Beyond The Style Guide: Helping other writers internalize your voice

Content people spend countless hours making their style guides perfect, only to discover that most people at the company, frankly, barely know that it’s there. But style guides should govern all your company’s content, everywhere: product content, sales emails, customer service chats, social media posts, and more. So how can you infuse your whole company—not just your writers—with your brand style and voice so that everyone, everywhere knows it by heart?

Come learn how even just one person can persuade and train your company to speak and write in one clear, compelling voice. In this session, you’ll learn:

How to design and deliver workshops, documentation, and other educational tools that teach others the value of writing and how to write and edit their own work
Lessons from launching and publishing an internal newsletter that secretly, stealthily teaches your voice
How to create and roll out a custom editorbot

Transcript

1. Beyond the Style Guide Helping other writers internalize your voice Beth Dunn | HubSpot
2. Beth Dunn HubSpot Product Editor-in-Chief bdunn@hubspot.com @bethdunn
3. I’ve been a line cook... and a proofreader.
4. I’d like to retire from both of those jobs.
5. Why am I still a line cook... and a proofreader??
6. What about content design?
7. Content Design Based on discovery Focused on user needs Collaboratively built Consistent with house style Aligned with brand voice Appropriate tone Content Review DESIGN & REFINE CHECK IT & CORRECT IT
8. We need content champions.
9. Beyond the Style Guide Documentation, Education, Automation
10. Documentation Show them what great content looks like.
12. Nobody cares about your style guide.
13. Show, don’t tell: Don’t document your style guide Demonstrate your style, voice, and tone Make it a lesson people love to learn
14. Trojan horse
15. Newsletters make great Trojan horses
16. Posters Podcasts Postcards Stickers Screensavers Phone wallpapers Semaphore Fake tattoos It doesn’t have to be a newsletter.
17. “Email newsletters deserve a big group hug.” - Ann Handley Chief Content Officer Marketing Profs
18. Email Newsletters (They’re awesome)
19. Email Newsletters (They’re awesome) Conveys your human voice Creates a personal connection Builds trust Gives the reader control See Ann Handley: Your Email Newsletter is No Longer Important, It’s Vital
20. Our voice guidelines... Human Personal Trustworthy User-centered
27. How it works It uses repetition It’s easy and fast It generates demand Which is this newsletter’s one job. Because who’s got the time? Because learning
28. Wait. How can I create content like that?
29. Education Teach them how to create great content themselves.
30. Hey, can you take a look at this for me? I’ve got an even better idea.
31. Run a Content Workshop
32. Slide decks Recorded videos Online courses Self-guided tours Scavenger hunts Fake tattoos It doesn’t have to be a workshop.
33. Content Workshop Agenda • Introduction: The Business Value of Great Content • The basics: Our style, voice and tone • Put it into practice: Group editing exercise How better content drives the metrics that matter (to them) How to identify and fix the most common mistakes (for them) Everyone edits the same doc and shares their work
34. Gather their Content • What types of content do they need the most from? • What metrics matter the most to this team? • Which content drives those metrics the most?
35. Find the Patterns • Style: Grammar, usage, punctuation • Voice: Brand personality and role • Tone: Context-driven behavior Comma splices, exclamation marks, capitalization, jargon User-centered language, maturity level, expectations of role Humor, informality, enthusiasm, respect
36. Title of Slide Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. Header Goes Here Build a Deck • Cover their core rules • Use their examples • Show “do” and “don’t”
37. Put it into Practice • Start with content the team gave you • Make it break every rule • Make it really bad • Hand out copies and pencils
38. “The second most powerful human urge is editing other people’s work.” - Anonymous
39. My team knows how to make content like that!
40. “I’m going to go fix all of my emails right now.” - Workshop participant
41. “I’m going to go fix all of my blog posts right now.” - Workshop participant
42. “I’m going to go fix all of my call scripts right now.” - Workshop participant
43. Automation Help them learn to correct their own work.
44. Automate your Style Guide • Routine grammar, spelling, punctuation mistakes • Common brand terms • Voice & tone nudges
45. Word macros Excel formulae Chatbots Tweetbots Fortune cookies Fake tattoos It doesn’t have to be a bot.
46. Hi, I’m BethBot. Hi, I’m RoryBot. Hi, I’m Alex.
47. What is BethBot? • Sets of simple if-then rules • Checks for style, voice and tone • One source of truth • Many applications
48. One source, many integrations One set of rules for checking content in: ❏ Slack ❏ Chrome ❏ Sketch ❏ Github
49. BethBot Checks for: • Inclusive language • Reading level • Profanities • Weasels, hedges, fillers • Passive voice • Acronyms • Overuse • Cliches • Commonly misused phrases
50. BethBot Checks for: • Inclusive language • Reading level • Profanities • Weasels, hedges, fillers • Passive voice • Acronyms • Overuse • Cliches • Commonly misused phrases ...and HubSpot style, voice & tone
51. If you can write a style guide you can create an editor bot* *some engineering required
52. BethBot in Action
53. BethBot in Slack
54. BethBot in Slack
55. BethBot in Slack
56. BethBot in Slack
57. BethBot in Chrome
58. BethBot in Chrome
59. BethBot in Chrome
60. BethBot in Chrome
61. BethBot in Sketch
62. BethBot in Sketch
63. BethBot in GitHub
64. BethBot in GitHub
65. BethBot in GitHub
66. BethBot in GitHub
67. BethBot Everywhere You get the idea.
68. Now anyone can make content like that.
69. Now let’s do some content design.
70. Thank you