The biggest thing I’ve learned as a B2B content writer is that some back-and-forth is only natural when you’re helping a company establish their brand voice.
And this is especially true when you’re adapting brand voice for each marketing channel.
Here’s how I make it happen and what I recommend. 👇
Why Is It Important to Adapt Brand Voice for LinkedIn, Instagram, and Newsletters?
A clear brand voice stands out in the world of AI content. It’s how brands remain competitive and speak to their ideal customers in a way that grabs their attention.
And users engage across channels differently. If you speak to your audience on Instagram the way you do on LinkedIn, you’ll lose them. And vice-versa.
But when you post content in your brand voice that’s native to each channel, you:
- Maintain identity: Your brand’s core traits (authority, empathy, wit) stay intact while you speak differently.
- Connect effectively: People engage when the tone meets their expectations.
- Build trust: Inconsistent voice signals inexperience or lack of values.
Without adaptation, even strong brands struggle to land their message.
When working with one of my clients (a career consultant), we had a very clear idea of how we wanted her brand to sound on LinkedIn: Authoritative, educated, and approachable. However, on Instagram, it’s more flexible, so we wanted to incorporate humor and warmth. For email marketing, we aimed to foster deeper customer relationships.
After three attempts, we struck the right balance: A thought leadership tone on LinkedIn, an entertainment one on Instagram, and a more personal tone in email.
Here’s how we did it. 👇
LinkedIn Brand Voice Adaptions
LinkedIn is about credibility, expertise, and professional authority. People scroll to learn, benchmark, or evaluate partnerships — not for entertainment.
Here’s what I’ve learned works best:
Thought leadership focus
Share frameworks, actionable insights, and contrarian ideas. For example, share a carousel about screen readers and accessibility standards. And comment a link to your blog post that goes deeper into Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and what to do about them.
On LinkedIn, multi-image posts drive the highest engagement, averaging 6.60%. Native documents come next at 5.85%, followed by videos at 5.60% per post.
Conversational expert tone
Speak like a knowledgeable peer, not a lecturer. Use first-person insights, practical takeaways, and industry terminology strategically.
Authentic but authoritative
Personalize posts with real examples, but always show evidence of your expertise.
For example, if you’re sharing the following graphic from a blog post about how much headshots cost, share a story about your experience as a professional photographer in the caption.
Talk about color contrast, posing, and how much time it takes to edit images manually. Then compare that to how instant photos work.
Long-term authority focus
Create LinkedIn posts that connect over time to position your brand as the go-to resource in your field. For example, create a content series, like “Sunday Breakfast” tips. Be sure to also choose content pillars and only focus on those core topics and subtopics.
For example, if you run a B2B content agency, your content pillars might be:
- User experience (UX) best practices: Layout and visual design, font sizes, size of screenshot illustrations, site speed, hyperlinks, and interactive elements.
- SEO best practices: Meta and alternative text, structural elements, AI SEO, and traditional SEO tips for web pages and content assets.
- Content management systems: How to plan, prepare, publish, and stage content at scale. Content selection and updates.
Instagram Brand Voice Adaptations
Instagram is visual-first and designed for connection, entertainment, and authenticity. It’s where your human side matters most.
Entertainment focus (or Story-driven)
Lead with visually engaging content or story-driven posts.
If you’re creating content for a B2B brand or a sensitive industry, striking the right tone for Instagram can get tricky. You need humanness — but you still need to keep the brand voice intact.
Personal branding
Highlight people behind the brand, not just products or services. (Think behind-the-scenes images and videos, team stories, and brand processes and systems.) When in doubt, lean on talking head videos — but emphasize authenticity. You don’t want the brand to come across like a curated performance.
Engagement pillars
Encourage interactions, like comments, saves, and shares. Do this through captions, visual cues, and calls to action across content types.
If you already have an engaging audience, consider using software like Manychat to automate lead generation. That’s where the user comments a word, and you auto-DM them a link to buy or download something. You can also use it to build your email marketing list.
UGC partners
Leverage authentic content from customers or collaborators to build reach, trust, and relatability.
(Make sure the user-generated content aligns with the brand voice before reusing it or sharing to preserve brand reputation.)
Newsletter Brand Voice Adaptations
Newsletters give brands more freedom to express themselves. You can speak directly, experiment more often with tone, and develop a deeper connection over time.
Audience nurturing
Your goal is long-term engagement, not solely clicks to products or upgrades. Adapt content to cater to the customer over time. How do they evolve with the brand? How are their needs changing? How can you be as helpful as possible?
Polls and surveys are a great go-to if you’re stuck on this.
Direct and personal
Write like you’re speaking to a single person. Share stories, lessons, and real insights. (These resonate more than polished, corporate phrasing.)
