Let me introduce three biz blogging buddies who meet up at a posh bar for a night on the town:
- One just hired a professional copy editor.
- One shoots from the hip – proofreads and edits every bit of her own copy.
- And one is in the fuzzy zone – not sure which approach is right for her.
All three order a Midori Sour and share a platter of hors d’oeuvres. (I could have said “appetizers” but this bar is upscale, baby! After all, we business bloggers deserve the very finest in décor and cuisine.)
Remarks about people who point out grammatical errors in their posts, e-books, email marketing messages, and sales pages ramp up the evening’s conversation.
Seems there’s no shortage of stories on grammar gone bad.
If you’re waiting for the rest of the joke and a zinger punch line, I’m sorry.
There’s just nothing funny about copy editing. {Tweet Me}
Call it a quirk, call it a curse, or call it an asset. You decide.
But every misspelled word, misused word, slice of sloppy syntax, and sentence minus proper punctuation jumps off the page at me – every single time.
I’d bet my two dogs AND my piano I’m not the only person on the web with discerning eyes (and a seventh grade language arts teacher who cracked the whip).
Other people notice these boo-boos, too – like your email subscribers, fans and followers, prospects, and blog readers. You know, the folks you’re trying to build vibrant relationships with and hoping to secure business with some day.
Always presume a chunk of that population stands proud on the Grammar Police force … and graduated with honors.
From your audience’s perspective:
A lack of editing skills can mean the difference between pulling out their credit cards and pulling the plug on working with you. {Tweet Me}
Ew. Ouch. That second option really bites. And it bites hard.
The kingdom of content marketing is rife with writing errors – mistakes that make you look like you don’t know shit from Shinola.
Example:
This past week I received an email newsletter that contained the word, “annunciate”, which means “to announce something”. What the sender meant to write was “enunciate”, which means “to say or pronounce clearly”.
Using the wrong word totally botched the point she was trying to make. Worse yet, the needle dropped on her credibility meter … instantly. I mean, c’mon. Like she doesn’t have access to a dictionary?
No big deal, you say? Who really gives a hoot about spelling and punctuation and the slippery slope of sentence structure??
Well, if you want someone to book a consultation, subscribe to your list (or stay on your list!), attend your workshops, devour and share your posts, buy a ticket to your biz retreat, join your online community, or refer you to others, hopefully YOU give a hoot.
Caring enough to communicate clearly, concisely, and competently gives you a leg up with your “right people”. It helps your relationship with them blossom, beautifully, by boosting the trust factor and cementing respect.
Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, the largest online repair community, has this to say:
“Good grammar is credibility, especially on the internet. In blog posts, on Facebook statuses, in emails, and on company websites, your words are all you have. They are a projection of you in your physical absence. And for better or worse, people judge you if you can’t tell the difference between their, there, and they’re.”
In his article on Harvard Business Review, Kyle went on to say “Good grammar makes good business sense.”
It’s pretty tough to argue that point.
So let me ask you this:
Are you shooting from the [proofreading and editing] hip? Or are you at least getting a second pair of eyes on your copy before hitting the publish button?
If you’re thinking about hiring a copy editor, what’s your biggest deal breaker?
Next stop:
Jekyll & Hyde scenarios are the main attraction for this month’s Mission: Storytelling, a word carnival for small business owners. Virtual admission and amusement rides are free!
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