Importance Of A Style Guide For Your Brand

Looking to scale your content marketing? You will need the guidelines to keep your content reliably on-brand. Figure out how to make a style guide here.

Creating one content is an urgent step that is easily overlooked. But it’s worth your time.

Introducing your brand image reliably can increase the revenue by 33%.

Also, the company’s image consistency isn’t just about logos, it’s additionally about the picture and character you pass on in your content.

In case you don’t have a style guide as of now, don’t whip yourself. Many Digital Marketing companies begin delivering content before setting up a guide, still, end up generating good leads for them Before everything, let’s check what a style guide is, and why you need one.

Style Guide and its importance

A content style guide is generally a document in a PDF file, webpage, slide deck, or word doc – that explains the rules and regulations of creating content for your brand.

• Your content methodology subtleties what type of content you will make, and when.
• Your content style guide manages the stray pieces of making that content.
• It gives your content makers specific directions on the most proficient ways to create on-brand content.

A style guide additionally sets the guidelines for more reasonable issues of writing:

• Should it bea white paper or a whitepaper?
• Which words need to be capitalized in headers?
• Is your tone relatable and fun or legitimate and educational?

A style guide keeps everybody on the same page. It’s occasionally dominated by its flashier and the visual style guide. A few SEO agency companies join their content guide into their general branding guide.

Be others make it its different entity.

Depending upon how included your content guide is, you can select what works best for you.

The need for a Style Guide

Everybody makes content nowadays: salesmen, executive heads, SMEs, etc. You need one rulebook to keep all of you walking to the beat of the same drummer.

Without a style guide, the content made by various makers is everywhere.

It is highly unlikely to not maintain the principles when they aren’t documented. When you begin scaling your content creation, things can truly gain out of power.

Planning, creating, and distributing content occupies a ton of time. A style guide keeps your content on the correct path.

Steps of Writing a Content Style Guide

• Start by Swiping: There is no point to make your style guide from the beginning. You can begin with an old dedicated style, for example, AP Style or The Chicago Manual of Style. Or then again you can go with one of the more current guides that are accessible online, similar to Mailchimp’s or Mozilla’s.

The way towards this step is swiping. Swipe away.

• Mention Your Content Mission: Why do you make content? Think of your objectives for your content marketing program and work in reverse from that point. Having a documented mission keeps you genuine as you build up each bit of content.

  Make that extra effort to think about the reason behind your content. Is it to enlighten? To engage? To clarify complex issues? Report what you need your content to do and be for your crowd.

• Set Your Voice and Tone: This is the truly smart aspect of the style guide. This segment of your guide would depict how your content goes over to your audience.

Your voice and tone should go hand in hand with your brand’s image. The video marketing agency, Prism will be the best fit to evaluate your content on this note.

Google’s designer style guide gives a Goldilocks-style table outlining how to get their voice and tone just right.

• Lay the Ground Rules for the Basics: Now it is time to keep aside the law. and focus on the basics.
• Do you use the Oxford comma?
• Either use numerals or write numbers out?
• To emoticon or not to emoticon?

The guide will back you up for the rest of the time (or until you change it).Regardless of whether you decide to observe the rules from a mainstream style guide, it’s a smart idea to sketch out basic usage practices and provide examples.

Look below to find how it clears the confusion.

 

• Address Specific Types of Content: Different kinds of content may expect you to switch up your tone of voice. This is an opportunity to plot best practices for the kinds of content that you make.
• Document Your Rules for Graphics: While your visual style guide goes inside and out on the most proficient method to use logos, pictures, and visual design components, your content style guide should feature some direction for pictures, as well.

Your design group may not touch each blog or content piece you produce. Should pictures be left, right, or center-aligned? Are there specific kinds of pictures to avoid?

Put those principles in the guide to ensure brand consistency.

Final Tips of Style Guide

Now you are aware of what a content style guide is, the reason you need it, and how to do it. It’s the ideal opportunity for you to begin making your guide. Also, the guide is just as good as your ability to implement it.

Somefinal hints for an effective guide:

• Make it effectively accessible to your content makers: Regardless of whether it’s on the web or shared folder, this should be known and accessible to them.
• Follow it when giving feedback: Adjusting your style norms can require some time. Continue pushing your makers to take a look at it so the guidelines can truly sink in.
• Make it simple to read: A style guide can be a beast of a document. Break it into pieces that users can undoubtedly comprehend.

When progressed well, a content style guide can be a key step towards delivering content that establishes a long term impression with your audience.