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Where marketing is concerned, content is king these days. From white papers and ebooks to Facebook and Twitter, content is everywhere. If you are a content creator, manager, or publisher you understand the value of great content as a powerful marketing tool. The words we choose, the tone we adopt, and the visuals we pair with them need to communicate in unison across all marketing channels. The need for a style guide is more important than ever as a tool for defining and enforcing the consistency of your communications across all your channels.

Style guides are far from new. The Chicago Manual of Style is one of the oldest, published in 1906. All publishers use them; many are specialized to represent a particular industry, such as The Business Style Handbook. The point is that when many people are creating content for one entity, a style guide is critical for maintaining brand identity. With many companies outsourcing content creation to freelancers, content development companies, or even across departmental lines, style guides hold it all together.

Here’s Why You Need a Style Guide

Writing a style guide is no small undertaking. It is a living document that requires periodic revisiting. A good style guide will document and standardize everything from grammar, voice, and image requirements to specialized terms used in your industry (or even just your company) to describe yourself.

Here’s why you need a style guide:

Brand Maintenance: Between print, broadcast, outdoor, and the Internet, it’s easier than ever to lose brand consistency. Where does your logo go? How do you integrate your tagline?

Content Consistency: Every author has their own writing style, voice, and point of view. And while this display of individuality is great for personal writing, all brand authors need to communicate as one. Great style guides will cover a wide breadth of points, covering issues such as how to handle headings and subheads, desired word counts, using buttons vs. links, paragraph styles, serial commas, em and en dashes, and more. The more depth and specificity your style guide has, the less you are leaving up to chance.

Tone Consistency: Tone can be set by a list of adjectives that speak to how you want your writing to sound to the reader: academic, funny, artistic, conversational—all very different styles. Choose adjectives that relate to your brand and your audience so that everyone can use the same tone. If your tone on Facebook is casual and fun, keep that tone on Twitter and LinkedIn. A consistent tone can help you stand out from the competition.

SEO & Metadata Awareness: SEO and metadata are often overlooked areas, but can make a profound difference in whether someone clicks on your site or another in search engines. Listing your most relevant keywords, including how descriptions get formed are not sexy, but necessary.

Content Creator Confidence: New employees and external contractors will be able to get up to speed quickly. Managers and editors will spend less time answering questions and making revisions. Having a set of parameters to follow will not only allow your content to shine, but provide your content writers with a level of confidence that they are fulfilling expectations and avoiding blunders.