Nail your own tone of voice, don't just copy Tesco Mobile's!

I'm sure you have all by now seen or heard of Tesco Mobile's Twitter responses. If you haven't yet, check them out here.

Tesco Mobile have been praised and raved about for the past month or so, because of the quick and witty comebacks they send to the internet trolls who mock Tesco's mobile service.

It's a great idea. If you have seen the Tesco Mobile adverts, you'll see that they were the first to take the piss out of themselves. When they created the service, they knew that young people would be sending them abuse and calling them shit. So, when creating their social platform, Tesco Mobile knew they had to get someone to respond who could give as good as they got. It makes perfect sense for their brand.

You have also probably seen the 'Best Twitter Conversation Ever', whereby Tesco Mobile, Yorkshire Tea and Jaffa Cakes have humorous banter with each other. Now that other brands have seen this, they want a piece of the action. They want to be named 'legends' and have shout outs on the 'LAD Bible'. 

The problem is, is that most of these other brands are not in the position to be having banter with their consumers, because that's not the right tone of voice for their brand.

For example:

This post brought a smile to my face, however... is that Cadbury's tone of voice? A company who has been around for years, bringing a 'glass half-full', 'joyful' message to the world, suddenly reacting to their consumers with cat memes saying 'no' to requests?

What if every brand started rinsing their customers with insults and memes?

Ultimately, like everything that is really funny, it will eventually stop being funny. So don't try to follow brands that do it well if it means acting in a way that's not in your brand's nature.

The best thing, and really what these consumers love, is conversation. It doesn't have to be banter or anything worthy of virality, but just responding to every one of them quickly and personably is invaluable. They want to talk to a person, not a brand, which is why Tesco have succeeded so well. 

Decide what voice your brand has... Are you a young woman or an older man? Do you swear? Are you responsible? Are you fun? Are you informative? Are you helpful? If your brand were a celebrity, who would it be? 

Remember that brand successes come and go but it's your customers that will stick around for the long term, so think about the best way to respond to them that will help grow your relationship, rather than what will get you noticed for a day.