As companies and brands navigate the murky waters of online communication—and marketing in general— the importance of the written word is often underestimated. This drives me nuts. I don’t know, blame the English major in me—it just irks me to see grammatical or spelling errors on websites, blogs and in social media. I realize that this post is in danger of sounding preachy or patronizing, but I promise that’s not where I’m going here. It’s simply something I feel compelled to talk about because it pains me to see a brand compromised by sloppy copy.
Now that we have that out of way, here are a few tips I’ve compiled to help you on your path to presenting yourself properly through writing.
Take your Time
Before you hit that “post” or “publish” button, proof what you’ve written three times. When in doubt, throw your copy into a word doc and give it a quick spell/grammar check.
Maintain a Consistent Tone
What’s your brand personality? Who is your audience? Are they hip? Corporate? Creative? Introverted? Okay, then write to that. Speak that language—authentically, of course, in everything you put out there. This should remain consistent across all of your brand channels, including traditional advertising, social media/blogging, and website copy.
Get a Second (or Third) Pair of Eyes
Before you publish that blog post or web copy, get a fresh set of eyes on it. Better yet, get two fresh sets, if possible. When you look at something for an elongated period of time, you start to miss things. Appeal to your office wordsmith or copywriter, whatever the case may be, and make sure that they screen your work for grammatical errors and typos.
Assume your Dream Client or Customer is Scrutinizing Every Word you Publish
In some instances it pays to be a little paranoid. Is every potential client or customer scrutinizing every word you put out there? Of course not—but you can bet that at some point, someone who is important to you will be researching your online presence. If they see grammatical errors or lazy copy, you’ll immediately lose credibility.
Hire Additional Help if you Need It
If you’re struggling with summoning up creative content, or challenged in the writing department, find someone who can help you remedy this. It may be that you only need light editing or creative consulting with your editorial calendar or web copy. Whatever your situation, I can assure you that bringing in outside resources is well worth the investment. Sometimes, the hardest content to create is your own—even agencies need help with their own messaging and copy from time to time.
So there you have it: a quick and dirty list of how to protect your online brand identity through beautiful writing. Do you have any tips of your own? Let me know in the comments and I’ll add to my list!
