What is brand language? (Yes, you have it also in your company)

By Anita Eglīte @BlueCatEdit

⇉ If you prefer video to reading – check out my YouTube video on this topic.

Do you own a company or work for one? Do you have employees? Colleagues? Do you have a website? A shop? An office? Some customers? If you have at least one of these, then brand language is relevant in your company.

The profit of your company depends on it. Also, the image of your company; but those are intertwined.

Brand language = verbal communication. Its is a message delivered orally or in writing by company representatives. It refers to anything involving words: from a conversation among co-workers or a discussion with a client to a daily post on Facebook. Globally strategic approach towards company’s communication and conscious content is way ahead; yet many European companies are just stepping on this adventurous path.

Intentional and coordinated communication is the first sign of quality for your customers. Firstly, it shows that you have a systematic approach towards your business and leaves an impression of healthy order of internal processes. Secondly, it affects psycholoy of consumers. Consciously and sub-consciously a well-thought through and accurate language and rightly targeted expressions make an impression of the quality of goods or services your company is selling. So does a poor message and faulty communication.

The explanation is self-evident: “If you are careless in our interaction, what reason do I have to assume that you haven’t been careless in making your product or providing your service.”

To make it right and get the most potential out of your company’s communication, you need a strategic approach to every aspect of communication in your company. Both – external and internal.

What do we mean by “strategic approach”
Any active company is unimaginable without a language. Language is always present. For internal as well as for external communication. Both are equally essential for atmosphere within a company and for raising income. Basically, strategic approach in terms of language means conscious and intentional communication. It means setting out exact and clear communication principles, outlining company’s standards and establishing its tone of voice and “red lines” in terms of communication.

It’s not all about punctuation marks and spelling errors. Brand language is much more nuanced. It includes the use of the company’s signature words and phrases, consistency, unified manner of expression, language style, attitude expressed via words, the length of sentences and even a use of emojis.

Pick a random company (or your own), check out even its outgoing content, analyse it from the perspective of consistency and the image it portrays, and it becomes obvious if proper brand language tools have not, in fact, been used. Mostly, due to lack of knowledge, rather than an intentional sabotage.

How to do it right?
Getting this fixed depends on the vision of the owner or the CEO of a company. Of this person’s idea of WHAT is this company LIKE or what it SHOULD LOOK (and feel) like for outsiders.

If a company was a person – what kind of person would it be? What would be his or her most characteristic personality traits? What would his or her public image be? For basic start on this you can check it out in Google or on Youtube. That should give you a basic idea of what you’re actually aiming for.

As we see it – what you really need is a proper set of professionally structured guidelines covering these aspects:

Next step is to get EVERYONE in your company on board with this. Otherwise, don’t event spend your time and money on this. Understandably, co-workers tend to be reluctant to novelties at work. Moreover, for companies dating back many years such fundamental transformation might be a matter of months, not days or even weeks. It is like rebranding when you ask everyone to forget the previous name, colours or logo and set one’s mind on a totally new image. It is like that, but to some extent it is much bigger and deeper.
No pressure.

Shift in the communication means changing one’s mindset and perspective.

Therefore, drawing up such standards for any company is the easy part (well, at least for me it is – not to brag…), getting it to work is the main part and it requires a strong will of the top management.

For companies such communication mindset shift is like an exam in change management. From what I have seen, the best course of action is involving company employees in this process in a way that they feel crucial for the success of this venture. They are steering that train of transformation. An emotionally intelligent management practice requires explaining why it is important for them (I’m puting finishing touches upon an article on that subject just as you’re reading this. So stay tuned.), instead of blindsiding and choking them with the new order of things.

Help me! I need it!
You have the intention – that is a good start. Let’s assume you have superior management of your company on board as well. Now it is time to get you the right pro to get this all done.

The stakes are high; therefore, you should choose your brand language strategist wisely. The number of people who can do it well is scarce as it requires a rare combination of skills. You might recognize those people by the topics they cover: brand language, company’s tone of voice and similar topics.

On a global scale the hunt for such experts is in fact not that hard; there are great options. Make sure to check reviews, through. Ask for recommendations and of all the many options feel your right mach. The use of the word “feel” and involvement of feelings here was intentional, because strategizing on your brand language usually requires turning your company into a personality. To do it properly and to get the best result out of it, it may, at times, resemble a psychotherapy course for your business.

Brand language strategist is someone who meets this description:

This specific combination of skills is a rare thing. Especially the nuanced feeling of language and the implied attitude.

There is a bunch of exceptional professionals: branding specialists, communication specialists, content specialists, PR experts. If you’re lucky, you might even find someone who has such an exquisite sense and knowledge of language that would fit the above description, but make sure not to attribute them such skills by default.

Weigh out this decision well, consider the best timing for implementing it and do your due diligence. I hope you got the idea of how essential your specific brand language and brand personality guidelines are for your business. How it gives a clear focus for the company, for the co-workers and even makes the daily work of the above specialists so much easier, if you have those in your team or outsourced. I love questions, so if you have any, let’s connect on some social network and sort it out.

Our customers are already aware that we know how all this brand language strategizing thing is done. If you know someone else, who does it well, don’t waste your compliments on them – they deserve it. And tell us who they are so that we could also forward our gratitude to them for working towards a shared goal – to improve the quality of communication in companies of any type, shape and size.

For a brighter future! ❤

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Are you managing a company; are you the owner, strategic manager, HR manager, or a communication specialist?
Then you are our audience. We need your hand for raising the level of quality of communication. Together we can accomplish so much more.