So I was inspired to write a post on logo design, with the help of PBS’ Off Book series. (Watch full video here.)

The History of Logos

Logos trace their history all the way back to pictorials used thousands of years ago. They were used in books, street signs, and churches, mainly to communicate with the illiterate masses. They were used by merchants to show their offerings and were used as trademarks to signify the origin or quality of a craftsman’s product.

Logo use increased over the years and really got its start, as we know it today, at the beginning of the 20th century with the introduction of color printing and the birth of the advertising industry. At the beginning, logos used design elements and words that were already familiar to most people so that the public could readily understand the meaning of a given symbol.

Over the last century, with the increase of commerce, and especially the growth of competition among an ever-growing number of companies, logos began to be used more and more to help distinguish between similar entities.

But while the world we live in has gradually become more complex, the design of logos has become simpler for ease and speed of recognition in a fast paced world.

Today, it is important for logo designers to understand that “less is more”. Logos must be simple yet intelligent images that are skillfully designed to convey a company’s personality, standard, quality, or brand, both consciously and sub-consciously, for immediate recognition by its target audience.

4 Keys to Great Logo Design

“Logo designers have to have a sense of what the company wants its personality to be. And then it manufactures this mask. And the logo is essentially a mask. It’s an identifier. But it’s also something which stands in for who you are.” –Steven Heller

This mask is crucial because it expresses your image and personality, at a glance, to the world. You can make sure your logo accomplishes that monumental task by following these four keys.

1. Memorable

A logo, first and foremost, must be memorable.

“Often it’s something awkward, or something that throws off the balance.” –Sagi Haviv

The logo for Mobil Oil is a great example. What makes it off balance, that one red “o” in the middle of blue lettering, is also what makes it memorable and immediately identifiable.

2. Appropriate

A logo must appropriately and accurately communicate what the company is and does.

“It should be appropriate in the character, the feeling. If you look at the Smithsonian sun and you say, ‘Is that appropriate for an institution that has all these different galleries and museums?’ And then you start thinking, ‘Does it look too corporate?’ No, it doesn’t? ‘Does it look too commercial?’ No, it doesn’t. That is what we ask ourselves when we look at a mark, ‘Is this right for them?’” –Sagi Haviv

3. Simple

“A logo can’t express everything but it should definitely express the thing that is the most important, the thing that needs to be expressed.” –Kelli Anderson

In the fast moving world we live in today, with images flying by us on TV, web browsers, smart phones, and buses, it is more and more difficult to remember anything. That’s one reason why a logo has to be simple. Is there any logo that is simpler, yet more memorable, than the Apple logo?

A logo must also be simple because it has to “work everywhere and look the same in every situation.”

“In today’s media reality, if it could be as tiny as 16×16 pixels to work as a favicon or on the sides of buildings, that’s tremendous.” – Sagi Haviv

4. Timelessness

Coca Cola is a great example of a timeless logo. Yet it uses old school script and was designed in the 1890s. So how does it always look contemporary? Because it has become an enduring part of our culture.

Often the most timeless and appropriate logo has an overwhelming feeling of obviousness. And there is nothing wrong with being obvious in your design because that usually means it is appropriate.

“It is a fashion business. There are styles that change and typography that changes and images that change. But what you want is you want your audience to see [your logo] and it will remind [them] of [your] entity. That’s when a logo works. That’s when it becomes timeless.” –Gerard Huerta

A great logo transcends time and when your audience sees your logo and is instantly reminded of your brand, then there is little reason to ever change it.

However, we often feel the need to change our logo or our branding, mostly because we’re bored, or maybe because we want to improve our logo to make it more modern and fresh. And there is often good reason for that. But how many times have the New York Yankees changed their logo? Is there room for improvement? Could it be more modern? Yes. But could it be more timeless? No. And therein lies its effectiveness. You know exactly what that logo stands for, baseball fan or not.

Conclusion

“When a design fulfills these parameters, with time it will build equity and will build recognition.” –Sagi Haviv

When it comes to designing a great logo, think about who you are and how you want your customers to view you. Then based on that personality, get one idea that you believe in and iterate over and over again. Experiment with colors, transparency levels, size, and even the relationship between those different elements.