Here’s an example by millionaire and business coach, Maria Wendt:
Maria talks about crushing on her neighbor and ties it into how her overactive imagination led to her becoming a millionaire.
Her emails are always short, very personalized, and address recipients by their first name.
You don’t have to be as vulnerable as Maria is, but this is a great example of how much more personal you can be via email.
*Make sure to also include unsubscribe links and contact information in your emails!
Room to experiment
Test different approaches, like humor, confessions, and long-form insights. Newsletters are the perfect place to explore without risking damage to your brand perception on other channels.This freedom allows you to test creative email marketing campaign ideas that might be too informal for LinkedIn.
Think of it as the place where you can educate, inspire, and deepen relationships.
Feeling overwhelmed on how to balance brand voice across these three channels? I created a simple cheat sheet and checklist for you below. 👇
Free tool: Analyze your target audience, brand voice, content pillars and competitors. Try it now.
Brand Voice Adaptations Cheat Sheet
LinkedIn proves expertise, Instagram builds authentic connections, and newsletters create loyalty.
Use the following cheat sheet to learn and adapt your brand voice across these channels.
1. Create a Core Voice DNA Sheet
Define your brand’s core values, tone anchors, and emotional palette (e.g., confident, empathetic, curious). Everything else (channel tweaks, style) derives from this. This prevents fragmentation and gives your team a single “truth” for expression.
2. Write down each platform’s dominant user intent:
For example:
- LinkedIn → Learn / Signal expertise
- Instagram → Feel / Conne
- Newsletter → Reflect / Commit
- Translate your voice accordingly (data-driven, human, personal).
This helps your tone align with audience psychology, not your internal bias.
3. Design Sentence Templates for Each Platform
For example:
- LinkedIn: Start with insights or contrarian statements.
- Instagram: Start with emotion or identity (“Ever feel like…”).
- Newsletter: Start with a story or confession.
This gives your writers structural starting points that fit platform algorithms.
4. Run a 3-Week “Voice Audit”
For example:
- Review 10 posts per platform.
- Tag them by tone (authoritative, casual, personal).
- Measure engagement + saves + comments.
This helps you identify which emotional tone truly performs, not what merely feels on-brand.
5. Install Feedback Loops
- Capture reader comments and DMs that mention how you sound.
- Categorize feedback: “Credible,” “relatable,” “too corporate,” etc.
- Adjust future posts using that data.
This way, the audience, not internal teams, defines perceived brand voice.
6. Use Platform-Native Proof Points
For example:
- LinkedIn: Data, screenshots, frameworks.
- Instagram: Behind-the-scenes visuals, team moments.
- Newsletter: Long-form stories, performance insights.
Rationale: Authenticity comes from showing the right kind of evidence in the right place.
Brand Voice Adaptations Checklist
Use the following checklist to keep your brand voice focused. Consider including this in your style guide.
On LinkedIn:
- Thought leadership focus
- Conversational expert writing tone
- Authentic but authoritative
- Long-term topical authority focus
On Instagram:
- Entertainment focus
- Personal branding focus
- Engagement pillars
- UGC partners for reach, trust, and human edge
In Newsletters:
- Audience nurturing
- More direct and “personal”
- Room to experiment with tone and style
Wrap up
Adapting brand voice for each channel requires experimentation. However, when you strike the right tone, audiences engage, and businesses can move closer to their goals.
If you’re hitting a wall, use the cheat sheet and checklist above.
And, again, don’t be afraid of trial-and-error. If you have an agency, educate your clients and set some expectations around this. It takes time to get brand voice right — and that’s okay.
PS: Need a convenient way to post content on all channels and tailor brand voices? You’ll love Storychief. Try it for free now.
FAQs
What is a brand voice?
A brand voice is the distinct personality and communication style a brand uses consistently across all channels. It shapes how the brand sounds and feels.
Why does brand voice matter?
Because a clear, consistent brand voice makes your messaging recognizable, builds trust, and improves differentiation. It also supports long-term brand equity.
What’s the difference between brand voice and brand tone?
Voice is the stable personality of a brand. Tone refers to how a voice shifts in different contexts (e.g., formal vs. informal) while remaining consistent.
How do you develop a brand voice?
Start by defining your core values, audience, and personality traits. Then audit your current content to identify what works and document preferred vocabulary, style, and use cases. *Pro-Tip: Give your marketing team and subject-matter expert writers a style guide.
How do you maintain brand voice consistently across channels?
Create a voice guideline document with examples and do’s/don’ts. Be sure to also train contributors and audit content regularly.
Free tool: Analyze your target audience, brand voice, content pillars and competitors. Try it now.
