Social media + grammar error = damaged reputation
Social media is a great place to find out about businesses and news, and to chat to friends and colleagues, but it’s also become a place to laugh at others’ expense or to expose mistakes. This isn’t very nice, especially when it’s you they’re laughing at or your company’s mistake that’s being shared around the web.
On social media, your mistakes can spread like wildfire.
The kind of people who will spot your mistakes are exactly the sort of people you wouldn’t want to spot them! Of the PR professionals on Twitter, 15% of them follow more than 2,000 people, compared to just 0.29% of all Twitter users who follow that number, according to social media monitoring organisation, Sysomos. So people who spend a lot of time dealing with words for a living are going to reach an awful lot of followers when they share your poor spelling or your hilariously misplaced apostrophe.
There are accounts on Twitter, enthusiastically followed by grammar geeks, who are dedicated to sharing your spelling slip-ups and apostrophe fails. US-based company Grammarly has over 61,000 followers alone. If a social media user uses the right hashtag (#grammarfail #apostrophefail and #proofreadfail are just some examples), these accounts will pick up your grammar errors and share them far and wide. Followers and like-minded people will retweet them and suddenly your spelling mistake is everywhere. The bigger the blunder, the better! Suddenly, you and possibly your company are left looking rather silly.
Girl shot dead stepfather and fatally stabbed mother before fleeing with boyfriend http://dailym.ai/18yzm9k pic.twitter.com/GjjrQGcnsl
(The accuracy of this tragic news story is diluted due to the journalist’s lack of care and leaves us wondering why a girl would shoot an already dead man…)
Don’t forget, it’s not just your tweets and Facebook posts they’re looking at – they’re looking at your reports and brochures, your websites, even your signs above the shop door. Grammar spies are everywhere and they’re just 140 characters away from making you look at best careless, at worst unreliable and unprofessional.
Taking time to check what you post on social media has become just as important as proofreading in print. So, before you publish it, check it! Should that apostrophe be there? Are there any typos? Is it possible to get a fresh pair of eyes to look over it, or even call in the help of a professional proofreader ? Once something is on the web, it’s there forever.
A few minutes of careful checking can save your money, time and, ultimately, your reputation!
