I hope you find my writing and business tips and observations useful. My business and blog are dedicated to helping businesses communicate clearly and reach their potential.
Read, and enjoy!Tash
Negative spam comments – why?
I get a lot of spam comments coming into this blog – I take it as a compliment that they see my blog as worthy of their effort to get included in it. Generally, the spam gets filtered and deleted automatically, but occasionally I look through the comments.
Most of the spam is along the lines of “Thanks for great information” – presumably on the assumption that I will be flattered and approve it 🙂 Sometimes, it is a question like “who made your blog look so good?” Either way, the links and names not matching emails help give away the true nature of such comments.
Tonight, however, I just read a spam comment that was highly critical of my blog*. I just don’t understand their thought processes – who is going to be sucked in to approving spam that attacks them? Obviously someone who has a lot of spare time if they can send out comments with no chance of being approved to earn them links!
Am I missing something? Have you come across similar pointless comments in your blog?
At least the next comment I read was honest “I am desperate for back links so am putting comments in your blog.” I didn’t approve it either, but they had more chance of success!
*Apart from the obvious link and name clues, I know it was spam rather than a genuine complaint because it accused me of whining in that post, yet the post was a pair of definitions in my Monday Meanings section!
Media release quotation marks part ii
Last week I wrote about a media release not using quotation marks correctly. Unfortunately, I have just read another release from the same PR company (written for one of their clients) and they have actually misused quotation marks again – breaking different rules!
Samples of the release (identifying features adjusted for the sake of their client):
“We’re fine tuning the offer for them.” XYZ managing director Fred Nerk said.
“There’s lots of ducks that need to be lined up in terms of how the groups support the plans”.
“Now they’ve thought ‘hang on, we need to provide for this”.
The rules they don’t know are therefore…
- while what the person is saying may be at an end, a full stop is not used at the end of speech if it is followed by details for the speaker. Apart from anything else, they have created XYZ managing director Fred Nerk said.as a stand alone sentence which is incomplete. A correct example is ‘I am working on it now,’said Mary.
- punctuation goes inside the quotation marks, except if the punctuation is part of the surrounding sentence rather than part of the quoted material
- if a speech includes a quote, two full sets of quotation marks are required, and generally the second set will be different to the first (i.e. if one quotation mark is used, the inner set will have double quotation marks). So a correct example is “I spoke to the officer in charge who said ‘this is a major catastrophe,'” said the reporter
If we add in the incorrect spelling of the client name (yes, really!), typos and words like ‘throught’, this media release is a very poor return for the client’s money. To me it shows an absolute lack of respect to their client and is unprofessional.
Media outlets will often use a media release as the basis of any reports and they obviously don’t expect to have to spend time correcting silly errors like this. If they have two equally promising stories to run, the better presented media release is likely to win so I would be very cross if a PR company sent out a release about me in that state.
Would you expect a PR company to get the writing elements right, or would you be comfortable checking it for errors yourself?
Make it clear what you do
What does your business do? Would I be able to answer that question after reading your website or brochure?
You may be surprised that many businesses do not clearly state what they don on their website. Some just assume everyone knows, others try to be clever and use fancy words and others appear to like being mysterious and/or aloof. And that’s not counting those sites that try to tease and get your details before they really disclose anything – I just can’t trust that sort of site.
Why do I think it is important to be clear about what you do?
- make life easy for your potential clients – clarity saves them guessing or searching for the information
- using the appropriate words (i.e. keywords) will help search engines find and rank you
- save yourself being contacted by people who are after something you don’t offer
- it builds credibility – you are open and honest rather than trying to be impressive
Some people argue that effectively hiding information throughout the site means people have to read more pages to find their answers (for example the home page, about us page and services page to find out if you offer what hey want). My answer to that is that many people won’t bother and will look elsewhere, and even if they do, is wasting a client’s time showing them much respect or valuing them at all?
So how can you make this clear?
- add an informative tagline to every page of your site
- make it the first sentence on your site for real clarity
- use commonly accepted words to describe your services at least once – if you use unusual terms by choice, perhaps simplify it on your about us page
- have a list of your services if there could be doubts. For instance, a beautician might list she offers waxing, facials and manicures but not pedicures and a legal firm might list they do contracts, employment agreements, family law and business advice (the implication being they don’t do criminal law)
- note who you service. My tagline is ‘for all your business writing needs’ which clearly shows I write for businesses rather than writing fiction or being a journalist
- be specific “we help people” doesn’t say much but “we help homeowners prepare for sale” and “we help families care for their elderly loved ones” are much more informative (to humans and search engines)
So maybe look at your materials again and think about whether you are clearly stating what you do.
Getting creative
Do you consider yourself to be creative? Do you take any steps to inspire or nurture your creativity?
I must admit I haven’t thought about creativity for a while, but was recently inspired to think about it by Michelle Grice’s post about musical inspiration.
I believe creativity is important to help us solve issues and stay interested, and it doesn’t have to be creative in any specific way. Many people say “I can’t draw/paint/sew/sculpt so I’m not creative” but I disagree with that as a narrow view of creativity.
