The Word Doctor: 15 Grammar Gaffes to Avoid

Should you ever break the rules of grammar?
Professional writers know that there are some rules to break (but only intentionally) and others that should never be broken. Misusing words is a common mistake of the neophyte, and rather than serving a linguistic purpose, simply hurts one’s credibility.
 
Image Source: BlueGlass.com

How to Create Your Company's Social Media Policy: Part 2

This time we’ll continue with our list of some of the items you might want to include in your social media policy.

11.  Support claims with data, when possible.
12.  Stay within the law on copyright, trademark or other legal
        matters.
13.  Use impeccable grammar, a polite tone and accurate facts.
14.  Don’t take a public position on things that aren’t approved
        by your management.
15.  Don’t engage in controversial conversations.
16.  Don’t use the company brand to endorse a personal opinion
        or cause.
17.  Remember that once something is posted it is public, so
        think carefully before posting anything.
18.  Don’t participate in personal social media interactions
        during work time.
19.  Don’t post work that is a product of your company and
        display it as your own work.
20.  Don’t develop your own blog or Web site that promotes
        work similar to what your employer pays you for.

As you develop guidelines for your official social media commentators, remember to clearly identify who can post comments and to outline how negative and anonymous posts should be handled.

What would you add to this list?

Image Source: www.web-savvy-marketing.com

How to Create Your Company's Social Media Policy: Part 1

Social media is about meaningful conversations—and employees can play a vital part in this. It’s easy to fear allowing employees to be involved in social media, yet if we trust our employees to have interactions with our clients in person, shouldn’t we trust them to be a vital part of our online communication?

Expanding the role of communication to employees can be a good business strategy, but they must be trained and given access. Begin by creating a policy for social media that leads your organization in a direction of relevant conversations. To get you started, we’ll suggest some ideas you might consider including in your social media policy:

1. Identify yourself and your position in the company—and make it clear when you are speaking for the company or yourself.
2. Speak only on topics that reflect your area of expertise.
3. Always be respectful, calm and professional in your response.
4. Never release proprietary or non-public information, internal performance data or other information that would reflect badly on the company.
5. Never share personal information about others in the company.
6. Don’t share information about clients without their approval.
7. Don’t make comments on legal matters.
8. Escalate trouble posts to the appropriate person in the company.
9. Share summaries of customer feedback so constructive criticism can be used to improve the company.
10. Don’t reply to off-topic comments or inflammatory language.

In our next blog entry, we'll offer 10 more tips.

4 Ways to Get Your Online News Release to Rank Higher in Searches

If you’re trying to increase the ranking for news releases you’re posting on line, consider these simple tips offered by Adam Sherk with Ragan.com:

1. Identify keywords likely to be searched for. You can find out popular words by using tools like Google Adwords Keyword Tool and Google Insights.
2. Include some key words—but don’t go overboard—in the text, title and quotes if you can.
3. Include links (3–4 tops).
4. Keep your release short.

Want more details? Read his full article.

How to Make Your Complex Message Easy to Read

Need a way to deliver difficult messages quickly and easily? Consider infographics. Whether it's static or animated, this increasingly popular communication tool allows the reader to digest key points—even difficult and complicated points—at a glance. By using visuals, it accelerates the time the brain takes to translate words into images in the brain—and also makes it easier to remember.
 
Here's an infographic from BlueGlass that unpacks some health myths in a way that draws the reader in. It drew 800,000 visitors over five months.
 
Have you ever used an infographic? Did you find it successful?

The Difference Between Good and Bad Writing is Sales

We decry the plethora of pedestrian copy that populates the world of business communication and sales. Why must it be boring? Tiresome? Mediocre?

An idea, after all, is no good whatsoever if you can’t communicate it to a prospective client, consumer, donor, board member, community leader. Surely an idea worth having is worth investing in the time and talent to convey its value. 

If you want a customers to change their buying or loyalty habits, your writing must do these three things:

• Get their attention. (Yes, amid the noise of ALL the daily voices they hear.)
• Get them to absorb your message. (Draw them in, hold their attention.)
• Deliver something they care about—in a way that motivates engagement. (Not the job of novice writers.)

If your writing doesn’t reinforce the superiority of your product or service, doesn’t give them reasons to change or reinforce the consumer’s behavior or viewpoint, then it hasn’t done its job. Good writing is more than good grammar—it must move people to buy, try or support your product or service.

Need some inspiration? Here’s an example of a piece we wrote for our own Web site. We dare you to stop midway.

Sin No More: Avoiding Common Typographic Errors Part 1

1. Two spaces between sentences. Your keyboarding teacher not only taught you how to type, but also how to sin. Once upon a time, typewriters used a monospaced typeface. Since all of the letters were the same width, it became customary to add an extra space at the end of a sentence to call attention to a new sentence. This was never the practice of professional typesetters, who always used one space. (If you're a doubting Thomas, go find an old book and see for yourself.) Since most typefaces on our computers vary in width, unsightly gaps appear if two spaces are used. Repent of this since by using only one space.  
2. Failing to kern display type. Nothing bellows "I'm an amateur!" quite like display type that hasn't been properly kerned. Unseemly gaps can impede readability by distracting the reader. The kerning tables of some typefaces are great, but the human eye is divine. Adjust the spacing between letters and assuage your guilt.
3. Using a hyphen instead of an en dash. A dash (hyphen) is great for a hyphenated word, but an en dash can be used to indicate a range of numbers or a duration of time instead of the word "to": the 8–10 Commandments, not 8-10 Commandments.  

—From "Thou Shalt Not" by Jim Godfrey, published in the July 2011 issue of How magazine.

Department of War or Defense: Words Matter

From 1789 until 1947 the department responsible for the operation of the United States Army was called the War Department. In 1947, it was renamed the Department of Defense.

Play along with us on this little turn of words, if you will, and ask yourself which you’d rather support with your tax dollars: a war department? Or a department of defense?

See the different feelings these two names for the same thing evoke? It’s much easier to rally support for defense then war. And so we see yet another example of how much a word matters in evoking a desired response.

What words in your business might need rethinking?

On Writing Well: Don't Make 'em Work For It

 

Readers are impatient, and don’t want to invest their precious time in a message that doesn’t concern them. Good writers know they’ll have one shot to get the reader’s attention, so copy should pass the “drive-by” test. If, in the space of a three-second glance, one cannot tell what your offer is, don’t expect your reader to stay longer to figure it out.

 

The challenge, of course, is that you can’t say everything in the headline, or even the first sentence. And it’s easy to assume too much about the reader. When in doubt, ask someone unfamiliar with your topic to read the copy and stop when they’ve decided they’re no long interested. Or ask them to read only the headline and tell them what they think the ad will be about.

You might be surprised at what you learn.

Hospital Anniversary Campaign: Outdoor Advertising

 

 

This week we're following the launch of a hospital anniversary campaign for our client, St. Anthony North Hospital in North Metro Denver. Today we're featuring their outdoor elements. Outdoor advertising is a good supporting media, and although it can't tell the full story, it can reinforce the key messages. Creatively speaking, it is the hardest to develop because the message must be so short in order to be read quickly.

See how the transit and outdoor ads above support the hospital's broader messages for their 40-year anniversary campaign.

Check back tomorrow to view the entertaining employee video for this campaign, and see how to engage your own workforce in your organization's strategic messages.