photo by robert couse-baker

Going postal over the letters to Santa program. The secret behind a truly great brand. Chicken soup in the cold remedies aisle. A look at why Twitter followers without engagement is worthless.

These are just some of my most popular tweets during the month of November. No surprise in today’s jobs-challenged “recovery” that the top tweet was a post concerning my search for a communications manager (still under way, tell all your friends).

If you missed any of these when first we tweeted, be sure to check them out now. Lots of good stuff here for what ails you.

Now Hiring: a Communications Manager

The Secret to Making Your Brand Truly Great

The Case of the 4,000 Twitter Followers Who Don’t Care

Confused Stock Boy … or Brilliant Product Placement?

Let’s Play 20 Questions to a Solid Strategic Plan

Is Social Media a Marketing Thing?

Content-ment: Curation Vs. Aggregation

Postal Service Limits Letter to Santa Program

Top 20 Tweets in October

Why Facebook Continues to Suck

25 of the Most Powerful and Influential Women in Social Media 2009

Why Nonprofits Should Be on YouTube

Five Things Brand Marketing Can’t Do

Writing Errors That Make You Look Stupid

Location is the Missing Link Between Social Media and the Real World

Email Campaigns That Work for Nonprofits

Beth Asked a Question

American Red Cross – Nonprofit Social Media Marketing Example

Top 50 Journalism Blogs

Ten Things Social Media Can’t Do

photo by CarbonNYC

With all the profound advances being made daily in social media and  communications technology, anyone want to venture a guess why I’m revisiting the land of bad grammar, poor word choices, misspellings and abused punctuation?

Here’s a hint. Effective communication is only going to grow in importance in both our personal and professional lives. I don’t care what you think you do. Communication skills are now on everyone’s short list.

If perception is frequently reality, then the perception that you don’t know what you’re talking about because your writing is filled with easily corrected errors is one you need to avoid at all costs.

As much as I’d love to write an exhaustive resource list for you on this subject (insert sarcastic emoticon here), the good news is that everyone and her sister already has done it. A search of the phrase “common writing mistakes” turns up nearly 20,000 results on Google. Don’t bother sifting through them all; the following should answer most if not all of your questions. Commit them to heart and at least the writing errors that remain in your deathless prose should be a bit more esoteric.

SoYouWanna Avoid Common Writing Errors?

Common Writing Mistakes

Top Ten Common Writing Mistakes

Ten Common Writing Mistakes Your Spell Checker Won’t Find

Do You Make These 7 Mistakes When You Write?

Five Grammatical Errors That Make You Look Dumb

Common Mistakes of English Grammar, Mechanics, and Punctuation

photo by edu_phon

I’ve decided to expand my normal 10 tweets to 20 from now on because there’s just too much good stuff to share each month. Running through the list of the most popular links I posted on Twitter last month is almost like a Rorschach test that helps me take a dip into the minds of those following me there. My main takeaway is that people are hungry for good, actionable information on communications in general and social media specifically.

So in case you missed any of these the first time around, here in order are the tweets that drew the most attention:

PR Gaffe Delivers Unintended National Press

How to Astonish Your Audience With Statistics

10 Best Practices in Social Media for Nonprofits

Aspire to This: an Example of a Great Website

8 Twitter Habits That May Get You Unfollowed or Semi-Followed

Emotional Messaging Works; Rational Messaging Hurts

5 Fresh Ideas for Social Media Marketers

Why Don’t Tweens Tweet? We Asked Over 10,000 of Them

Are You Antisocial in Your Social Media Efforts?

How to Tell Your Story in 100 Words or Less

ROI of Listening: 17 Things to Do With What You Hear

Your Web Site: Less is More. Really.

Being Helpful is the New Black

10 Common Writing Mistakes Your Spell Checker Won’t Find

73 Ways to Become a Better Writer

Time for a Twitter Reality Check

Your Company is a Media Company

45% of Employers Use Social Networking Sites to Research Job Candidates

A Child’s First Hitchcock: Psycho

What’s So Scary About Marketing Strategy?

Check out any you may have missed last month on Twitter. There’s lots of good food for thought in this list (although my favorite, A Child’s First Hitchock, is just for fun … great storytelling example, though).

Enjoy!

A few years ago writing consultant Judy Rose put together this list of common word use errors, and unfortunately it holds up very well today. If you’re one of those people who’s not sure whether it’s it’s or its, you’re or your or who’s or whose, print this one out and stick it next to your PC.

