Now you want me to write?

In today’s highly competitive business world, almost every expert will tell you that you need to get your business on the Internet and plug into social networking sites like Blogger, Twitter, LinkedIn or FaceBook, to name a few. You might immediately think, “And who’s going to write all that content?”

Unless you can afford to hire a professional to run the Internet side of your business at least on a part time basis, if not full time, the answer is - you guessed it - you. While some of the online tasks can be performed by your employees, such as answering simple email questions, filling orders, or setting appointments, the important task of branding your company and projecting a positive company image should be left to the owners or professional writers who understand the image you want projected.

Most small businesses can’t afford to hire a professional to do the work and the thought of writing content might be an intimidating thought to you. Just when you work up the nerve to bring your business to the Internet, the experts throw in a monkey wrench and tell you that how you write for your website is different than how you write for social networking sites. When you finally come to the realization that you need to learn two styles of writing, the experts torque that monkey wrench by telling you that how you write in the various social networking sites is different for each social networking platform. Yes, experts, especially writing experts, like to complicate things.

This article gives basic writing suggestions that apply across all types of Internet platforms. They aren’t rules because, in writing, there are no rules except one: no matter what you write, someone out there is not going to like how you wrote it. The idea, however, is for the suggestions to help you minimize how many people won’t like your writing style. Future articles will cover the do’s and don’ts of writing within the various Internet platforms.

Pick your voice

This isn’t as tricky as it sounds, but your voice will vary slightly across the different platforms. Whether you are writing content for your website or in any of the social networking sites, professionalism is important. Visitors to your website or your social networking sites will form an opinion of your business, you, and your employees on nothing more than what, and how, you write.

Now let’s define “professionalism”. It does not mean you should use big words in a dry, textbook style. Your business will define professionalism for you. How do you talk to customers who walk through your door? That is the level of professionalism you’ll want to convey in your writing. Professionalism for a lawyer will be defined differently than for the owner of a country store. Visitors to a lawyer’s page would expect proper grammar usage and maybe a big word or two. The same visitor to a country store’s page would expect more colloquial writing. “Colloquial”, however, doesn’t mean you get to break all the grammar and spelling rules. There’s a fine line between breaking the rules in the right way and right amount while maintaining a professional image and crossing the line and projecting an image of an unprofessional business owner who isn’t concerned what his customers think of him or his business.

Whether you choose a formal voice or colloquial voice to convey your professionalism and business image, the following suggestions will help you make it work more effectively.

Spell correctly

If you know you are a poor speller, you may want to use the spell check options in your website editor or social network editor. If the platform you are posting your content to doesn’t provide a spell check option, write your content in a word processing program that offers the feature. Once you have corrected all the red squiggly lined words, read what you wrote carefully. Spell check software is good, but not perfect. It might accept “to”, for example, when you really meant to write “too” or “two”.

Is it ever ok to misspell a word? One rule of writing: never say never. If your spell check flagged a word as misspelled, keep it only if you are sure it is correct. Usually, this applies to formal names, but you may use a regional word that isn’t in the spell check’s dictionary. That doesn’t make the word incorrect.

Use proper grammar

Often the spell check function will include a grammar check function. Again, if the platform you are posting to does not include a grammar check, you may want to write your content in a word processing program that includes a grammar check.

Unlike spell check, grammar check is a lot more unreliable. It will often flag sentences that are fine in the context of your style of writing. If you like how you wrote the sentence and it flows nicely in the paragraph, don’t change it. If the suggested change makes the sentence more awkward to read, definitely don’t change it. One good example is that, contrary to popular belief, sometimes it is ok to end a sentence with a preposition. For you lawyers and other professionals: according to the Chicago Manual of Style, yes, sometimes it is preferable to end the sentence with a preposition rather than rewriting it into “proper” form and ending up with an awkwardly worded sentence.

There are plenty of other rules we were taught that you could break without losing the professional image you are trying to project, particularly if you are writing in a colloquial style. If it sounds right or better to you than what the grammar check suggests, keep what you wrote. If formality is important to you, consult the Chicago Manual of Style for guidance.