“We need the logo so that people will be cued into who we are and what we do.” –Gerard Huerta

So find a way to tell your story that is memorable, appropriate, simple, and timeless.

Picture: Cover image of “The Wisdom of Wooden,” available on Amazon.

Coach John Wooden was a great man and a great coach.

From 1964 to 1975, his college basketball teams won 10 national championships with four of those being undefeated seasons. It’s an unprecedented level of success before or after.

But he didn’t view himself as just a coach. One of his goals was to prepare his players for life, not just athletics, and many of his players remember him the best for this. He was also known for his salient, wisdom-imparting quotes which were referred to as “Woodenisms.”

One such quote relates very well to the social-media activity of today. No, he didn’t speak it about social media, but it’s still very fitting.

Here’s the quote:

Never mistake activity for achievement.

Think about that for a second. Can you see how it relates to social media? Yes, it’s very appropriate. Let’s talk about how.

How this quote applies to social media

It’s fitting for social media because a lot of people are investing time and money in social-media networks but are not quite sure why they’re doing it.

They dash from one social network to the next, thinking they’ll go out of business if they’re not on every single social website.

But the problem is that they don’t know how each one is helping them. They’re not quite sure what benefit is derived from activity on Facebook, and they have no idea what exactly is going on in the Twittersphere.

In order to avoid mistaking activity for achievement, companies need to answer at least answer one simple question about social media. They need to answer the question of why.

The importance of answering why

So let’s go ahead and ask the question: Why are you on Facebook? What about Twitter? And Google+? What’s your purpose for being there? What are you trying to accomplish?

Are you trying to drive traffic? Are you building a platform? Are you using it for customer service? Or are you simply trying to get ranked in Google?

The real question businesses need to answer is why they’re on each network. Without answering why, there’s no way to move forward and make progress because arriving at a destination requires knowing where you’re going.

And in case you’re having trouble coming up with an answer, I’ll give you an easy one: If you can’t think of any other reason, just say you’re on a network to learn more about it. You’re on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ to learn more about them and to see how they can benefit your business. (This answer works initially, but you it shouldn’t be your strategy forever.)

At the very least, it gives you a reason to be on the network, but it also means you need to be learning. You need to be using it and becoming comfortable with the network language. You need to learn how to send tweets, reply to tweets, and retweet. You need to become social-media fluent.

But if you don’t know why you’re on a network, then there’s a very good chance you won’t accomplish anything. You’re business will be a ship without a rudder, and you’ll very likely be mistaking activity for achievement.

Let’s ask the question again: Why are you on Facebook? Do you have an answer? Do you know why you’re using it?

So again, I’d like to ask the question: Why are you on Facebook? And Twitter? And Google+? What are you trying to accomplish? Are you on them because everyone says you have to be, or are you on them to accomplish a certain business goal?

Even if the goal is to get more Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ followers and fans, at least you have a goal. You may not know why you need more followers and what benefit it will provide, but having a goal helps you know what direction to steer the ship. And at some point in the future, those followers may come in really handy.

So what are your social-media goals? Do you feel like you know why you’re on each network, or are you floating around without a clear course? Leave a comment to discuss your situation, or send a message to set up an appointment so we can talk about how to set clear social-media goals for your business. And don’t forget: Never want to mistake activity for achievement.

After I started getting into digital marketing a couple of years ago, I kept hearing the word “platform” being thrown around a lot. It was used like this:

Businesses need to build a platform to get their message out.

Writers should build a platform if they want to get noticed by publishers.

A large enough platform helps bloggers land book deals.

The number of ways it was used went on and on, but quite frankly, it annoyed me. I was sick of hearing people talking about platform this and platform that.

As a marketer, I cared more about sales and conversions. I cared about how many visitors turned into customers, not how many turned into Twitter followers.

I felt  like Allen Iverson in his famous rant about practice (in case you’ve never seen it, a video is embedded at the end of this post). My rant would have gone something like this:

Platform? Why are we talking about platform? I don’t want to talk about platform, I want to talk about sales. Let’s talk about conversions and revenue. Why is everyone talking about platform? Come on man, are we still talking about platform?

