Most brand voice guides say something like "friendly, authentic, and professional". Hand that to an AI writing tool and you get exactly what those words describe: the average of every friendly, authentic, professional post on the internet. It sounds like nobody.
A voice guide that works — for an AI model, a virtual assistant, or a future collaborator — is specific enough that two people following it would write similar posts. This guide gives you a structure for that, with examples.
Why adjectives fail
Words like "fun", "bold", or "approachable" mean different things to everyone. Is "fun" puns, memes, or exclamation marks? Is "bold" strong opinions or capital letters? Language models in particular fill vague instructions with the most common interpretation, which is precisely the generic tone you were trying to avoid.
The fix is to replace each adjective with behaviour: what you do and don't do, shown with examples.
The six parts of a useful voice guide
1. Who you are, in two or three sentences
Describe yourself the way you'd introduce yourself to someone in your field. What you make, who it's for, and what you know that others don't.
I'm a home-studio podcaster who has produced 200+ episodes on a tight budget. I talk to indie musicians and new podcasters who want good sound without a studio budget.
This anchors everything else. An AI tool that knows who is speaking makes far better choices about vocabulary and confidence.
2. Your niche and audience
Who reads your posts, what they already know, and what they want from you. Be concrete about expertise levels: "assume they know what a condenser mic is, but not what an early reflection is" is more useful than "beginner-friendly".
3. Voice traits as do/don't pairs
For each trait, write what it looks like in practice and what it doesn't.
- Direct. Do: lead with the point. Don't: warm up with "I wanted to share…" or "Excited to announce…".
- Practical. Do: give numbers, steps, and prices. Don't: give advice without saying how to act on it.
- Wry, not jokey. Do: dry asides and understatement. Don't: puns, "LOL", or more than one emoji per post.
- Confident but honest. Do: say "this worked for us". Don't: promise results or say "game-changer".
Then add two or three real posts you're proud of. Examples teach tone better than any description.
4. Goals
What your posts are for. Growing a newsletter, getting episode downloads, building a community, landing sponsors. Goals change what a good call to action looks like, and they keep an AI tool from optimising for the wrong thing (such as engagement bait when you wanted trust).
5. Things to avoid
The list of topics, words, and habits that are off-brand. This is often the most valuable section.
- Topics: politics, competitors by name, unannounced projects, personal family details.
- Words and phrases: "game-changer", "hustle", "unlock", "dive in", "in today's fast-paced world".
- Hashtags: any you never want used, such as trend tags unrelated to your niche.
- Formats: engagement bait ("Comment YES if…"), all-caps, threads longer than five posts.
6. Hard rules
Non-negotiables, stated as rules rather than preferences:
- Never claim a product or technique "guarantees" anything.
- Always disclose sponsorships with #ad at the start of the post.
- Never post about a guest before their episode is public.
- Every post that mentions a statistic includes where it came from.
Hard rules are where you protect yourself. An AI tool, or a busy collaborator, should treat them as absolute.
A compact template
You can keep the whole guide on one page:
WHO: [2–3 sentences: what you make, for whom, what you know]
AUDIENCE: [who reads, what they already know, what they want]
VOICE:
- [trait]: do [behaviour]; don't [behaviour]
- [trait]: do [behaviour]; don't [behaviour]
- [trait]: do [behaviour]; don't [behaviour]
EXAMPLES: [2–3 real posts]
GOALS: [what posts are for]
AVOID — topics: [...] words: [...] hashtags: [...] formats: [...]
HARD RULES: [non-negotiables]
Testing your guide
Give the guide to an AI tool (or a friend) and ask for three posts on a topic you've written about before. Then compare:
- Would you post these with light edits? If so, the guide works.
- Do they sound like a generic version of you? Add more do/don't detail and better examples.
- Did they break a rule you care about? Move that preference into hard rules and phrase it absolutely.
Revise the guide every few months. Voices drift, and a guide that describes who you were a year ago produces posts that feel slightly off.
Where to keep it
Wherever your tools can read it. In CreatorFlow, the Brand Voice settings follow this exact structure — core identity, niche, voice traits, goals, topics and hashtags to avoid, and hard rules — and the same profile is what RizBop and any AI assistant you connect over MCP read before drafting, so every draft starts from your voice rather than a generic one.