A content style guide is a comprehensive document that outlines the rules and standards for creating consistent, engaging, and on-brand content. It serves as a roadmap for teams, ensuring a unified voice, tone, and visual identity across all communication channels.
In 2025, as brands compete in an increasingly dynamic digital landscape, a well-crafted style guide can help build trust and brand recognition and connect authentically with diverse audiences.
With the help of our experts, we’ll share eight effective tips to help you create a strong foundation for your brand messaging.
Table of Contents
- Solidify Your Brand Personality
- Refer to Tried and Tested Style Manuals
- Specify Language and Terminology
- Develop Channel-Specific Guidelines
- Ensure Visual Consistency
- Include All Preferred and Blacklisted Content Sources
- Include Examples and Templates
- Regularly Update Your Content Style Guidelines
- Content Style Guide: Key Takeaways
- Content Style Guide FAQs
1. Solidify Your Brand Personality
The most important tip for creating a content style guide is to establish your brand personality. It should showcase your company’s culture, communication style, and values, helping your target audience remember who you are and what you stand for.
A distinct brand personality strengthens positive associations with your company and your offerings. It sets your brand apart from the competition, builds customers' confidence, and influences their behavior through effective communication.
Focus on the following to create a content style guide that’s in line with your brand personality:
- Brand voice: A consistent brand voice builds familiarity and trust. Whether casual, authoritative, or playful, this voice ensures every interaction aligns with your brand identity, creating deeper connections with your audience.
- Tone: Brand tone conveys the emotional nuance behind your words. Do you want to communicate in a friendly and approachable manner? Or does your brand suit a humorous tone better? Whichever you choose, your tone adds a layer of character to your messaging and makes it more memorable.
- Style: This defines the visual and written consistency in your content, encompassing brand typography, colors, and formatting. It ensures a cohesive, recognizable identity across all platforms, enhancing recall and professionalism.
[Source: Walmart Brand Center]
2. Refer to Tried and Tested Style Manuals
Before creating a style guide for content, refer to established style manuals. This helps ensure your guidelines adhere to widely accepted language and formatting standards. It provides a strong foundation so you can save time on minor decisions and maintain consistency.
The following style manuals can help you craft your own:
- The Elements of Style: This manual was first published in 1918 and offers timeless principles of clarity, brevity, and precision in writing. Incorporating these principles fosters professionalism and consistency.
- Associated Press (AP) Stylebook: The AP Stylebook has been the go-to resource for writing standards for news media individuals and outlets. It features in-depth discussions on journalistic standards for usage, spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Additionally, it has been used for over six decades and remains timely by today’s standards.
- Modern Language Association (MLA) Style Manual: The academic field has greatly benefited from the MLA Style Manual, thanks to its contemporary set of guidelines for formatting and citation.
- The Chicago Manual of Style: The Chicago Manual of Style is commonly used in commercial and academic publishing. This collection of writing standards is one of the more popular references when creating appropriate style guides for writers, editors, publishers, and scholars. It serves as one of the pillars of style thanks to its evergreen directives.
3. Specify Language and Terminology
Define approved language, including specific phrases, jargon, or technical terms your brand uses. Here’s how to specify language and terminology in your content style guide to ensure clarity, consistency, and brand alignment:
- Create a list of approved and prohibited terms: List key phrases, slogans, product names, and industry-specific jargon your brand uses consistently. Prohibited words may include competitor names, outdated terms, or language that conflicts with brand values.
- Establish tone for specific words: Indicate where formal terms vs. informal alternatives (e.g., “purchase” vs. “buy”) should be used based on the audience or platform. Prioritize inclusive, culturally sensitive, and accessible terminology.
- Provide context for technical language: Define when and how to use technical jargon. For example, use industry-specific terms for expert-level communications and simplify them for general audiences.
- Set grammar guidelines: Define when to spell out terms, when to abbreviate them, and whether to use contractions in different types of content. You should also establish regional spelling preferences (e.g., “color” for US English vs. “colour” for British English).
4. Develop Channel-Specific Guidelines
Your comprehensive content style and brand voice guidelines must outline rules for each communication channel. After all, different platforms have unique audiences, formats, and engagement styles.
Begin by listing the channels your brand actively uses and adapt your brand voice to suit the context and audience of each one. You should also tailor content structure and length to fit each channel.
- Social media: Casual, engaging language with emojis. The optimal post length is between 120 and 280 characters on Instagram and X (Twitter). Use concise, conversational language for onscreen text on TikTok.
- Email newsletters: Tone should be friendly yet professional, and avoid overly casual language unless your brand voice calls for it. Keep subject lines under 50 characters and personalize them with the recipient’s name. Include at least one clear call to action (CTA).
