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Unedited content makes puppies sad.[/caption] Wordpress, Twitter and Facebook make it easy for you to make your messages visible to the world in just seconds. But before you hit "publish", wait. There is a very important step that you need to take before your content goes live. If you miss this step, you run the risk of undermining your brand and turning off potential customers. That step: editing.
Why You Can't Skip Proofreading and Editing
Whether it's your homepage, a blog post, a Facebook status or a tweet, you absolutely need to edit before you make it live. Webpages that contain spelling, grammatical or syntactical errors will reflect poorly on your brand. You may be extremely knowledgeable and be number one in your industry, but people won't get that impression if your content is full of mistakes and seems unprofessional. You should hold your content to the same standards as your product -- if it's not stellar, don't put it in front of the client.
How To Edit Your Online Content
If you can afford it, it's a great idea to have a full time editor on staff. An experienced editor can ensure that every word of your content is spelled and used correctly. Editors can also make sure that content is consistent with your company's brand. If a full time editor is not in your budget, consider hiring a freelance editor on a project-to-project basis. If you are responsible for writing your company's content, you probably don't need to be told that you need to take the time to edit. But we all get busy now and then, and forget to pore over our work before we publish. And then, after it goes live, we cringe if we see an error in our content. Avoiding that scenario should be motivation enough to make sure that you edit your work. Ask a coworker to look it over for you or set up a reminder in your calendar so that you will never forget to thoroughly edit your content.
A Note about Social Media
There's really no way to put Facebook status updates or tweets into an editing queue. And because these updates happen in real time, it doesn't make sense to wait for an editor to approve them before they go live. The person you put in charge of social media needs to be smart, conscientious and diligent about editing. One bad tweet is sometimes all it takes to damage a company's reputation. The person you put in charge of social media needs to be somebody who will think carefully about every word in a tweet. Someone who will double- or triple-check the spelling of someone's name before adding it to a Facebook post. Someone who understands the impact that social media can have on a brand, and someone who
cares about your brand. When you assign an employee to manage your social accounts, make sure that he or she is a meticulous editor.
Editing at Ecreative
Whether your content will be written by you, an employee, a freelancer or an Ecreative copywriter, it needs to be easy to read, on-message, and free of mistakes. Our copywriters are extremely careful editors -- the content that we write for you reflects on our brand just as much as it reflects on yours. We're as invested in perfection as you are. If you have questions about editing and copywriting, don't hesitate to
contact Ecreative. Photo credit:
rawlands /
Foter /
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