Last Thursday, the first finger on my left hand somehow got smashed in the bathroom door and has been in pain ever since. (Literally, I’m still feeling pain now.) I’m not sure if it is just me being clumsy, or if I’m in too much of a rush to do everything. There is an upside to this whole ordeal, I have found my inspiration for today’s blog post. The lesson I learned is that we must all take more care with our everyday activities – this includes our professional marketing activities.
We live in a society where all we do is multi-task. It’s not normal to not multi-task. We work hard and are constantly bombarded with more items to add to our ever-growing to-do lists. It can be hard to keep up. Oftentimes, we are rushed and can become careless with our activities. Smashing my finger is my personal case-in-point for how carelessness can affect someone. My finger will stop hurting (eventually). I’ll eventually forget it happened and my life will continue just fine. The same cannot be said for your business if you make careless marketing mistakes.
A company is defined by its personal brand, reputation, people, actions, strategies, marketing tactics, principles and so much more. Each and every company needs to take care of how they represent themselves in all professional aspects.
The first example that came to my mind was the ever-growing-in-popularity social media tool known as Twitter. Twitter is a great way to communicate with your network, both personally and professionally. However, as fun, effective, and mainstream as Twitter is, businesses need to take special care with how they use the micro-blogging tool. Companies should keep their professional Twitter account separate from any personal accounts, whether the personal accounts belong to the CEO or the Office Manager. Things should be kept separate. This provides a clear distinction between which voice represents the company and which voice is representative of the employee. Any gray area can lead to miscommunication and often misrepresentation. Just keeping separate accounts is not enough. While you want your tweets to be genuine (if they aren’t, you won’t be worth following and your message will never reach its intended audience), you must also set high standards for them. You need to talk in your professional voice, one that is well-represented by your company. Try using punctuation and proper grammar as much as possible. I know this can be tough with only 140 characters but do your best.
While we are on the subject of grammar and punctuation, businesses should also take care with editing the content in the marketing materials they send out. There is nothing worse than a typo or spelling mistake. This sounds like a no-brainer but people often don’t thoroughly proofread and edit their materials. Relying on spell check is not a sufficient editing method, nor is relying on a quick, five-second read-through of your work. Spend time with your copy and make sure it is spotless.
The moral of today’s story … take care with your efforts and what you say. You don’t want a smashed finger (or company for that matter), do you?
