What is an Editorial Style Guide? (And Why You Need One!)

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors. Erin: [00:00:00] Ever scroll through your business’s social media feed and feel like every post that you’ve shared was written by a different person? Maybe one sounds super professional, another one is just cracking jokes, and the third seems like it was written by a robot who just discovered EXCLAMATION POINTS! And I say it that way so you can see the amount of exclamation points I would put if I were writing this right now. Yeah, we need to talk about editorial style guides. And before you run away thinking, like, oh, that sounds like something only a big corporation needs, I don’t need this episode. I suggest you stick with me here, because I promise that this is about to make your content creation so much easier and make everything that you create, every marketing asset, every piece of copywriting, every larger form piece of content sound just [00:01:00] like you. Like we’ve been working so hard to do in this entire brand messaging series. So stick with me. These past few episodes. We’ve been talking all things brand messaging. We’ve figured out how to speak to multiple ideal clients, how to talk about your business without sounding like you swallowed a textbook, what the voice and tone of your business should be, and how to incorporate your values into your messaging. Today, we’re tackling something that ties All of this together with a pretty little bow. And that is your editorial style guide. One of the least sexiest things in the business world that no one except maybe me gets excited about, but an editorial style guide is, what’s that saying? Like worth its weight in gold. It is so helpful. Having [00:02:00] great brand messaging means absolutely nothing if your Monday social media posts sound like they’re coming from a completely different person than your Thursday email newsletter. before I get too much on a soapbox right now, let’s start by talking about what an editorial style guide is. Because it’s not really as boring or as scary as it sounds. Let’s I want you to think of an editorial style guide, kind of like a recipe book for your brand’s voice. Do you know how when you’re cooking something new, you want very clear instructions about what goes in, what stays out, and how to put it all together, like especially in what order? That’s what your style guide is, except instead of producing food, you’re actually creating content. It’s easy to think of a style guide as grammar rules, and yes, we will absolutely talk about whether or not you’re team [00:03:00] Oxford comma in this episode, but there’s more to style guides than just the grammar rules. It’s easy. Everything from how you want your brand to sound, to whether or not you use things like emojis and GIFs, or GIFs, however you say that in your emails, to what happens when someone on your team needs to write something and you’re not actually there to check it before they press publish. You may be thinking, it’s just me. I don’t have a team. I’m a solopreneur. I’m a creative. I’m a, however you describe yourself as a one person business, or you may be thinking, well, I don’t really have a team. I just have a couple of employees. Here’s the thing. You do need a style guide, like period. I’m not even going to argue with you that, argue that fact with you right now, because right now. Even if you’re solo, you’re probably wearing every hat in your business. The Monday morning you [00:04:00] who’s writing that social post sounds a lot different than the Thursday or Friday afternoon you who’s writing those emails. Plus, what happens when you have a major life event that may adjust your emotional state? Or an event in the world that makes you feel sad or frustrated or depressed or angry? Talk Copy to Me, SEO, Ollila. Those things affect how we show up. And when we have a style guide that helps us, , understand how we speak and communicate within our business, it’s so much easier to adjust our emotions or to have people write for us. Again, if you have a team, when they understand how you want to sound, Communicate and be seen in your business. And, I mean, I kind of already made this point, but when you do start growing as a business, if you are a solopreneur, you’ll already have your brand voice documented and ready to share with the people who are going to take over the writing or the content creation for you. That [00:05:00] is the key. Is Future Proving Your Business Voice? And I’m pretty positive anyone would love to know that they’re going into a future version of their business prepared to grow and to grow naturally in a way that feels authentic to your audience. So before your eyes glaze over and you think that I’m going to feed you some 50 page document that’s really rivaling your high school English textbook, let me break down what actually goes into this thing. Your editorial style guide should cover Your Voice and Tone. And yes, they’re actually different things. It’s kind of like how you’re the same person, whether you’re giving a presentation to clients or you’re hanging out with your friends from college. You likely don’t talk exactly the same way in both situations and maybe the way that you’re amplifying the message is also slightly [00:06:00] different. Your voice is your brand’s personality. It stays consistent. So maybe you’re a straight shooting expert who calls out industry nonsense, or , you’re a supportive coach who always says things like, you’ve got this. Whatever that is, that’s your voice. Tone is how your voice adapts, because even if you’re a straight shooting expert, you probably want to sound a little different when you’re announcing a new service versus responding to a customer complaint. But wait. There’s more. Okay, sorry, I couldn’t resist the infomercial moment that I had kind of set up right there. A complete style guide also includes things such as the rules about writing, like whether your team email me or team email me. e mail me. And yes, people actually argue about this. I’ve seen this happen on social media before.