I’m sure you get the idea. I didn’t understand why people were talking about platform so much, and it didn’t fit into my traditional marketing background. So what changed?

The “Aha!” moment

The “aha!” moment occurred as I was working on a project to promote a video. The main way to do this was through an e-mail list and Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ accounts for the organization. The success of the video depended largely on the 32,000 or so people on these lists.

As we started promoting the video, I realized that we would only reach so many people with our lists. 32,000 seems like a lot, but when you consider that not everyone on Facebook and Twitter sees every announcement, you don’t reach as many people as you might think.

You also realize that if the lists were bigger by the time the video was promoted, then more people could be reached, and the video would receive more views. But this is determined by the size of the platform that has been developed before promoting, not after. If we wanted to promote beyond these lists, we would have to pay to get access to other people’s audiences, a.k.a. spend money on advertising.

At this point, I started realizing why having a platform matters so much. A platform is like a built-in, non-sleezy promotion channel that you own. It’s a group of people who are interested in hearing what you have to say and are willing to even promote your ideas and messages for you.

So how does this relate to an overall digital marketing strategy?

How Platform Building Fits into a Digital Marketing Strategy

For many businesses, building a platform constitutes a large percentage of digital marketing activity. Have you ever wondered what the point of being on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ is? Have you ever wondered why your writing a blog and accumulating e-mail subscribers?

A big part of the reason is that you’re building a platform that you can communicate future ideas with. Once you have these ideas, you want to have the largest platform possible to communicate these ideas to.

Let’s take writer Jeff Goins as an example. He’s been blogging and writing for several years now. Over that time, he built up a platform of 10,000+ subscribers who are interested in what he has to say. They read and share his posts and support all of the other things that he does.

Several months ago, a publisher approached him about writing a book. Why? Because he had a built in group of people who paid attention to his ideas. In a way, they were interested in the built-in marketing that his platform provided.

So now that Jeff’s book Wrecked is out, he’s gone from a blogger to a writer to an author in a matter of months. All because of the platform that he spent time to build.

How much time should you spend on platform building?

So I’m not sure exactly how much time should be spent on platform building, but one equation looks like this: 99% of time is spent on building the platform and 1% is spent on promoting important ideas and products.

Is this crazy? Should individuals and businesses really spend 99% of their time platform building and 1% of their time promoting important products? Yes and no.

Yes because some businesses should spend this much time building their platform. 99% of their time is used taking care of their audience of interested people and giving them content they want for free. Then, once that big idea or product comes along, companies dip into the 1% to promote their product or idea. But most of the time is spent on platform building.

The answer could also be no because for some businesses the equation should be 90/10 or 80/20. It depends on the business, and every organization has to figure out what the right ratio is for them.

But what I do know is that platform building explains to me why social media marketing is not a waste of time. If you’re not building a platform, then I’m not sure what the point of increasing followers is. But if you are building a platform, then it gives meaning to that 99% of time “wasted” or “invested” into social media. As far as I can tell, it’s the whole reason to be on social media and to care about how many people are keeping up with you.

What are your thoughts? Is platform building important for individuals and businesses who want to get the word out about their products and services, or do you think it’s overrated? And what’s your take on the top reasons to be on social media? Leave a comment and we’ll talk about it.

p.s. Here’s the previously mentioned Iversion video as promised. Enjoy!

Photo credit: dobrych

Think about that for a second.

Here’s the question again: Is saving money the number one reason for spending it?

What does that even mean? Let’s walk through a hypothetical scenario to consider this further.

Spending Money to Save Money

Imagine that you’re in a store like Banana Republic looking for a new pair of pants. As you’re browsing around, you come across a sale rack. It doesn’t have any pants, but you’ll go ahead and take a look anyway.

As you glance at the clothes, you notice a sweater that’s on sale. It also happens to be 50% off. A beautiful new sweater for 50% off! How can you pass up a deal like that?

So you look at it for a second, consider how much you like it, and decide to buy it.

Forget the fact that it’s May and you won’t need a sweater again until November, and forget that it wasn’t on your shopping list. It was on sale! It was 50% off! How could you possibly pass it up!

This is what I call spending money for the sake of saving it—you purchase something that you may or may not have bought otherwise, only because it’s on sale and enables you to “save money.”

