As a self-professed spelling and grammar geek, I was probably more excited than most to come across the recent Ragan’s PR Daily post by Shel Holz entitled, “Spelling and grammar do matter, according to consumers.” Imagine my delight when I read further and learned that Disruptive 
Communications just surveyed 1,003 consumers in the UK to learn what was most likely to damage their opinion of a brand on social media – with the result being that 42.5 percent said poor spelling or grammar. 42.5 percent! The second place answer, which came in at a mere 24.9 percent, had to do with updates being too “salesy” (admittedly irritating, but apparently not as grating as misspelled words and grammatical slip-ups).
And, as Holz points out, it’s not just “old people” who care about these things. Eighteen- to 24-year-olds ranked poor spelling or grammar as the second most annoying issue they see on social media – and that came in a mere 1.2 percentage points behind their top complaint of brands not posting enough.
It’s so easy in today’s fast-paced world to skip the proofreading step, especially on social media. However, as this recent study points out, your customers definitely take notice.
