Can you be buttoned-up and business-like on your Web site and then accessible and casual on your social media networks and still maintain a cohesive corporate voice and tone? Yes, most definitely. With a little strategy and planning, all of your content channels can be representative of your brand and ethos.
Think of it as a variation on a theme. But, before you put fingertip to keyboard, you should define the separate purposes of your Web site and your social media outlets. Then, think about how you want them to work together.
For example, your Website is your core corporate or organizational identity. Your social media outlets are branches from this larger tree, and should reflect that relationship, while allowing each unique social network to do what it does best. Many companies use Twitter as a news feed and Facebook as a community hangout. Both can promote press releases, new products, and publications, but appeal to different purposes, if not different audiences altogether.
How do you meld your professional voice on your Web site, with the rapid fire of a Twitter news feed, with the more informal tone on Facebook? It’s not always easy, but there are several ways to keeping your tone and voice consistent across all outlets for your content.
Keep it simple. Yes, you can be clever, metaphoric, compelling, exuberant, and philosophical and still write simply.
Lead with the most important points. Don’t write long preambles or set a complicated scene. Give your users the most important, pertinent information right up front. You can always provide additional resources for users to explore through links.
Write like you mean it. When it comes to content, all you have are the words on the page. Your users must base their decisions on what you have written, so don’t hide anything from them thinking they will figure it out.
Integrate and contextualize. Show your users how the information you are providing on your Facebook page or your Twitter feed connects to bigger or more complex concepts on your Web site. Offer pathways for your users to explore more, get more information, or dig deeper into a topic.
Get your people involved. If you are touting your new product or showcasing a new service offering, get the people responsible for the advance talking on your social media outlets. Encourage product managers, developers, and your other professionals to contribute their voice to the conversation. Let your users get to know the people behind your products. And, then make sure your content editors support these folks with quality copyediting.
Seek support, guidance, and most of all, inspiration. Watch what others are doing, and emulate them, but don’t copy them. You want your unique themes to come through. Read what other people think about social media and Web content standards and style guides. For example, this excellent article about writing for social media from Livehacked.com is an extensive critique of how to make social media work for you, not against you.