Once you have finished fixing or ignoring all the green squiggly lines, carefully read your content again. You’ll be surprised how many more grammar mistakes you made that the grammar check didn’t catch.

Two grammar rules you shouldn’t break

Granted these rules are more a matter of opinion than hard-set rules, but they happen to be pet peeves of this author and are rules that are commonly broken, even by professional writers. In fact, the Chicago Manual of Style acknowledges that these rules are routinely broken and are not necessarily rules any more. Whether or not you agree that making these grammar mistakes takes away from the professional image you want to project is completely up to you. Whatever you decide, as the Chicago Manual of Style suggests, use the rule the way you see fit consistently throughout your content.

Hypothetical rule: In a hypothetical sentence, “was” becomes “were”. A hypothetical sentence is usually signified by the words, “if” or “wish”. Easiest way to remember this rule – think of the song, “If I were a rich man”. The song isn’t “If I was a rich man”.

Who and that: “Who” signifies a person and “that” signifies a thing. Most people are not things. That is why it is a good idea to say, “A customer who….” and not “A customer that….”

Avoid slang, clichés and nonstandard abbreviations

If you are a professional using the formal voice, this suggestion is a given. For the rest of us, it’s usually a good idea to avoid slang, spell out your words, and think of an original phrase instead of using a cliché. It tells a visitor to your site or social network that you care about communicating effectively, you give original thought to what you have to say, and you’re not lazy on the keyboard.

Which sentence conveys an image of a more professional business owner to you? “When a ticked off customer tells you she’ll brb, get your p’s and q’s in line so you can quickly solve her problem” or “When an unhappy customer tells you she’ll be right back, take the time to look at her purchase and paperwork so you can quickly solve her problem.”

Avoid negative emotional trigger words, phrases and negativity in general

This part of writing is probably the most trickiest to learn. (For the astute reader, you’ll notice my blatant grammar mistake, but the mistake was intentional to emphasize how tricky it is. See? It’s ok to break “the rules”.)

There are many words and phrases that have a potential to trigger a strong, emotional response in the reader. Marketers love the positive emotional trigger words and phrases. Those are the ones that get people feeling good and in the mood to buy stuff. The flip side, however, turns people off, gets them on the defensive, and yes, can even get people telling their friends you run a shoddy business, even if they have never stepped foot in your doors and only know your business through the Internet. Remember, it takes ten good customers to offset the one unhappy customer who starts talking negatively about your business.

There are three main triggers to look for in your writing, and many more minor ones too numerous to list in this short article. The minor ones, however, can add up to become a major obstacle in communicating with your potential customers through the Internet.

Once you have finished writing, read what you wrote. Be on the lookout for these three trigger phrases or words: negative labeling (belittling), commanding phrases or words, and power phrases.

Negative labeling can be blatant, such as substituting not-so-cute words for a real word. An example would be talking about your competitor and calling the store Awful-Mart instead of Wal-Mart or Garbage Lion instead of Food Lion. Negative labeling can also be more subtle, such as implying a negative trait applies to everyone belonging in a particular group. An example would be saying “Shoppers are always looking out for the cheapest price and don’t care about quality or where the product comes from.” Odds are nearly certain that your reader is a shopper and will automatically get defensive because you implied all shoppers, including the reader, think this way.

Commanding phrases are exactly what they sound like - commands. Odds are your reader is an adult and doesn’t like to be told what to do. They like suggestions. They like sound reasoning for what you are trying to communicate to them. They like being talked to like an adult. Which sentence sounds more professional to you? “Shop at the big chain stores if you want to throw away your money” or “if you shop local, you’ll be helping to preserve your community’s unique identity”?

Power phrases are phrases that attempt to assert authority and give little or no room for the reader to think of or offer alternatives. Power phrases leave an impression of inflexibility. Which sentence sounds better to you? “Our products and services are so good, we don’t need a refund policy” or “Our products and services are so good, we have to find things to keep the refund clerk busy”?