- Website: Maintain a professional, authoritative tone and write short paragraphs for search engine optimization (SEO). Align formatting with global accessibility standards.
- Paid ads: Language should be direct and persuasive, with a strong CTA. Keep headlines under 50 characters and ad copy under 100 characters.
- Customer support: Maintain a calm, empathetic, and positive tone even in challenging situations. Balance professionalism and solution-oriented responses with warmth and care.
- Print materials: Brochures, flyers, and print ads should use concise, impactful language to engage readers quickly. Tailor the tone to match your purpose: informative for brochures and persuasive for ads. Additionally, the text should be readable and balanced with matching visuals.
5. Ensure Visual Consistency
Consistency in brand visuals helps you establish a recognizable and cohesive identity across all platforms and materials, making your brand instantly recognizable to your audience. Consistency also reinforces your message and differentiates your brand from competitors.
Set imagery standards for different visual elements:
- Logo usage: Provide specifications for logo size, spacing, and placement. Include acceptable variations (full color, monochrome, or inverted colors) and define prohibited modifications.
- Color palette: Specify primary, secondary, and accent colors with exact HEX, RGB, and CMYK codes. You also need guidelines on color combinations to maintain harmony and accessibility.
- Typography: Define fonts for headings, subheadings, and body text. Include size, weight, and line spacing guidelines.
- Photography: Outline the style of photos used in all of your content (e.g., candid, professional, lifestyle-focused, etc.). Include guidelines for lighting, composition, and subject matter.
- Illustrations: Specify whether custom or stock illustrations are allowed. Use consistent colors, line weights, and design techniques to ensure coherence.
- Layouts: You also need rules for structuring content across various mediums to maintain visual harmony and clarity. Define grid systems and alignment rules to create balanced layouts. Specify margins and padding to maintain adequate spacing around text and images, resulting in clean, uncluttered designs.
6. Include All Preferred and Blacklisted Content Sources
Research is a must for any content creation process. Creating better content means knowing the right and wrong sources to use, so your content style guide should also have a list of all favored publications and ones to avoid.
You can be as general as possible and list the domain types that signify authority (.org, .edu, etc.). Or, you can list specific company names or publications with their websites, specific studies, authors, or research documents.
Creating a list of recognized and valuable resources helps all current and future writers gather high-quality and credible information. Look into approved content like industry guides, product videos, market research sources, and data-focused reports and studies. Additionally, even key brands and competitors play a helpful role in gathering reliable information.
On the flip side, drawing information from taboo competitors and controversial and questionable sources will do more harm than good. Be clear about what sources must be avoided to maintain brand trust.
7. Include Examples and Templates
With clear examples and ready-to-use templates, you reduce guesswork and empower team members to produce consistent, on-brand content efficiently. Provide positive examples to demonstrate correct applications of your brand voice, tone, and visuals across different platforms, such as blog posts, social media captions, and email copy. Negative examples will help you avoid simple mistakes.
Templates provide pre-designed formats for common needs like press releases, newsletters, or social media posts. They simplify content creation and reduce the risk of errors or deviations.
8. Regularly Update Your Content Style Guidelines
Regularly updating your content style guide ensures it remains relevant and effective as your brand evolves and market dynamics shift. Here are some steps you can take:
- Schedule quarterly and annual reviews to assess your guide’s alignment with audience expectations and industry trends.
- Update your content and style guidelines to reflect internal changes like rebranding efforts or expanded target demographics.
- Stay informed about advancements in technology, communication platforms, and accessibility standards, then integrate them into your guide.
- Incorporate feedback from team members and stakeholders who regularly use the guide to identify gaps or outdated practices.
- Document all changes and communicate them to your team through training sessions or announcements.
Content Style Guide: Key Takeaways
A well-crafted content style guide is an essential tool for maintaining consistency, professionalism, and brand recognition across all communication channels. Defining clear rules for voice, tone, visuals, and platform-specific content ensures your messaging aligns with your brand identity and resonates with your audience.
Outsourcing the services of some of the best content marketing agencies and specialized digital marketing agencies can help you create, maintain, and deploy a comprehensive style guide. Their expertise strengthens your brand for long-term success.
Content Style Guide FAQs
1. Who should use a content style guide?
Anyone involved in creating or approving brand communications should use the brand style guide, including marketers, designers, social media managers, content writers, and customer support teams. It ensures alignment across all touchpoints.
2. Can a content style guide be flexible?
Yes, a content style guide should balance consistency with flexibility. While core elements like brand voice and visual identity must remain consistent, it’s important to allow adaptability for specific campaigns or emerging trends to maintain relevance.