[00:07:00] Two, visual things, such as what fonts you use and how you use those fonts. And while I know that this might sound redundant if you have a branding guide, I still want you to put things like this within your editorial style guide, if you know that you’re going to grow and people will write in your voice. I did a really great episode with Michelle Clayton early on in the podcast, I think in season one, and I will link to it in the show notes, that covers the difference between a branding style guide, and an editorial style guide. Okay, but moving past visuals, we also talk about things in our editorial style guides, such as how you format things. Because nothing screams that you don’t have your act together, like, three different ways of writing dates on the same page. So if you’re doing, you know, November, I don’t even know what date this is going to go live. November 27th, let’s say, and you’re writing 11 [00:08:00] 27 2024 in one section, the word November, the number’s 27, Or you’re writing 11, but instead of a dash, it’s a slash, right? Like, I mean, I’m getting off the point here, but like, we want to be consistent in formatting. In addition to the visual stuff, we’re also talking about things such as formatting, which is extremely important when it comes to communication and clarity, as well as the words that you love and the words that you absolutely do not love and prefer not to use in your business. It will cover things like how do you handle social media posts without sounding like your account got hacked. And yes, even potentially how to use AI without making your content sound like it was written by robots. Not that I suggest using AI to write your posts, just a little note right there, or your pages, or your copy. But I do think that there is a real reason. Why [00:09:00] we would use artificial intelligence in our business, and if you’re not creating actual style guidelines for how you’re choosing to implement that or what type of AI content is appropriate to use in your business, your, your voice and tone are going to get completely lost and you will no longer sound like yourself. So it’s important to include these things. All right, deep breath now. Let me show you how all of these pieces work together. Let’s take a doggie daycare style guide as an example. Their voice may be playful, but professionally competent. Their tone shifts from fun and goofy when they share puppy photos on Instagram, to also being re reassuring and showing expertise when discussing pet safety in their newsletter or in blog posts. In their editorial style guide, they may choose to say words that they [00:10:00] approve in their business. For example, that may be doing, , using the words pet parent versus ever saying owner. , similarly, I actually just learned this one today. It may be that they never say pawrent, like P A W R E N T. I didn’t even know that was a thing, but I really wanted to get that in this episode. They may use dog puns in social media posts, but choose to keep them out of serious communications about pet health if they’re sending newsletters. If they’re looking for some visual guidance, it may be that when they post on social media, they don’t share photos of animals who look stressed or anxious, and instead that they only try to highlight happy times or lazy, relaxed animals. Their emails may include both fun stuff like playtime highlights and professional details, such as Pick up protocols, and there will be guidance on what type of scale or balance [00:11:00] would be between the fun and, like, the playful and the professional. So do you see how each decision I just listed out on a hypothetical editorial style guide for a dog daycare seems? Like, each decision, No matter how small it is, it’s helping to maintain their image as being a fun, loving dog business while still being trustworthy and that they have the safety and care of the animals, , as their priority while they’re being as communicative as possible with their leads and their clients. Having this information out there makes it very clear how they can show up in their business. Now, the Doggy Daycare example shows us how even small businesses can create clear guidelines that keep their content consistent and professional while still having some fun personality. But speaking of guidelines, let’s break down the essential components that make a style guide actually useful. And this [00:12:00] is what I personally call my AAA framework. So there are three A’s, duh, Erin, in my AAA framework. Being absolutes? Aware and Avoids. Now, the absolutes are the must dos, things that should always be within any type of messaging that they’re putting out. The avoids, obviously, are the absolute no gos. And the aware section are things that they should be watching out for. It may be appropriate to do, but there’s always kind of like an indicator on how they would decide whether or not they should be, , using certain phrases or approaching certain things within their messaging. I’m going to shift slightly away from the dog example and talk about a hypothetical business coach and how I would approach doing my triple a section of their Editorial Style Guide. For absolutes, and again, this is a [00:13:00] hypothetical business coach, I’m just making this up, but for absolutes, I would want to make sure that they’re sharing their personal experiences, but tying them back to how those experiences benefit clients. They’re using action oriented language. As an example, it could be something like Start Building vs. You Should Build. They’re including clear next steps in all content. They’re breaking down complex business concepts into digestible small pieces. They’re framing challenges as opportunities for growth. And that they’re always grounding any advice they share in real world examples, but absolutely not theory. Moving to the Aware section. Again, these are the watch out for items. For this hypothetical business coach, an aware column could be the balance between being the [00:14:00] expert while also being relatable. So they may want to share some failures with their audience, but always include the lesson. They may want to monitor how much tough love versus cheerleading each piece of content needs. They may want to keep an eye on industry buzzwords. Obviously, sometimes they’re necessary, but they do need an explanation, or maybe even need to be tampered down a bit instead of using them too much. They may want to be mindful of different business stages, What Works for a Startup May