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How to find your brand voice: five exercises that work
Five short exercises to define your brand voice, with a one-page voice guide you can hand to a writer, a teammate or an AI writing tool.
· 4 min read
Your brand voice is the way you sound when you are at your clearest. You do not invent it. You find it in what you have already written and said, then write it down so it stays consistent. The five exercises below take about an hour and end with a one-page guide.
This works the same for a person and for a company.
Voice and tone are not the same thing
Voice is constant: who you are. Tone changes with the moment. You sound different announcing a launch than answering a complaint, but you are the same person in both.
A voice guide fixes the first so you can vary the second on purpose.
Exercise 1: collect your best five
Find five things you wrote that you are proud of and that got a response: posts, emails, a talk, a page of your site. Read them aloud, one after another.
Then note what they share:
- How long are the sentences?
- Do you open with a story, a claim or a question?
- Do you use "I", "we" or "you"?
- Is there humour? What kind?
- How do you end?
These patterns are your voice, already working. Everything else in this guide is a way of describing them.
Exercise 2: three words, each with a limit
Pick three adjectives. Then give each a boundary, because every adjective fails in one direction.
| We are | But not |
|---|---|
| Direct | Blunt |
| Warm | Gushing |
| Expert | Condescending |
The "but not" column is the useful part. It tells a writer where to stop.
Exercise 3: the never list
Write down the words and habits that are not you. This is quicker than describing what is.
- Words: "synergy", "game-changing", "leverage" as a verb.
- Habits: exclamation marks, emoji in every line, rhetorical questions as openers.
- Claims: anything you cannot back up.
A never list is the fastest fix for writing that sounds generic, because generic writing is made of the phrases everybody uses.
Exercise 4: say it three ways
Take one plain sentence, such as "We changed our pricing." Write it three ways: too formal, too casual, and just right.
- Too formal: "We are pleased to announce a revision to our pricing structure."
- Too casual: "Big news!! New prices, who dis?"
- Right: "We changed our pricing. Here is what is different and why."
Seeing the wrong versions makes the right one obvious. Keep the trio in your guide as an example.
Exercise 5: write your stances
Voice is also what you believe. List three to five positions you hold about your field, each with a reason.
- "Flat pricing, no hidden fees, because surprise bills destroy trust."
- "We do not comment on competitors by name."
Stances keep you consistent when a topic comes up unexpectedly. Mark the sensitive ones, so anything touching them gets a second look before it is published.
Put it on one page
A voice guide nobody reads is not a guide. Keep it to one page:
- Who we write for — one sentence.
- Three words, with limits — the table above.
- Do — five rules, such as "short sentences" and "one concrete example per post".
- Don't — the never list.
- Samples — three to five pieces that sound right.
- Stances — your positions and reasons.
Samples matter most. A writer learns more from three good examples than from any list of rules.
Using your guide with AI writing tools
A voice guide is exactly what an AI tool needs to stop sounding generic. Without one, it defaults to the average of everything. With one, it has something to hold to.
In FinalPost AI, the brand voice settings follow the same structure: a tone, an audience, do and don't lists, voice samples, and stances with reasons. You can paste your samples, or let it learn from posts on your connected accounts and suggest do and avoid lists from patterns it actually found. Drafts still wait for your approval, which is where you catch anything that does not sound like you.
For more on why samples beat instructions, read how to brief an AI writing assistant.
Test it
Give the guide to someone who does not know your writing, or to a tool, and ask for a short post. If you could put your name on the result with light edits, the guide works. If not, add another sample and another line to the never list.
Frequently asked questions
How is a brand voice different from a style guide?
A style guide covers mechanics: spelling, capitals, how to write dates. A voice guide covers personality: how you sound. Small teams can keep both on one page.
Can a personal brand and a company brand share a voice?
They often overlap, especially for founders. Keep one guide if you write as yourself for the company. Separate them when several people write for the company.
How often should I revisit it?
Once or twice a year, or when your audience changes. Replace the samples with newer ones as your writing improves.