Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

“I’m all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let’s start with typewriters.” (Solomon Short) Instead of typewriters, think email or blogs.

Here’s a few tips I’ve culled from various sources and my own 20 plus years of biz writing experience.

1. Never write anything you don’t want to be out there forever, for anybody to read. Of course, we all break this one, and it’s necessary at times, but think twice. Both Oliver North and Bill Gates (who really should’ve known better) found out the hard way that old emails never die. This is even more true of blogs.

2. If you’d be embarrassed to say it in front of your mother - don’t say it. Sure, some of us bloggers are entertainers - but obscenities don’t belong in business blogs. (This from me, who has been known to cuss like a drill sargeant in the real world.)

3. Write complete thoughts. Don’t assume the recipient knows the meaning of “LOL” and such. That’s okay for personal “off-the-cuff” emails and blog entries - not for business communications. Just because it’s quick and personal doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to be sloppy.

4. Think of the subject line or blog entry title as your headline. Otherwise, you may get deleted unread. Personally, I almost always automatically delete emails with no subject line or with more than two “re” (I assume the responses will eventually end and I can read the very last one.) I also ignore RSS feeds that have headlines like “Acme announces new leading-edge widget.”

5. Don’t hit “reply all” unless everyone really needs to know the reply. And, doublecheck where it’s going. I’ve seen more than one embarassing problem because somebody got an email they shouldn’t have.