Create a Tone of Voice Guide
Use this prompt in ChatGPT to build a clear tone of voice guide with principles, do-and-dont rules and concrete text examples.
Last updated: July 2026 · Collective Brain
Good for
- Define a brand voice before your website and social channels go live
- Align freelancers and your team on one consistent way of writing
- Check existing copy against a fixed standard and bring it in line
The prompt
You are an experienced brand strategist and copywriter. Create a practical tone of voice guide for my brand.
Context:
- Brand and offer: [your brand and product]
- Audience: [your target audience]
- Desired impression: [3 adjectives, e.g. clear, warm, competent]
- Address: [informal or formal]
Work through these steps:
1. Summarise in two sentences how the brand should sound and how it explicitly should not.
2. Define 4 to 5 tone of voice principles. Write each as a short heading plus one explaining sentence.
3. For each principle, add a do-and-dont line: what we do and what we avoid.
4. Provide a word list: preferred terms and no-gos (clichés, jargon, overstatements).
5. Show it in three mini examples (a line of ad copy, a support sentence, a social post): first the weak version, then rewritten in our voice.
Format: clear sections with headings, short sentences, no em dashes. At the end, ask which channel I want to work through first.Replace the bracketed placeholders with your own details.
Frequently asked
Can ChatGPT really capture my brand voice?
ChatGPT gives you a solid first draft, not a finished truth. The more concretely you add audience, desired impression and a few real sample texts, the closer it lands. Plan one round of human fine-tuning before the guide becomes the team standard.
How do I keep the guide consistent over time?
Save the result as a fixed document and paste it as context at the top of every future writing prompt. That way ChatGPT writes new copy against your principles instead of a generic default tone.
Related
Rather have it done?
Prompts are a start.
Results are our job.
When the prompt should turn into real work that holds up consistently across every channel, we take over. Start free, finish professionally.