How to create editorial guidelines for a brand
As a journalist, I have used editorial guidelines while writing for various publications. Editorial guidelines define a publication. It sets the publication apart from the others in the market. In fact, it is the identity and personality of a publication. But I had never thought of creating one; that too for a brand!
However, creating editorial guidelines was an ask by one of our clients, a major in the travel industry. We were creating an omni-channel digital experience for the brand.
When I was bestowed with this task, I found myself a bit lost. How to start and where to start was my first dilemma.
In the next hour, I went around and collected some books and brochures of this brand. The task in front of me was not easy. The brand itself was iconic and customers had a perception and opinion about it.
I started by preparing the Table of contents (ToC) for the manual. Broadly, the ToC should comprise of the following:-
1. Overview and Purpose
2. Voice and Tone
3. Writing guidelines
4. Style guidelines
5. Writing for localisation
6. Guidelines for user generated content
Defining voice and tone of a brand
Voice is the personality of the brand and tone refers to the attitude it projects while using a particular voice. Tone is the subset of voice. While designing a website, it is very important to define the voice and tone of the brand as this sets the mood and attitude of the brand.
The first step in the journey was to understand the brand itself. I started exploring what the brand is, what it stands for and what are its communication goals. Simultaneously, I started understanding the organizing idea and design principles the team had identified to build the new website. These form the foundation of defining the voice and tone of the brand.
Writing Guidelines
This section of the document builds on the voice and tone outlined in the previous section to provide explicit guidance on creating content for the brand. Good writing always considers the user’s medium — where the content is being consumed. Since reading on a computer screen, tablet or mobile device is fundamentally different from reading on paper, certain things that work in printed form do not translate well in the digital space.
Writing for digital mediums should focus upon brevity and scannability of information. Users expect to be able to quickly get to the information they need; if they cannot find what they are looking for, they leave the page.
Also, digital as a medium is more about interactivity and users expect to find interactivity and actionable content — that is, content that leads them to other places within a website or to another site altogether.
To fully take advantage of this medium with its constraints and opportunities, we added some points which will guide the content writer.
Style guide
The style guide is used as a first reference to answer usage and punctuation questions. A style guide brings uniformity and consistency in the way content is presented on the website. We created a table in which we detailed out how to use abbreviations, acronyms, currency, dates, headings, hyperlinks amongst a host of other usage and punctuation related stuffs.
Along with the style guide, we also placed a table on On-page SEO factors which a writer should consider while writing content for the website. We detailed out how to think of Page title, how to write meta-description, primary keywords etc.
Writing for localisation
Writing for localisation means thinking about translating this content into various other languages based on the locale. You may have noticed some websites giving option to read in native languages. This is done by thinking about localisation even before you start writing content for the website.
By the way, localisation does not mean text content only. You need to consider the use of images and videos too. We listed a few best practices to follow when considering localisation.
Writing for localisation also means thinking about how English is used in different geographies. We all know that British English and U.S. English have lot of variations. Whether it be spelling, punctuations, usages, idioms and phrases, we need to consider the nitty-gritties of the language. We called out certain examples to draw the writer’s attention to these nuances.
Guidelines for user-generated content
This is one section we struggled with. User-generated content (UGC) is an evolving space where best practices are also evolving and hence very difficult to define. Moreover, user-generated content on a brand website is not a common thing. So the guidelines involved factors relevant to a moderator of UGC and some guidelines on privacy and copy right considerations. I am still hoping to shape this section a bit more.
If you think editorial guidelines are all about a content writer, you are wrong. We also plugged in guidelines relating to design, images, photography and videography. This meant working closely with the in-house design team to develop these guidelines.
Remember, a good understanding of the brand and the eye of a journalist is very important for creating editorial guidelines.
