Brand Voice

Brand voice is the combination of: how you say things (direct vs. conversational, formal vs. casual), what you emphasize (data vs. stories, speed vs. depth), what you avoid (jargon, hedging, corporate speak), and the recurring phrases or constructions that signal the author's identity. On LinkedIn, a distinct brand voice is one of the primary competitive advantages a personal brand can develop - it makes your content recognizable in a scroll even before the reader sees the name.

Building brand voice for a LinkedIn content strategy: audit your highest-performing posts for patterns (are they numbered lists or stories? short or long? personal or analytical?), identify the 3–4 adjectives that best describe how your best clients describe your communication style, and use those as constraints when writing. The goal is not to sound different for its own sake - it's to be consistent enough that the audience develops a prior about what they're going to get.

For agency operators doing ghostwriting: each client needs their own brand voice document, capturing specific phrases they use, topics they never discuss, their humor style (if any), and how they describe their core methodology. Without it, content written across a team reads as if it's from multiple people, which dilutes the personal brand signal.