Do you proof your content before you show it to the world? You should! Here’s why.
I recently read a highly publicized blog piece by a professional I know fairly well. I’ll call him Rod*. Rod is highly regarded and most definitely seen as a leader in his field. He produces his own podcast and hosts a number of regular events in his community.
The information Rod shared in his blog was breaking news—something I am certain he wanted to get out to his colleagues as quickly as possible to “scoop” someone else. Unfortunately,
in his rush to publish, Rod neglected to proof his content.
While we can’t always be on par with our content all the time, reading Rod’s article was difficult for me. I have that “crawl into a hole” mentality—if I make a huge error, I want to crawl into a hole until it goes away. And when I see friends and colleagues make mistakes,
I’d like to shove them in a hole to save them the embarrassment.
The worst part was that Rod’s error was something that I’m certain he would have caught had he read through his blog one more time. The sad thing is, I see this kind of thing all the time—a careless (but blatant) error I know the writer should have seen. The wrong homophone. A misspelling. A missing word. The wrong verb tense.
Big things that curl the fingernails of most professionals—editors or not.
Clearly no one is perfect, but errors like these make me stop and think. How did he not catch this mistake? Is he rushing through his (insert your profession: accounting, consulting, tech, sales) work too? Does he rush through the work he does for ME?
Careless errors make prospective clients stop and think twice about a potential business relationship with you.
For small business owners and entrepreneurs (heck, any business owner), reputation is everything. Before you publish your content, give it one final read-though. Have a friend or loved one proof it for you. Or sit on it for a few hours, then read it one last time before putting it out there on the Internet for all to see.
And the more you promote the content, the more important this becomes.
Don’t pay to promote a post that you haven’t proofed ad nauseam.
And if you’re not sure or don’t have time?
Ask someone who is sure or pay someone who does have time!
I would have been happy to give Rod’s time, had he asked me.
* Name changed to protect the careless.