If everyone who made the errors identified in Rose’s list were to correct them, editors everywhere would breathe a huge sigh of relief.

photo by valeriana solaris

Guess I’m on a spelling/grammar/punctuation kick this week. I’m sure it will pass.

Way back in the dark ages of the early ’90s, I picked up a little book called The Mac is Not a Typewriter. Along with the dictionary, thesaurus and The Associated Press Stylebook, it has proven to be one of the more valuable reference books on my bookshelf.

Unfortunately it must not be on enough bookshelves. Some of the most basic lessons set forth in this guide to the rules and techniques of professional typesetting are routinely ignored by people whose occupations involve tapping at a computer keyboard eight hours a day. Here are two of my biggest pet peeves:

One period between sentences. Seriously, do you still double-space after the period before starting a new sentence? If you learned typing on a typewriter, you might. On a typewriter the characters are monospaced, which means each takes up the same amount of space and a period requires two spaces to separate sentences. Characters on a computer are proportional, which means each takes up the amount of space appropriate for that character.

The one-space rule also applies to colons, semi-colons, question marks, quotations marks and any other punctuation you might be tempted to follow with two spaces.

Use hyphens, en dashes and em dashes appropriately. I think more people get this wrong than right. There’s a reason all of these symbols are available for your use. The hyphen is used only to hyphenate a word or line break. The en dash is used between words to indicate a duration (thin space before and after). And the em dash is used to to indicate an abrupt change in thought (no spaces before or after).

The Mac is Not a Typewriter has more good information than its 72 pages would suggest. You should seriously consider adding it to your bookshelf.

photo by daquella manera

I’ll admit it. Anytime I see “professional” writing that includes misspelled words, bad grammar or misused punctuation, I wince. I recognize that in the new Democratic Republic of Social Media, there are those who shrug off such errors. “The important thing is that people are getting out there,” they say. “They shouldn’t be intimidated by their lack of writing skills.”

Lord knows I wouldn’t want to intimidate anyone, but … uh, no. If you didn’t master sixth-grade English class, hire someone who did. Or work to improve your own abilities. Good communication is best done by professionals. When my pipes leak, I hire an experienced plumber, not some guy who’s enthusiastic and has decided to “get out there” and do a little plumbing.

Sounds a bit snotty, coming from a so-called communications pro? Maybe, but consider this: Every misspelled word, misplaced comma and badly crafted sentence says something about you, whether writing is part of your job description or not. It says, “I’m not much for detail,” or, “I’m pretty casual about this quality control stuff.” Your poor writing suggests that maybe there are other things you’re a bit sloppy at. Like your plumbing.

It’s not just communications, of course. Everything you do says something about your work ethic, organizational culture, quality of service, etc. Your brand grows out of every point of contact you have with your stakeholders or customers.When I see your poor communication, I wonder what else you’re not so great at. And that should worry you.

photo by styleserver

Love it or hate it, Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style continues to be the most widely read English style manual. The 50th anniversary edition doesn’t hit Amazon until April 19 and already it’s #31 on the site’s bestseller list.

Personally I don’t have much use for it as a grammar guide. But there is some good advice for the novice writer that bears repeating.

1. Use the active voice. Which is stronger: “There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the ground” or “Dead leaves covered the ground”? Active is more forceful and direct, always better in my book.
2. Use definite, specific, concrete language. Vague and general make for boring writing. Vivid details paint pictures in the minds of readers.
3. Omit needless words. It sounds pretty obvious, but examples of unnecessary padding are everywhere. You’d think all writers were being paid by the word.
4. Revise and rewrite. This can be particularly tough for those who don’t consider themselves to be writers. Hard enough to crank out that first draft, but then have to go back and rework it? Jeez! But any writer will tell you that good writing comes out of ruthless, diligent editing.
5. Avoid fancy words. Don’t use a ten-dollar word when a nickel will do. That goes for jargon, technical language, anything that stands in the way of clarity.
6. Be clear. OK, I roll my eyes at this one, but how many would-be writers overlook the obvious? As the authors write, “… since writing is communication, clarity can only be a virtue.” Be virtuous. Be clear.

Beyond that, you might want to save your money. Pick up a copy of Anne Lamott‘s Bird by Bird instead. Now there’s writing that teaches and inspires.