Lesson: Social Media & Branding with Crystal Lee

Step #5 Tone: Learn how to best speak to your audience

Having worked on support Mailbox, I learned a lot about messaging and how even exclamation points and even the occasional smiley face can go a long way. Its important not to be excessive. Two exclamation points are very different from one. No exclamation points are very different from five. So I'd say there are limitations and when in doubt its better to be ambivalently professional than it is to be over emotional. And I'd say by and large it is what you make it.

So if you want to be sarcastic in your tweet, you can. And your followers, especially if they are highly attuned to our style of tweeting, they can get it. They can understand the sarcasm. But it is very nuanced. It is hard to pin point. Some people naturally think that way and some people don't. I think really good journalists can find a way in 140 characters say what they need to while also being funny without using any exclamation points or smiley faces.

So I think there’s an art to it and I'm still learning. But there are professionals out there who are good at it and I’d be interested in finding out more in terms of what goes into crafting nuanced tweets because right now as Miss California I stick to professional, I stick to neutral and I stick to happy. So I tend to use extra exclamation points and smiley faces and "Thx" instead of thanks if I have a lot to say. Abbreviating your tweets also works if there is really a lot you want to say and you don't want to use two tweets to say it.

It depends on the company; I like to think of social media as a person. It should be in a friendly tone. It should be information that is portrayed in a way that is easily digestible. So social media is not like academic abstracts. It's not like lawyer speak. It's very different. The language should be colloquial, informal and casual because that is the most approachable and relatable way to absorb information. So any type of content that you put on social media, from the way you phrase a description to the way you craft a caption, those things should really reflect your brand. If your brand is trying to reach the average person, I think that the tone needs to be in the average person too.

I can tell that if I follow that person long enough to suddenly see a change in their tone. Most people don't have the time to really look through tweets to see how tone is changed. So it really often times doesn't matter but tone can be taught too. You can teach someone to manage your social media account, to use terminology, to use tone in a way that seems as if one person is doing it. I would like to think here at Miss California our Twitter account seems like its managed by one person. That's because we have certain basic rules when we tweet. Be friendly, speak in the language that is relevant to our audience and keep it light.