tips to maintaining our voice
- Talk to the audience like you talk to your peers. That’s probably the more natural, conversation, human way to say it.
- Use Active Voice. Write in an active voice to make your content more direct and engaging. This aligns with your brand’s bold and straightforward communication style.
- Use verbs. Avoid turning verbs into nouns (“nominalizing”) to sound sophisticated; it often achieves the opposite effect. Instead, lead with strong, active verbs in ads and calls to action, using active voice for clarity and impact. Headlines for blog posts, white papers and articles should start with a verb where possible.
- Appeal to both the heart and the mind. Use emotional language to create a personal connection and evoke feelings, while also presenting logical arguments or data to appeal to their sense of reason.
- It’s all about our readers (customers/partners/prospects). Make the readers feel good about themselves, don’t try to convince them we are smart. It’s our job to make them better at their jobs, not to convince them that we are good at ours.
Brand characteristics
| We are… | But not… |
| Helpful | Condescending |
| Friendly | Bubbly |
| Smart | Academic |
| Confident | Arrogant |
| Passionate | Overzealous |
| Honest | Inconsiderate |
| Clever | Silly |
3. Our Tone
Within our voice, we can take on different tones to fit the context of the content we are creating. The guiding principles of voice still apply (simple conversations, humans speaking to humans), but it is flexible to take on different attitudes for different situations. That means it should vary based on each piece of content and each audience. If we are speaking to developers, we should speak like a developer having a conversation with a developer. If we are speaking to an executive, we should speak like an executive speaking to an executive.
The tone should be flexible and respectful of the audience. Below are some examples of how that is applied.
Social Media Posts
- Tone: Friendly, engaging, and direct.
- Approach: Use concise, relatable language that encourages interaction. Balance informative content with a touch of humor where appropriate. Avoid complex jargon to keep the conversation inclusive and accessible.
White Papers
- Tone: Authoritative, informative, and clear.
- Approach: Present information in a structured, easy-to-follow manner. Use clear, precise language that conveys expertise without being academic. Simplify complex concepts to make them digestible for a diverse audience.
Web Copy
- Tone: Welcoming, clear, and helpful.
- Approach: Ensure the copy is straightforward and easy to navigate. Use clear headings and calls-to-action. Be helpful by providing relevant information in a clear, concise manner.
Blog Posts
- Tone: Conversational, informative, and engaging.
- Approach: Write as if speaking to a peer, using a friendly and approachable tone. Blend storytelling with factual information to engage both the heart and mind.
Speaking to Developers
- Tone: Technical, straightforward, and respectful.
- Approach: Use specific technical language where necessary but explain complex concepts clearly. Be direct and honest, valuing their time and intelligence.
Speaking to Business Users
- Tone: Professional, clear, and solution-focused.
- Approach: Address their business needs and challenges. Use language that is professional yet easy to understand, avoiding overly technical terms.
Speaking to Executives
- Tone: Confident, concise, and strategic.
- Approach: Communicate with clarity and purpose, focusing on strategic benefits and outcomes. Be direct and assertive, but not overbearing.
Our style
When it comes to the mechanics of style (i.e. grammar, capitalization, usage) we follow generally accepted standards. How we punctuate sentences should be correct, but it won’t be a competitive advantage. For all questions on the mechanics of how we write (unless explicitly called out below), refer to the Microsoft style guide. They have a team dedicated to maintaining it, so we don’t have to: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/style-guide/welcome/ For questions about spelling or acronym usage, refer to the American Heritage dictionary: https://www.ahdictionary.com
Principles of our style
We follow the structural rules of grammar with precision, but are flexible on the stylistic ones if it makes us sound more human ormakes our writing more compelling. That means it’s ok to dangle prepositions, to start sentences with “and” or “but” and to splitinfinitives.
We are a lover of verbs.
That means:
- Avoid “nominalizing” verbs to try and sound fancy. If you do that, you’re not fancy.
- Ads should lead with verbs, as should calls to action.
- Use active voice, which is a function of how verbs are being used.
Blogs are written in the “inverted pyramid” journalistic style.
We don’t bury the lead.
- We refer to you—our customers—not business, enterprises or companies.
- We use simple language that everyone can understand. Without over-using adjectives.
- We do not use jargon and avoid too many business buzz words. We prefer to talk about speed, plans and outcomes rather than acceleration, blueprints and use cases.
4. Our Style
When it comes to the mechanics of style (i.e. grammar, capitalization, usage) we follow generally accepted standards. How we punctuate sentences should be correct, but it won’t be a competitive advantage. For all questions on the mechanics of how we write (unless explicitly called out below), refer to the Microsoft style guide. They have a team dedicated to maintaining it, so we don’t have to: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/style-guide/welcome/ For questions about spelling or acronym usage, refer to the American Heritage dictionary: https://www.ahdictionary.com
Principles of our style
- Don’t get hung up on the rules. We follow the structural rules of grammar with precision, but are flexible on the stylistic ones if it makes us sound more human or makes our writing more compelling. That means it’s ok to dangle prepositions, to start sentences with “and” or “but” and to split infinitives.
- Keep it short. Don’t feel like you have to write more when less will do. This means sentences (or headlines or captions) can be just a few words.
- Emphasis. Use italics (not bold or all-caps) for emphasis, but only when absolutely required. Generally the sentence structure should create emphasis.
- Acronyms. Defined acronyms on first use and then use them consistently.
- Headline punctuation. Headlines and subheads should be sentence case. This follows our bolder, more human approach to content marketing.