There’s only one sin worse than not being on social media these days – and that is to engage badly through these modern communications channels. Journalist Mandy Collins reckons there’s much room for improvement out there among South Africa’s professional social media practitioners.
Mandy is a social media expert, particularly on Twitter (@CollinsMandy). She’s nice and playful, but beware – if you are engaging with her as part of your day job and make a spelling error or resort to text-style abbreviations she could bite you.
As she explains in this blog for Biznews.com, if you are being paid to manage a social media account it is your duty to do it well. Although the rules aren’t cast in stone, there are some errors that should not be made, according to Mandy.
Get rid of jargon and buzzwords. Importantly, avoid using automated spell checkers because they insert embarrassing gremlins (for a classic example, scroll down). Clearly Mandy is not alone in her quest to rid the business world of bad grammar. Her blog about bad language was among the best read on Biznews.com in 2013, so her messages clearly resonate with many of us. – JC
By Mandy Collins
I had a bit of a rant on Twitter yesterday at the expense of whoever was given the task of live tweeting Oprah’s Johannesburg speech for the Mail & Guardian.
Now, we can debate the merits of whether that speech really needed to be live-tweeted given who the M&G’s readership is, but that’s not what I want to tackle here. No, no. I’m far more concerned with the damage that stream of tweets might have done to the M&G’s brand.
I’m often called a grammar Nazi, and I don’t mind admitting that poor spelling and grammar irritate me. But I think I’m pretty reasonable about it. So, if you are an individual and I note an error in your tweet, for example, I’m unlikely to point it out. I sometimes correct errors in things I retweet if I can, but I like to think of that as helpful (feel free to disagree).
When I note errors in company or brand social media posts, however, I don’t hold back. Because as far as I’m concerned, if you are being paid to be the social media voice for a company, you had better get your proverbial ducks in a row. And that means getting rid of jargon and business buzzwords, first and foremost, but more importantly, writing posts that demonstrate a good command of language.
The M&G stream yesterday didn’t just feature a typo or two. And yes, of course we’re all human and make the odd typo. No – it was riddled with errors like “extinguished guests” and two people who apparently “exists the stage”. And then I spotted text speak like ‘n’ instead of ‘and’ and ‘gonna’ instead of ‘going to’, just to really round off my irritation levels.
Now, I know at least a few of you are going: “So what? No-one cares.” Really? According to one survey at least, poor spelling and grammar are the factor most likely to damage consumers’ opinion of your brand on social media.
A UK company, Disruptive Communications, asked 1 003 consumers what they hated about brands they follow on social media, and here’s what they found: nearly 25% said posts and updates were too “salesy”. Nearly 13% said brands who posted too often were irritating, although 7.2% didn’t like brands that didn’t post often enough, which goes to show you can’t please everyone.
But top of this list was poor spelling or grammar – that irritated a whopping 42.5% of the respondents, and they weren’t all ancient Mother Grundies. Bad spelling and grammar ranked as the second most disturbing behaviour among 18- to 24-year-olds. (You can see a more detailed infographic here.)
The problem with error-riddled social media postings is that they draw attention to your brand for all the wrong reasons. Instead of starting discussions by other users about how wonderful your brand is, a mock-fest begins, and people start gleefully sharing and discussing your shortcomings. Is that really how you want to be portrayed on social media?
Autocorrect is also a huge problem – I suspect it’s what’s behind the tweets yesterday where people were existing the stage instead of exiting it. And while that might have made everyone giggle, it can really reflect badly when something more serious is being put out. Consider this unfortunate tweet spotted this morning – do we really want people sniggering at this kind of error?
I’ll say no more about that. Let’s move on to the words you choose – this is what makes writing a craft, and why you shouldn’t just ask the hip kid in the office who’s an internet whiz to do your social media.
On the one hand I see people using text speak as mentioned above, and on the other, writing business gobbledygook that it’s unintelligible – and I’ve tackled a couple of companies about this.
If you don’t believe me, consider this tweet from the City of Johannesburg at the launch of the new Rea Vaya bus routes a day or two ago:
Erm, yes.. okay. Whatever. Because I have no clue what that means, do you?
Text speak and business bullshit… sorry, buzzwords, are equally problematic in my view. Text abbreviations tell me the person running the account is probably pretty junior, first, but more importantly, it just doesn’t create a good impression. Ask yourself what you’d do if your ad agency produced banners for your company that were written in text speak – would you be happy?
Quite honestly, there’s more than enough space on Facebook to write in full words and sentences, and even Twitter’s 140 characters are sufficient to get your point across with a bit of prudent editing. It just doesn’t look professional if your social media posts r wrtn lyk dis.
Similarly, don’t make the mistake of thinking that your business buzzwords and jargon make you look more knowledgeable or educated or smart. Most of the buzzwords people use are completely meaningless, frankly. Just try rewriting them into simple English, and you’ll see what I mean.
Furthermore, every industry has its jargon – it’s a useful linguistic tool that allows insiders in a particular group to understand each other quickly, easily and accurately – but your social media postings go beyond that group to people who don’t know or understand your jargon. And all you do by using it, is to alienate them further.
Irritating your customers with badly crafted social media postings may not be enough to lose them, of course. But it can’t be helping your brand’s cause. And I’m just guessing, but surely your social media accounts weren’t created to irritate actual or potential clients?
