With more and more people on Social Media and producing their own content through different avenues, grammar is becoming something that people are increasingly more aware of. And, unfortunately, many people are not getting it right. Not using proper grammar can be frustrating for the user and can cause you to come off less attractive. So here are some grammar mistakes that occur most frequently...and how to fix them.
1- Affect vs. effect. The easiest way to remember the difference between the two is affect means "to influence." So if you're going to influence something, you will have an affect. If it's the result of something, it's an effect.
2- Commas. Slow down when you're writing and read your copy out loud. You don't want to make this mistake: Let's eat Grandma vs. Let's eat, Grandma. Poor Grandma will be eaten if you forget the comma.
3- Their, they're, and there. You'd think everyone learned this rule in fourth grade, but it's a very common mistake. Use "there" when referring to a location, "their" to indicate possession, and "they're" when you mean to say "they are."
4- Care less. The dismissive "I could care less" you hear all the time is incorrect. If you could care less, that means there is more you could care less about the topic. Most people omit the "not" in that phrase. It should be, "I couldn't care less."
5- Irregardless. This word doesn't exist. It should be regardless.
6- Nauseous. How many times have you said you felt nauseous? This is incorrect. You feel nauseated. Nauseous means something is sickening to contemplate.
7- Your and you're. Another mistake you see in people's social media profiles, and in the content they create, is not correctly using "your" and "you're." If you're meaning to say "you are," the correct word is "you're" (like at the beginning of this sentence). Otherwise the word is "your."
8- Fewer vs. less. Another common mistake, "less" refers to quantity and "fewer" to a number. For instance, Facebook has fewer that 5,000 employees.
9- Quotation marks. Among great debate, people ask all the time whether or not punctuation belongs inside or outside quotation marks. It belongs inside.
10- More than vs. over. It's likely the advertising agency created this grammatical error. Instead of saying, "We had more than 50% growth" in ad copy, "over" allows for more space. So they say, "We had over 50% growth."
11- Me vs. I. I was reading something in a magazine the other day and the copy read, "This year has brought a big personal development for my wife and I..." No, no no! If you were going to say that without the mention of your wife, you wouldn't say, "This year has brought a big personal development for I." You would say "me." So this year has brought a big personal development for my wife and me.
Today, we continue to journey through our Online Presence Blueprint. I hope that I haven't lost any of you on the journey, especially with summer in there when, we can all admit, we work a little less and enjoy the weather a little more. If you did miss any of the steps they can be found here, Step 1: Listening, Step 2: Content Foundation, Step 3: Sharable, Step 4: e-Books, Step 5: Content Delivery, Step 6: Landing Pages and Step 7: Email Communication.
To this point, we have discovered some of the best ways to listen to and target our audiences. We now continue to explore some of the possibilities for reaching our customers. This month our focus will be on Social Profiles. Social Profiles include items like Facebook Pages, Twitter Accounts, a Google+ Page, LinkedIn Profiles and so much more. Any social platform you engage in should have a Social Profile of you and your business. If you are not on Social Media, you do not exist to a lot of people. Many customers head to social media first before calling you for a potential sale. They trust what others are saying about you and can see how involved in your community you are. Customers can then make an initial decision as to whether they want to consider working with you by what you are exposing on your Social Media platforms. This can be intimidating as you become quite exposed to the general public. But it also can be very exciting, and easy, advertising.
Month 8: Social Profiles
To help provide a fun and exciting Social Media experience, here are some important tips to keep in mind when creating and maintaining your Social Profiles.
- Ensure that you are adding descriptions and links to your LinkedIn Profile. The more you have there the less people will have to 'fill-in-the-blank' and the more they can learn to trust you.
- Complete your "About" page on Facebook. This will make your business and goals much more clear to the viewer and help distinguish if you will be a good fit for them.
- Add a branded header graphic to your Twitter Profile. Again, this will clarify quickly to the viewer just who you are and what you're about.
The more clear and descriptive you are on your Social Profile the more attractive you will become to potential customers, and the better "fit" you will find with your clients.