Like it or not, this is an everyday occurrence in the consumer economy we live in. We don’t just buy things that we need or buy things that have been on our shopping list for two months—we buy many things that catch our eye at the time, and often, we spend money we wouldn’t spend otherwise, all in the name of saving.

Now if you own a business, this is a phenomena you want to take advantage of.

How to Take Advantage of Your Customers’ Desire to Save Money

When it comes to getting people’s attention, there are only a few things that are guaranteed attention getters—one is making or saving money and another is losing weight. There are a few more items on the list, but these are two of the biggest.

It’s really true. Nearly everyone wants to lose weight, and people can rarely ignore store signs that indicate a sale. 50% off signs in a clothing store capture attention like a red cape waved by a matador.

Smart businesses realize this and know that offering discounts is one of the number one ways to get customers’ attention. So how can you offer discounts without giving away the farm? How do you offer discounts without losing money from marking prices down too much and too frequently?

6 Smart Ways to Offer Discounts

Here are six smart ways to offer discounts in order to take advantage of our customers’ desire to save money:

1. Infrequent sales: If you offer sales too frequently, customers get used to getting a deal. Instead of paying full price, they wait until they can buy at half off. Most businesses can’t survive by selling everything at a 50% discount, so you don’t want to condition customers to wait for sales. One company that comes to mind for giving too many discounts is a photobook-making website that offers 50%-off discounts every month. Since I know sales come out monthly, I refuse to pay full price for anything. It’s also annoying and makes it confusing to know what the real value of the product is. As an alternative, a lot of clothing stores spread sales out by offering them during holidays. This is a great way to not offer discounts too frequently. Sometimes people can wait for the sales, but other times they need a product now and can’t wait for the next sale date. The lesson to be learned is that you don’t want to provide discounts too frequently and condition customers to only buy when there’s a sale.
2. Last chance prices: Another way to smartly discount is to offer a product as the last chance to buy at a particular price. Copyblogger does this quite frequently when they offer their products for sale at a current price and let people know that the cost is going up soon. In order to “save money” and “take advantage” of the current low price, customers should buy now. This accomplishes two things: 1) It doesn’t condition customers to expect discounts and 2) It creates a sense of urgency that pushes some customers off of the fence who have been waiting for the right time to buy. This strategy doesn’t work for every business, but when it does, it works well.
3. Buy one get one free offers: Another smart discounting strategy is to offer products at a buy one get one free price. This helps to get people in the door who are looking to save money. Someone who may not have purchased a shirt otherwise can be drawn into the store for a buy-one-get-one-free sale and then end up purchasing a sweater they may not have purchased without seeing the sale sign. Another option for this is a buy-one-get-one-half-off offer. With a discount like this, businesses don’t lose as much money on the second product, but they do take advantage of an attention-grabbing discount offer.
4. Discounts on secondary products: Businesses such as hair salons may not want to offer discounts on haircuts every month. This would condition customers to expect discounts on the salon’s most important service. Instead, salons could offer discounts on secondary products like hair gel and shampoo. Customers pay full price to get their haircut, but they get discounts on secondary products that have a high margin. Even though many customers won’t end up purchasing hair products, a discount offer captures attention and gets some customers into the salon.
5. Off-peak discounts: Another option is an off-peak discount. Hotels do this by charging less for off-peak dates than peak dates. It makes sense because the high demand during peak season means hotels can easily rent out all of the rooms at a higher price, but the lower demand during off-peak season means they’ll have trouble filling all of the rooms. Offering discounted rates in the off-peak season helps to get customers to book rooms during these times. This displaces some of the demand from the peak season. Considering a barber shop as another example, barbers could offer a discounted rate from Monday through Friday from 10 am to 5 pm since most people come in to get their hair cut at nights and on weekends. The off-peak discount would displace some of the traffic, increasing haircuts during off-peak hours when not many people show up and decreasing the wait times during on-peak haircutting hours. This is a win/win for barber shops.
6. Package deals: McDonalds has been successfully using package deals for quite some time. They offer a combo meal of a drink, fries, and burger at a discounted price. Even though customers only save a little money, most people opt for the combo since it “saves money.” Even though they end up spending more to buy a drink and fries they may not have purchased otherwise, they do it to “save.” It ends up being a great deal for McDonalds because drinks and fries are high-margin items. Package deals are an easy way to get people to spend more total dollars than they would have spent without a package price.