Terrify a Scaling Business. And finally, for the Aware section, you’re going to want to make sure that, well, this, this hypothetical business coach will want to make sure that they watch the ratio of storytelling to actual advice. Now, Let’s talk about how they’d approach the avoids. This is the , absolute no goes. They would never promise six figures in six weeks or any other get rich quick [00:15:00] vibes or themes in their business marketing. They would never use corporate jargon just to sound important. They would never share client stories without clear takeaways and permission from the clients. They would never make things more complicated than they need to be. They would never do that weird hustle culture, toxic positivity thing, you know, by saying things in their content, such as like, if you’re sleeping, you’re not hustling, and they’d never talk down to beginners or oversimplify things for experienced clients. So, I hope you can see here how my AAAs create guardrails for their content. It allows them and their voice and tone to be flexible while still staying true to who they are as a brand. Alright, examples aside, let’s talk about some common mistakes to avoid. Because a lot can go wrong with an editorial style guide. [00:16:00] You know, I see a lot of the times online if someone has like a faux pas in their business, what almost always happens is that they blame like a social media manager or they blame an intern or their copywriter for publishing a message that they didn’t approve. Yeah, I’m sure that happens, but the reason why guides like this are so important is you’re creating a safety net both for you and your business and for the people who are writing for you. You know, thinking about some of these common mistakes helps you learn from other people. You know, it’s way less painful than making all of these mistakes yourself. So let’s kind of just dive into them. One, it would be making things too complicated. If your style guide needs its own style guide to understand it, you have gone too far. Too far off the deep end. Keep your style guides simple enough that a new team member could easily jump right in and get the gist on [00:17:00] a one time read through. Being too rigid is also something that I see done incorrectly in style guides that I’ve read. Of course your guidelines matter, but if your rules are so strict that a simple social media post feels like that you have to like diffuse a bomb, you have completely lost the plot of what you’re trying to do. This, the next thing would be setting it and forgetting it. Just like a complete brand messaging guide. This style guide section isn’t something that you can just leave. Like it’s not, you know, I talked about recipes before and and instructions. This is not a crock pot recipe. It needs to evolve as your brand does. And I mentioned AI before so, you know, so that I don’t ignore the elephant in the room here. I understand people are using AI within their content creation processes. I’m not here to judge you. We’ve got a couple of great AI episodes and I actually have a really good one that I’m hoping will [00:18:00] come out before the end of the year on how to edit AI content. So that it actually sounds like you manually. , so regardless of how much you use AI in your content creation, I think your editorial style guide should have strict guidelines about how it can be used in your business, specifically if other people are doing this for you and you’re not a solopreneur, you know, what are they allowed to do? Are they allowed to feed it business content in order to reproduce new content? Can they simply start from scratch? What is the fact checking process like? That all belongs in your style guide so that there are clear boundaries and clear research being done. You know, it’s the tough thing about AI is that fact checking. We want to make sure anything that it produces is factual. And a lot of effort goes into that. So there needs to be clear guidelines, how to do that, as well as clear guidelines that, you [00:19:00] know, they can use within AI tools to say what your voice and tone and structure and all those things are like, so that’s it really. You have the whole, the what, the why of editorial style guides. And if you are here thinking, okay. But how do I actually use one of these things? Come back next week because I want to present part two of my brand messaging guide to you. You’ll know in a few episodes ago when I talked about exactly what goes in my brand messaging guides, I mentioned that I have it broken into two parts. 2 separate parts. The first one is all of the business information, what most people would consider true brand messaging. And the second one is My Marketing Made Easier. And what that does is it takes everything in a brand guide. Like these editorial style guidelines. And it shows my clients how to actually take all of that knowledge from part one and put it into action [00:20:00] in the specific marketing approaches they want to take. Like how to use it on social, how to use it in email marketing, how to approach content, copy, all of that. So I really hope that you’ll come back and tune in for that because knowing what goes into this like branding guide, not even specifically the style guide we’re talking about today, but knowing what goes into a branding guide as a whole is one thing, but actually building one that works and knowing how to implement everything within it is another. In the meantime, Just start paying attention to the content you’re putting out. Look for inconsistencies. Notice what feels right, what feels off. Pay attention to when your content feels most authentically you. And obviously when it doesn’t., Those observations are going to kind of self create that style guide that will make content feel a lot less like a chore and more like a natural extension of your brand. And, just like, and I’ve said in all the other [00:21:00] episodes, if you would rather have someone create an editorial style guide for you, I do that . So, you know, just reach out and contact me and I’d be happy to help you make sure that all of your branding. Your brand messaging and your styles are working together to create the best cohesive brand for you. All right, that’s it for this week. Come back next week where we’ll keep talking copy.