The Fifth Excuse for Not Using the Power of Social Media

This fifth excuse of the eight excuses I wrote about for a FastGush.com guest post has shades of your high school English teacher:

5. I'm not a good speller so I might make lots of spelling mistakes



Then write your tweets or updates in Word, do spellcheck, correct, and then copy and paste into your social media conversations.

Look, Twitter and other social media sites have their own "language". You do not need to add to this by misspelling words so that people have to spend even more time puzzling out what you mean.

There are a number of common grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes I see made all the time. Here's a cheat sheet to help you with these AFTER running spell check:

Know the difference between:

1) their/they're

Their faces lit up with anticipation. (their – possessive)

They're waiting for you. (they are – subject and verb)

(Also note that their and there are NOT the same words.)

2) your/you're

Your face is sparkling. (your – possessive)

You're always right. (you are – subject and verb)

3) it's/its

It's been a long time. (it has – subject and verb)

It's nice of you to visit. (it is – subject and verb)

Jane put on her coat. Its buttons shone. (it – possessive)

Know when to use apostrophes:

1) The passenger's seat was uncomfortable. The passengers' seats were uncomfortable. (possessive – use apostrophe)

2) The passengers were uncomfortable. (plural noun – no apostrophe) (Pay special attention to this – people frequently use possessive when they mean to use plural.)

In English, only proper nouns are capitalized:

1) The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a terrific museum.

2) I often visit the art museum.

In direct address, commas set off the name of the person being addressed:

Yes, John, I am going to the movie. Dan, are you going with John?

Recommended stylebook: The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

If you memorize the above cheat sheet you'll be well ahead to having basically correct social media updates. Of course, then there is the use of abbreviations to fit things into the 140-character limit on Twitter. But that's for another time.

(You can read all 8 excuses now on FastGush.com.)

Plus read the blog post about the first excuse: "I don't have time to do social media"

The post about the second excuse: "I have nothing to say on social media"

The post about the third excuse: "People in my target market aren't on social media"

The post about the fourth excuse: "I'm not a techie"

© 2011 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) is the co-founder of the social media marketing company Miller Mosaic LLC.

Get the free information "8 Social Media Marketing Mistakes" and "Social Media Marketing Does Not Magically Work; You Have to Work It" at www.facebook.com/millermosaicsocialmedia