As you can see, there are lots of ways to use discounts to get customer attention and increase demand for products. When carried out smartly, it can be done without conditioning customers to expect a discounted price. It’s also an excellent way to get customer attention and to convince them to spend money they may not spend otherwise.

What about you? What kinds of discounts would you add to this list? Do you know of any other smart ways to offer discounts without devaluing products?

If yes, leave a comment, and let’s talk about it in the comments below.

Have you ever wondered whether or not you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?

A lot of people do, so I put together a list of the top ten ways to know if you have entrepreneurial DNA. It’s a fun list, and it isn’t in any way definitive. But if some of the points describe you, there’s a good chance that you have entrepreneurial DNA.

1. You can’t stop writing on napkins (sorry Starbucks).
2. You have backup ideas for your backup ideas.
3. You know that execution matters more than ideas, but you still have plenty of backup ideas.
4. You’d rather do anything else than work 9 to 5.
5. You’re even willing to work more hours just so you don’t have to work 9 to 5.
6. You’ll take a vacation next year.
7. You don’t have time for business school—there’s too much money to be made.
8. Your favorite show is Shark Tank, and it’s the only one you have time to watch.
9. You don’t know which is better—Inc., Entrepreneur, or Fast Company—so you subscribe to all three.
10.  Selling your first company doesn’t mean it’s time to retire—it means you now have the cash needed to bankroll your next company. And the next one. And the next one after that…

Now that you’ve read these top ten ways to know you have entreprenurial DNA, which is your favorite? And what would you add to the list? Leave a comment, and let’s discuss!

Photo credit: nate steiner

Why another marketing blog?

As you may know, there are already a lot of blogs that talk about marketing. Some of them focus on social media, and some of them are about startups. But for sure, there are a lot of marketing blogs.

So do people really need another website that talks about marketing? My answer is yes, and here’s why:

The problem with a lot of blogs is this: if you’re reading a post written by a Facebook guy, then you’re going to learn why Facebook is the best tool in the universe when it comes to marketing. And if you’re reading a post by a direct-mail marketing guy, you’ll learn how direct mail is the absolute best way to contact customers.

But what’s best for you? What will get your customers to buy more products and services?

To be honest, it doesn’t matter what type of marketing you use as long as it works. Facebook is the same as a direct-mail postcard, as long as they both work. But if Facebook doesn’t work as well, I don’t care how cool Facebook pages are, direct mail is the way to go.

So that’s what this blog is about—it’s about learning how to most effectively market your product or service. I personally don’t care if that means hiring someone to dress up like a clown and give away free products at a fair. If that reaches your customers and helps you sell more products, then let’s do it. We’ll call it buzz marketing and someone can write a case study about us.

But what they won’t write a case study about are the people who sign up for a Facebook page because you can’t do business in 2012 without one, only to find out that it does nothing for your bottom line. And if they do, it’s for all the wrong reasons.

So let’s get clear about a couple of things: not every business needs to be on Facebook and a website isn’t a silver marketing bullet. You have to learn how to use Facebook and websites effectively, and some businesses don’t even need to worry about having either. What everyone does need to know how to do is how to market more effectively—online and off.

So how can you get better at marketing so you can attract more customers, make more money, and sustain a profitable business? The answer is by signing up for e-mail updates.

By subscribing, you’ll receive free marketing tips that will help you to effectively market your business. You’ll get advice for social media and direct mail marketing, and advice for print ads and e-mail marketing. By signing up, you’ll learn what you need to know to become more effective at marketing.

So don’t feel like you need to go to college to before you can start a profitable business. Instead, sign up for e-mail updates, and I’ll show you how to take your marketing to the next level. Go ahead, sign up right now. Updates are free and packed with marketing advice that delivers results—online and off.

p.s. I want to mention that this site is also about providing copywriting services. There’s a tab in the top menu that mentions this. Here’s how it works: I’m looking for a select number of clients who need compelling copy that connects with customers and sells more effectively online. A lot of people can write well, but not that many know how to write compelling content for online audiences. If you need copy written that will get your customers’ attention and sell your products online, visit the Copywriting Services page. Thanks!

