I can’t resist jumping in. As a former tech-journalist/editor/writer-turned-custom-publisher/content-marketer, this thread is very near and dear to me. I miss the days of crackerjack copy editors and life-saving proofreaders.

At any rate, this piece from lifehacker offers some good advice: http://lifehacker.com/5968996/how-to-edit-your-own-writing.

Enjoy.

On Business 2 Community, we see that every day. Some of the most popular articles aren’t those with the most knowledge or clever analogies but those with the best titles.

Great titles come in 2 forms: they are either really suspenseful or they capitalize on trending keywords.

I’m logging off for the holiday. thanks so much for your comments and have a great one!

LOL about you needing an editor. Most writers would be thrilled to write as well as you do. There are some excellent resources on common grammar challenges, capitalization rules, and ways to check spelling. If we simply share those many will do just fine. If they just avoid the most common mistakes, few will know the difference.

I was at IBM when Profs was introduced. Executives were already using it for internal email and to manage tasks and assumed the field employees did too when we had not even seen it yet. It had a feature I ran regularly to see what grade level what you wrote suited. I used to run it because I wanted to know what words it thought were “too big” for people who almost all had college degrees.

That is when I realized that most managers with Masters degrees could not write or spell at even an eighth grade level. Before downsizing and email, that did not matter because they did not write anything themselves.

Many top engineers, programmers, and the bloggers who actually make money aren’t very proficient, either. English is a language with far too many illogical exceptions and particularly challenging for non-native speakers. So if you want to know what they’re doing, you can’t be a “grammar nazi” or leave because they spelled a word wrong.

What I recommend most small businesses do is find a social media savvy, influential writer they can work with consistently for three reasons:

1) They can take what you know and make it understandable for your target audience who may not know your industry jargon.
2) Their established relationships or ability to publish content that benefits you on other domains will raise your visibility.
3) Social media savvy writers with existing audiences have more influence with their followers than you do and can teach your people many skills.

Even if you only work together for a few posts you will get much more out of it than the content created: connections, skills, a person to go to for quick answers, and someone who then knows more about you and is likely to bring you opportunities and add you to new content they are not specifically writing for you.

As for my dream of having more of our employee colleagues join the 1%, I agree with you that it is unrealistic for everyone. However, I believe successful businesses will need to activate those with the desire and the knowledge and the skills to communicate in the future in order to be successful.

Customers can now contact our employees already on Twitter and Facebook and through blogs. Smart companies will help their employees who are interested to get trained on how to communicate effectively. I agree that this isn’t for everyone and certainly cannot be forced, but it is going to happen with company support or not.

I remember when I first joined the work force and computers and email were just starting to penetrate companies. I remember informally “training” many older workers who were not too happy that they had to respond to emails. Even just 10 years ago, I had a boss who still dictated his email responses to his assistant. Whether we like it or not, we are all communicators in business today. And my hope is simply that more employees who are interested and capable can join the 1% and share their knowledge externally.

I am seeing those writer services and influence identification services becoming much more prominent. And while I think they have their place, effective content strategy seeks to first take advantage of the talent you already have. As Marcus Sheridan loves to say, “They ask. You answer.” Every employees plays a role in that.

Elaine’s examples would make a great topic for another post. It is best if your content is as grammatically correct as possible; however, there are many thought leaders who can not spell and do not know the difference between your and you’re or they’re, their and there.

To refuse to read what they have to say is an elitist position that limits what you can learn. Often times the person in the trenches knows much more than those managing them – and neither worker nor manager may excel at writing.

We only know the errors we can recognize – not the ones we aren’t aware of so as often happens, someone with greater knowledge of grammar comes along and points out that the “grammar nazi” isn’t perfect, either. Even grammar experts do not agree about some usages and get in heated discussion where one site is positive they are correct – and the other side just as positive. Does it really matter, especially if only grammar experts know the difference? Just fix the obvious issues and common mistakes and don’t sweat the small stuff.

While your desire to get all employees into the top 10% is admirable, it is highly unlikely. There are many people whose greatest contributions will lie in other areas and while you might be able to force them to share, if they truly hate it they will not be very good at it.

A better goal is to identify those who have something to say and enable them to join the 1% and provide training, tools and time to those who love sharing so that they can do it more effectively.

The majority of the 1% are more researcher than thought leader. While they create content that brings together what thought leaders share, they are not thought leaders themselves.

We have an educational system that tries very hard to get people to do what they are told, believe “the experts”, and not think. Those of
us who rejected that conditioning are not all that common. If your company has a true leader who has original ideas or can explain complex topics but isn’t a writer, capture their thoughts on video or audio or in notes. You can always have a writer put them down in words.

If your company does not have someone in house, the solution is to collaborate with a thought leader to produce content that will benefit you – either on your own blog or on sites like Business2Community or here.

There are two kinds of content that will benefit any business:

1) Content that clearly explains the benefits of what you do.
2) Content published elsewhere that attracts potential customers back to you.

The first is best produced by someone who thoroughly understands your products and services and edited by someone who writes well. The second is where a quality research writer – or even better, an industry thought leader – comes in.

The best writers are finally starting to be recognized and what they are paid has increased from an average of $75-$150 per post to $300-$500 per post. I expect the best writers to be in high demand because there simply are not that many who write well and also have talents either as a researcher, from business experience, to teach clearly, or as a thought leader.

They tend to know each other, so once you find one you can ask them who they recommend. There are people working right now on ways to identify the most influential, social media savvy writers. Expect to see solutions along those lines in 2013. But you don’t really need them – all you need is to find someone who already knows and can tell you who they are.