The people who thought of liquid paper, sticky notepads and tea bags were all creative – and for all we know they couldn’t draw, sew or sing either!
Developing creativity is fun, and it can help you see things in a different way, find solutions to challenges and grab new opportunities. I think doing anything out of the ordinary and basically avoiding being in a rut will develop creativity, but here are some more specific ideas to get you (and me!) started:
- move to some energetic music – don’t call it dancing if that will limit you, just move!
- grab a pencil and draw your favourite holiday – interpret that in any way you like!
- do some mind teasers – pictures hidden in a see of dots, conundrums, riddles, and so on
- think of a different ending for the last movie you saw or book you read
- spend 5 minutes looking at some artwork online – look at the colours, think about your responses, follow your instincts
- think of how to make your Christmas break up suit a theme – maybe Knights & Damsels, The Jungle, Fairies & Elves or Hollywood inspires you with decorations, costumes, menus and more. It never has to be done, just imagine it
- let your mind follow some music without focussing on any lyrics
- imagine you just won $5million – what would you spend it on? where would you go? how would you resign/leave your clients?
What other ideas do you have for getting creative?
And for today’s brain teaser… if four men take two hours to dig a hole, how long will it take eight men to dig half a hole?
Quotation marks for speech
Do you remember learning about talking marks at school? I remember thinking of them as commas up in the sky:)
Over time, I learnt they are called quotation marks and that there are a few simple rules associated with their use. One of the rules about quotation marks is that you don’t close them until the person finishes speaking.
It isn’t often I come across examples of this in business writing – it’s generally more relevant for fiction or story writing. However, I did come across a media release recently which completely ignored this rule (and a few others but that’s a different story altogether!)
How do we use this rule? I’m glad you asked!
John said ‘It is hot today.’
John has finished speaking so we close off the quotation marks – easy.
John said ‘It is hot today and I would like to go the pool for a swim. The pool is just around the corner.
‘I wonder if Mary and Susan would like to come too? I will call them before I leave.’
In this example, John’s speech is divided into two paragraphs but he hadn’t finished speaking so I didn’t close the quotation marks. For clarity, however, I opened them again to show he is still talking (and I hadn’t just forgotten to close them!)
However, if John’s talking was interupted by text, we would close the quotation marks:
‘It is hot today and I would like to go the pool for a swim. The pool is just around the corner,’ said John.
‘I wonder if Mary and Susan would like to come too? I will call them before I leave.’
That’s a lot
It’s not so much that I see this pair of words used instead of each other, but unfortunately a number of people get the first one wrong.
a lot: a large extent, often, many. Note it is two words.
She has been using the writer a lot for this project.
allot: to distribute or assign parts of something
The manager will allot tasks to his team.
The word alot does not actually exist – it is simply how ‘a lot’ sounds.
Once could be an error…
As much as I advocate being careful with spelling and grammar, everybody is human and mistakes will be made. So I can excuse an error.
It is much harder to excuse a document or website that makes the same mistake more than once. I came across this sentence a little while ago:
“Informing you super fund of a change of address is just as important as informing you bank.”
Using you instead of your is one of those things done easily enough (spell check won’t pick you as wrong) but really annoys me. Seeing it twice in that sentence just tells me the writer doesn’t understand the difference between you and your or just doesn’t care about being professional or making a good impression.
Two errors in that sentence would also make me less forgiving of other mistakes in the same document so it goes further than two missing letters.
How about you – do you also cringe when you read (or hear!) about ‘you object’?
the mystique of a mystic
mystic:someone involved in mysterious things, usually relating to the occult and other non-mainstream beliefs. Also can describe things related to these beliefs and traditions
Jane saw a mystic to contact her husband’s spirit.
mystique: a sense of mystery, power and interest about a person, place or event
Modern communications have reduced the mystique of fashion models.
If you have trouble remembering which is which, remember that mystique is about mystery and questions.
Fowarding emails
Emails are so convenient – how did we ever do business without them? So quick to send a message to someone, or a group, and respond to things, emails are a great aid to communication.
However, we need to be careful with emails that we forward to others.
Before forwarding, check the entire email – there may be part of it you want to transfer to Mary but there may be parts Mary shouldn’t see. For example, there could be confidential information about someone else, unpleasant comments about Mary herself or out of date information that could cause confusion. This is a particular risk in very long email trails (i.e. if a number of replies are included in the one email) where subjects may even have changed along the way.
The other issue with forwarding emails is email addresses – if emailing a group of people, ensure that they can’t see email addresses they shouldn’t. The main exmaple of this is when you get jokes and stories that are passed from gorup to gorup – some emails I’ve got have given me access to at least 100 email addresses of strangers. Lucky for them I detest spam so will not abuse their email addresses, but not everyone will respect their privacy so it’s best to delete email addresses before forwarding.
Have you ever forwarded something you now regret? Did you find a way to remedy the situation?
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