“Never use first or second person.”

“Never start a sentence with but or and.”

“Never end a sentence with a preposition.”

“And never, ever write a paragraph that’s only one sentence long.”

What’s the problem with these rules?

The problem is that they aren’t practiced by the best writers. Instead, experts break these rules to improve their writing.

I learned this by reading Writing with Style by John R. Trimble, a book that was included in my recent list of 3 books every blog writer should read right now. If you’d like to become a better writer but haven’t read it yet, you should pick up a copy today.

Chapter 8 from Writing with Style is titled “Superstitions” and covers grammar rules that are taught in high school but that every good writer should learn to break.

Below is a collection of five of these rules that bloggers should learn to break in order to become better writers. (Note: Each rule includes a quote from Writing with Style and the accompanying page number in the second edition.)

Rule #1: Never use first person

“…Let us allow some of our personality, which means some of our ‘I,’ to come through in our style. Let us, in short, be ourselves.” p. 89

The point of writing in first person is to introduce ourselves to readers, but this rule is tricky because it’s taught for a reason. Without it, most adolescent writers overuse personal opinions and don’t learn to back up assertions with fact. That’s a problem, and that’s not the route to take for a professional writing style.

But avoiding the pronoun “I” is also a problem. Never using first person results in impersonal writing where readers feel disconnected from the author and don’t have the opportunity to connect.

The trick is learning how to use first person properly. Many bloggers make the mistake of using it too much, and every post starts with “I” and ends with “me.” Most blog writers don’t know how to step out of the post and focus on serving the reader.

Bloggers shouldn’t be the subject of every sentence of every post, but their personality should come through in their writing. Finding the right balance will lead to blog writing that rises above the ordinary.

So how do you find the right balance? Here’s a quote from Writing with Style that will help:

“…Reserve “I” for when you truly need it–either to emphasize that such-and-such is admittedly just a conjecture or personal prejudice, or to add some humanity to an otherwise dry account. The rest of the time, try to generalize objectively and more or less impersonally, as if you’re pointing out what any intelligent person could see for himself. If your assertions are indeed intelligent and well supported, they won’t need props like “it seems to me,” “I think,” “I feel,” and “in my opinion.” pp. 89-90

Rule #2: Never use second person

“What reader wants to be addressed as “the reader”? It’s akin to saying, in conversation, “I’m glad to hear the listener has recovered from her cold.”

As this quote shows, using second person in writing helps to make prose more conversational. Without it, the author is forced to refer coldly to readers as “the reader.”

Specifically related to blog writing, common copywriting techniques are useful to make posts more engaging. This includes using second person to speak specifically to the reader. Using “you” in writing gets a person’s attention the same way as saying their name in conversation.

So second person is integral for blog posts that draw readers in and engage them in a conversation, but before you run away and overuse it, here is a parting quote from Mr. Trimble:

“Just as some speakers wear out our ears with “you know” punctuating every ` sentence, so some writers push a close relationship upon us with the reiterated you. We instinctively pull back from such chumminess, regarding it as an unwanted bear hug. Moral: If you don’t need to say you, don’t. If you do need to, say it without embarrassment exactly as you would in conversation.” p. 88

Rule #3: Never start a sentence with but or and

“…But and And are absolutely valid ways to begin a sentence. Not only valid ways, but excellent ways.” p. 85

As you can see, beginning a sentence with but or and is an excellent way to begin a sentence.

But why?

Both add energy to prose. They keep momentum moving forward between sentences.

Alternatives include “however” and “furthermore,” but neither keeps prose moving with as much energy as but or and.

This also happens the hardest of these rules to break. There’s no rule that high school English teachers drill more than to never start a sentence with but or and.

The problem is that formal writing refuses to accept them as acceptable ways to start a sentence, but informal writing doesn’t have a problem with either. The good news is that most writing, including blog post writing, is informal in nature, so you’re more than welcome to begin a sentence with but or and.