Some other barriers in your writing that can add up to an overall negative feeling in your readers are using overly strong, negative words or phrases, writing to impress instead of conveying a message, and pretending to be an expert or know-it-all.

Pretending to be an expert or know-it-all deserves a short explanation. We’re all experts at something, usually more than one thing, to some degree or other, but know your limitations and be honest when writing an article. As an example, I’ll use myself. I have over fifteen years of real writing experience, both in print form (a regular writer for a community newspaper in Baltimore) and electronic form (several websites and blogs, including Shop Local Delmarva). While I am college educated with a degree, I have no degree in English, journalism, or business writing. My fifteen years plus of writing, however, gives me the confidence that I am conveying sound information. Since writing is not my primary field of study, I qualified this article at the beginning that I would present suggestions to good writing, not rules. You’ll also notice that in a few places, I referred you to the Chicago Manual of Style because I knew what I was stating is up for debate. I also have no problem stating my limitations on my expertise. In short, I didn’t try to mislead you into believing I was more of an expert than what my education and experience has given me. In fact, I’m sure someone else with more education and writing experience would be quick to point out that I have yet to master the skill of keeping it short and simple.

If you feel you don’t have a good grasp of the concept of negative emotion trigger words and phrases, one quick way to learn more as well as learn what not to include in your writing style is listen to talk radio. What words and phrases do the hosts use that trigger a negative response in you as you listen? That’s the sort of thing you want to avoid in your writing.

Read what you wrote and make corrections

If you have followed these suggestions step-by-step, you’ve already read your article at least three times. With each reading, you probably made some corrections. Do you really need to read it one final time? That decision is entirely up to you, but is strongly encouraged. I have already read this article four times up to this section and made corrections each time. When I’m done typing this section and the next and last section, I will read it one more time before posting it to the Shop Local Delmarva blog. If you want to maintain a professional image and establish yourself as an expert in your field of business, you probably don’t want to rush an article. Even if you are only writing a couple of sentences on a social networking site, you will probably want to read it a couple of times before clicking the post button. For potential customers (your readers) who have never been in your store and who don’t know you personally, the first impression is everything.

Overwhelmed? Start small

Believe it or not, the more you write, the easier the task becomes. Get your business page on a social network like FaceBook and practice writing one paragraph at a time. In a relatively short time, you’ll find that churning out a useful article of 500 words or less is a relatively easy task, with your typing skills being the slowest part of writing. If that sounds like a lot of words, a 500 word article averages three to five paragraphs of five to ten sentences per paragraph. You don’t have to post every day, either, but post frequently enough that people will be inclined to follow your page in their newsfeeds. Post on other people’s pages, too. The more you write, the easier it becomes. For most business owners, a less than 500 word article a couple of times a week is all you’ll really need to write and be able to gain and retain loyal customers. More on this topic in future articles….

　

Shop Local Delmarva Virtual Mall

Shop Local Delmarva is happy to unveil its prototype Virtual Shopping Mall to make it easier for everyone to shop local.

Businesses with a storefront in the mall are those who offer some or all of their products online. To move around in the mall, click and hold the yellow arrow and move forward or backwards. The two stores you are in front of will appear in two blocks below the mall. You can either click the store front you see, the sign, or the block below the mall to visit that store's website.

If you think your store should be added to the mall, please message me. There are two more stores I would like to add to the mall, but I am still having trouble accessing their website.

Currently, storefronts in the mall are available to all businesses who provide ecommerce to all of Delmarva and beyond. If the prototype mall works out and is received well, storefronts in the mall will be limited to subscribers of Shop Local Delmarva. In the mean time, basic members of Shop Local Delmarva can enjoy their free store front.

My only concern with the mall at this point is I would like to add more user interactivity to it. Wouldn't it be great to be shopping in the Shop Local Delmarva Virtual Mall and be able to talk to the other shoppers in the mall? Limited resources and technical know-how are two obstacles to overcome, but I'm working on that possibility.

Please let me know what you think of the virtual mall. Any and all feedback is appreciated, even constructive criticism. I can only make it as good as what you, the business owner and shopper, tell me.