#fromshannon

At Loyal, our shared values, vision, and goals as a company are what have formed the brand personality represented today. Within the past couple of weeks, a few people have complimented the personal but informative tone and voice of Loyal’s blog. This means a lot to us, as tone and voice for a brand is always a big (and important) decision, and it’s reflective of our company culture. For Loyal, showing our collective personalities through our branding and content may have been a bit of a risk, but it just made sense. At the end of the day, we treat our community as friends and family, because that’s what they are to us.

We’re not the only ones who let our personalities shine through. Zipcar, Manhattan Mini Storage, and Etsy all do this well with great success. Have you ever interacted with any of these brands? Think about how their content made you feel. Did a post make you want to comment because it was funny, or extremely relatable? Have they ever responded to you with the perfect solution in language that made you feel cared about, not dumb or disrespected. Simply put, there’s something to be said about a brand with a human voice.

Important considerations when deciding on the type of personality you want your brand to have, include:

What your product or service is: Just because you offer something serious like financial advice, doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be overly serious. You can be smart and witty and still earn your community’s respect. Which leads me to… 

The role your brand plays in the lives of your community: How, when, and why do they interact with your content? Answering these questions helps determine how your audience may be feeling when they interact with your brand? Maybe they’re a frustrated entrepreneur trying to figure out payroll for their brand new company pre-launch; or perhaps they're an established brand trying to launch a new product geared towards millennials they know nothing about. 

If you interact with your community IRL: If your community members know you personally, they’re going to want to feel like they’re interacting with you and your team through the brand. 

Your company culture: If people -- customers or not -- follow your brand, they most likely care about it. Don’t be scared to give them a sneak peek into the lives of the team and how you all spend time together. In the spirit of transparency, your brand’s voice should be reflective of its culture. 

Your company's vision: This can be an unexpected, but powerful tool in determining voice and tone. What are trying to accomplish? f you’re trying to educate or inform, think of how the information would be well-received. If your mission is to entertain, it’s all about the delivery. We envision mass adoption of community as a powerful way to earn loyalty and retention among brands and startups. In order to get there, we’re working on educating our community on the power of community and engaging storytelling through casual and relatable content -- and it seems to work for us, and more importantly, you?

As a brand, you’re trying to tell your story in the most meaningful way possible, right? Telling a story with personality gives impact. It all comes down to empathy. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes. How would you want to be spoken to? What kind of information would you be looking for? What are you not looking for but could certainly use? Food for thought.

Among the biggest qualities I have always sought in a position is the continuous opportunity to learn. So I was ecstatic when I heard that I would be implementing a learning plan over the next three months.

As Loyal’s Content Manager, gaining new perspective on how content fits into community is an obvious priority, but my learning plan goes beyond that. I have to admit, it was difficult narrowing my goals to only three, but I believe that focus is absolutely essential for success. Here are the goals that we identified as the most critical to accomplish over the next few months:

Become a Storytelling Pro: To articulate and educate on the art of collaborative storytelling; become a resource on the subject on behalf of Loyal.

Know the Ins and Outs of Community Design: To better understand the business implications and future opportunities of community, and the current role of content strategy in building communities and increasing engagement.

Become an Educator: To play a significant role in elevating Loyal as a leader in community design while educating the community on what community design is through high-quality content.  

No plan will ever make it to light without a strategy. In order to successfully implement this plan, we identified several learning channels to help me reach my goals in the categories of: Literary and online resources, industry events, and people via one-on-one interviews. Check out my entire learning plan.

My first interview will be this week with Veronica Chan, who’s on the brand communications team for OXO. She’ll be sharing with me her insights and experiences from working in community in general, as well as greater details on forming blogger programs and importance of relationships. I’m really looking forward to getting to know Veronica and sharing a recap of our conversation with you in my weekly “From Shannon” series.

In upcoming posts, I’ll be sharing my learnings and providing progress updates on my learning plan. I’ll also share book reviews -- the first will be Storytelling for User Experience by Whitney Quesenbery.

My kid was playing with ice in a bowl for an hour.

Maybe he is a little gay himself and afraid of what that means…?

everyone tells you it is too much sleep - probably because they are jealous :)