Company brand voice

Turns a vague "we want to sound professional but human" into a written voice guide and a ProPost persona that every company channel writes in, kept apart from the founder's own voice. Ends with test posts the person has judged.

Before you start

1. get_account: autonomy, AI drafts left, time zone.
2. list_channels: which channels are the company's (LinkedIn page, Instagram, X, Google Business…) and which are personal profiles. If it is unclear, ask; never assume.
3. list_personas: voices that exist, how many of the 10 slots are used, and which channels use each. The default voice is the person's own; it is edited in ProPost's profile settings, not through the connector.
4. list_posts with status: "published" and a channel_id of a company channel: real past posts are the best evidence of how the brand already sounds, and of what got engagement.

Workflow

1. Gather raw material. Ask for (or find in the conversation) at most: the company in one sentence, who the audience is, three to five values, two posts or pages they love, two they cringe at, and words they never use. Real customer-facing text (website, emails, support replies) beats adjectives. Don't invent values; if they give none, propose three labelled as a draft for them to cut.
2. Write the voice guide (template in references/voice-guide.md): one-line summary, 3 values shown as behaviour, "we say / we don't say" word lists, sentence habits, and tone by situation (announcement, support reply, bad news, celebration, hiring). Show it and get edits before touching ProPost.
3. Map the guide onto persona fields (they have hard limits):
   name: "Acme brand" (max 60).
   role: who speaks, in the third person plural or as the company: "The Acme team, makers of invoicing software for freelancers" (max 120).
   tone: exactly one of authoritative, witty, academic, conversational, inspirational. Pick the dominant one; the nuance goes into the samples.
   target_audience: a real group, not "everyone" (max 120).
   niches: 1-12 topics the brand credibly talks about.
   writing_samples: up to 3 posts, each up to 1200 characters, that show the voice. The person's own published company posts, or text they wrote or approved. Never invent customer results to fill them. Samples do more than any other field; choose ones that show the habits in the guide.
4. Create it: create_persona (or update_persona with persona_id if one exists; it overwrites the fields you send, so confirm first). Keep the founder's voice untouched.
5. Assign: set_channel_persona with the persona id for each company channel only. Founder profile channels stay on default or their own persona. It applies to drafts written from then on; existing posts do not change.
6. Test with three posts, not one (uses up to 3 AI drafts; say so first): a product or news post, a customer-support style reply or FAQ, and a piece of bad news or a thank-you. generate_draft with a concrete idea and the company channel_ids. If AI drafts are scarce, write one sample yourself with create_draft and have the person judge that.
7. Adjust. Ask what is off ("too salesy", "too stiff", "we'd never say 'thrilled'"). Fix at the source with update_persona (sharper writing_samples, a different tone, narrower niches) rather than patching every draft. Use rewrite_post (3 per post) only for one-offs. Re-test with the same ideas so the change is visible.
8. Wrap up: state which persona is on which channel, what the three test drafts are (they wait as drafts), and where the guide lives. Offer to save it as an idea with add_idea ("Brand voice: ...") so it travels with the account. Leave the test drafts unscheduled unless the person asks.

Writing guidance

• A voice is habits, not adjectives. "Friendly" is useless; "short sentences, we use 'you', one plain-language explanation of any jargon" is usable.
• Voice stays constant, tone flexes. A recall notice and a team photo share a voice but not a tone. Write the tone-by-situation table for the five moments the company really has.
• Word lists should be specific and few. Good: "say 'customers', not 'users'; say 'cost', not 'investment'; never 'revolutionary'". Ten banned words beat a page of principles.
• A company says "we" and has a point of view; it is not a press release. Prefer a named, concrete detail ("our Leeds warehouse ships by 3 pm") to a claim ("we deliver excellence").
• Example, before and after. Generic: "We are thrilled to announce our new feature that will revolutionize your workflow." On voice (plain, practical): "You can now split one invoice across two clients. It took us a year of 'can you add this?' emails to get round to it."
• Company vs founder: the founder says "I" and may be opinionated; the company says "we" and stays accurate and useful. When a post needs both, draft two versions on two channels rather than blending.

Guardrails

• Don't put words in the company's mouth: values and claims come from the person. No invented statistics, awards, customers or testimonials.
• Don't change the default voice or other channels' persona assignments without being asked.
• Don't copy another brand's wording; take structure and habits, not phrases.
• Never schedule or publish the test posts; they are for judging the voice.

If something fails

• persona_limit: all 10 voices are used. List them and ask which to update or remove in ProPost.
• quota_exceeded: write the test posts yourself with create_draft.
• channel_not_found: re-run list_channels; don't guess ids.
• rate_limited: pause, then continue with fewer calls.
• Anything else: see ../CONVENTIONS.md.