How to spell gud: The importance of good spelling online

How to spell gud: The importance of good spelling online

How To Spell Gud: The Importance of Good Spelling Online

how to spell GUD

Who ever you are, if you are a regular social media user, chances are you have seen some pretty terrible spelling on social media or online content – maybe event daily!

When it comes to your close friends, relatives or younger adults, this is excusable – but when the spelling error comes from a larger business, we can often come away with negative perceptions of a company. As Forbes put it, “while typos are common and generally forgiven on personal social media accounts, emails, or blogs, brands and corporate or professional accounts are generally held to a higher standard.”

spelling

Just a small mistake can make all the difference to your customers, and the more public and the bigger your audience, the more potentially damaging the effects can be.

According to a study in the UK by Global Lingo, it was found that 74% of consumers pay close attention to the spelling and grammar of company websites. Also, 59% said that if they noticed any spelling mistakes, this would cause them to avoid doing business with the company.

Charles Duncolm, internet entrepreneur measured the revenue per visitor to the website, tightsplease.co.uk in order to calculate the economic effect of spelling errors. He found that revenue was twice as high after an error was corrected.

blunders

In defence of typos

Not everyone agrees that you have to be flawless in your spelling practices, in fact some people argue it makes the company seem more human. Author John Higgs wrote an article defending written mistakes in 2014 saying, “there are limits to the amount of mistakes we can handle, of course, and obviously mistakes which alter the meaning of the work need to be fixed. But that does not mean we should aim for the extreme of a zero-tolerance policy to mistakes.”

The implication of this is that if you can fix a mistake, or if it isn’t altering the message of your company, post or values then it can be okay.

Another important consideration is speaking your customer’s language, regardless of grammar and spelling. If your audience mostly speak in text speak then feel free to imitate that in your social media and content writing.

How to sort out your spelling

If you are worried about spelling and grammar mistakes slipping through the nets and accidentally publishing something which may cause negative reactions from your customers there are a couple of things you can do.

  1. Check thoroughly- a cop out answer sure but checking everything multiple times will often help to get rid of any massive mistakes.
  1. Get another opinion- Create a process of getting someone else to check your posts. This is not always convenient if you want to post on the go, but if you are really worried then this may be the best course of actions.
  1. Cheat and use Grammarly– Grammarly is a great tool which allows you to install an online tool which will check your messages on the go. It is by no means perfect, but it is a great way of getting rid of a large majority of obvious errors with ease.

How important do you think spelling and grammar is online? Have you ever seen an unforgivable error which has put you off a purchase? We want to know. Message us in the comments or Tweet us at @Giant_Campus.

Additional note: If you find a mistake in this blog then we are sorry. We are just trying to be more “human.”

Ben Hawkes

Ben Hawkes

Digital Creative Lead

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Welcome to Giant Campus

Welcome to Giant Campus

Welcome to Giant Campus

launch week baby!

So last Friday saw the public launch of a brand new way to learn about digital marketing, Giant Campus.

We’ve been bleating on about this for a while now, across our social media platforms, so you should have some kind of an idea, but for those that don’t, let me fill you in.

Giant Campus is the sister company to the critically acclaimed, Kent based, Sleeping Giant Media. Over the past 8 years, Sleeping Giant Media has grown to become one the most respected digital marketing agencies in the South and across the UK. It’s not just us saying that. They are too modest to say but they have been winning awards based on customer satisfaction for years. It’s something they take very seriously!

We launched on Friday 30th September, Click here to go to our Launch Party page.

 

From their humble beginnings around the kitchen table to amassing a staff base of about 40 skilled creatives, Sleeping Giant Media have grown rapidly. You can’t achieve such growth if the environment, systems, and training are not in place. Personal development is a daily process for the GIANTS of SGM and it is with this kind of thinking, that led to the conceptualisation of Giant Campus.

  • How can other providers be as close to the subject if they don’t practice the arts daily?
  • How do you capture the attention of professionals in the creative, digital industries?
  • Why don’t other small businesses grow using the power of the internet?
  • How can we teach the world to sing? (in perfect harmony)

Giant Campus is born out of all (some) of these frustrations.

After chatting with some local businesses and analysing the training offering it was clear that something pretty GIANT had to happen. We discovered a large amount of ‘free’ training (networking and selling wrapped up as training and seminars) These can be great to initiate those discussions and curiosities but didn’t do much more than that.

So we looked at the formal route, NVQ’s, CPD and apprenticeships. Looking into the syllabuses of these programmes it was clear how outdated they already were with regard to digital marketing? I mean this stuff changes daily!

OK, how about e-learning. The internet is so awesome this has to be the solution, but alas no. Some great resources were found, video content, infographics, learning programmes like Google Garage, but none of these formats of learning allowed you to have a hands-on approach, or to be able to ask those questions that affect you and your particular business.

So we took it upon ourselves to do something about this.

 

Practical, creative, hands-on training delivered by professors who do this kind stuff daily, for those happy customers at Sleeping Giant Media.

So over the coming weeks, you will see some cool stuff on social media, like our 360 launch on YouTube. Perhaps you will see some paid online advertising. Our website is live and is now ranking in google, have a search, or perhaps you will see one of our remarketing adverts whilst browsing online. Maybe you will attend one of our free taster sessions or better still, book yourself into the ball pit for a digital marketing masterclass.

It’s pretty clever stuff, but all things we can show you how to do for your business, get in touch today.

‘Find my Website’, An Introduction to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

31st October 2016. 9:30 – 12:30

The Ball Pit. Giant Towers, Folkestone Kent.

Danny Windsor

Danny Windsor

Snr Brand & Marketing Manager

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