The next time you’d like to start a sentence with one, but you can’t get rid of “Mrs. Thompson’s” voice reminding you not to from the back of your head, go ahead and break the rule anyway. It’ll give your prose more verve, and you’ll look like an expert writer.

Rule #4: Never end a sentence with a preposition

“It is a cherished superstition that prepositions must, in spite of the incurable English instinct for putting them late . . . , be kept true to their name [preposition comes from a Latin word meaning “to place in front”] and placed before the word they govern . . . Those who lay down the universal principle that final prepositions are “inelegant” are unconsciously trying to deprive the English language of a valuable idiomatic resource, which has been used freely by all our greatest writers except those whose instinct for English idiom has been overpowered by notions of correctness derived from Latin standards.” a quote from H. W. Fowler included on p. 90

This lesson in Latin shows where the rule comes from, but H. W. Fowler also shows why it’s so ridiculous. Is there any reason not to end a sentence with a preposition since we do it so much in speaking besides the fact that it’s “inelegant”?

In case you don’t want to take Mr. Fowler’s word for it, here’s what Winston Churchill, a Nobel laureate in literature, had to say about this subject after an editor changed one of his sentences so it wouldn’t end with a preposition:

“This is the kind of impertinence up with which I shall not put.” p. 90

He wrote that instead of: “This is the kind of impertinence I will not put up with.”

Which do you think is more inelegant?

Rule #5: Never, ever write a paragraph that’s only one sentence long

“Three situations in essay writing can occasion a one-sentence paragraph: (a) when you want to emphasize a crucial point that might otherwise be buried; (b) when you want to dramatize a transition from one stage in your argument to the next; and (c) when instinct tells you that your reader is tiring and would appreciate a mental rest.” pp. 92-93

If one sentence paragraphs are useful in essay writing, which Mr. Trimble adeptly points out is true, they have even more use in blog writing and copywriting.

Blogging is largely about making a point. If one sentence paragraphs help with that, they should be used. If short paragraphs help (which they do in online writing), then they should be used as well.

The problem with grammar rules is that there’s always a time to break them, and when it comes to informal writing, getting a point across is more important than following rules.

So go ahead and use one sentence paragraphs.

It’s a great way to make a point and break up blocks of text, especially when writing online.

Wrap up

When it comes to writing for a blog, instead of following standard high school grammar rules which are intended to keep students from learning bad habits, it’s more important to use language and syntax that’s the most effective.

If that breaks some rules, then so be it.

It’s ok to be informal, and it’s ok to break some rules. Although, it’s good to know what the rules are so you know when you’re breaking them. Otherwise breaking rules unwittingly can make you look silly.

In the end, effective copy is more important than “proper usage” because “proper usage” is really whatever gets your point across the best.

Know what I mean?

What are your thoughts? Are there other high school grammar rules you think are ok to be broken? Do you particularly enjoy breaking any of these rules? Please leave a comment to let me know.

And as always, Tweet, Plus, or share this post if you found it interesting and think your friends might also.

Photo taken at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in Laguna Niguel, CA.

Recently, Forbes held the first Forbes 400 summit, which was a meeting between legendary investor Warren Buffett and rap business mogul Jay-Z.  The main event was an hour-long talk withSteve Forbes interviewing Mr. Buffett and Jay-Z.

You can read the full interview by visiting the Forbes website.  I’ve also included some of Mr. Buffett’s most salient business advice below.  His quote about how to beat Bobby Fischer is my favorite.  What’s your favorite quote?

Quote #1
“There’s a whole bunch of things I don’t know a thing about. I just stay away from those. I stay within what I call my circle of competence. Tom Watson [IBM founder] said it best. He said, ‘I’m no genius, but I’m smart in spots, and I stay around those spots.’”

Quote #2
“That’s a little bit like these rules I have. The first rule is don’t lose, and the second rule is never forget the first rule. It isn’t so much having a lot of brilliant decisions, it’s just not having some terrible ones.”

Quote #3
“[Ben Graham] also taught me to see a stock not as something with a ticker symbol that wiggles around but to think about it as part of a business. Don’t get elated because something had gone up or depressed because it went down. If I knew the facts, and it went down, I bought more of it. He also taught me that famous lesson about a margin of safety, that you don’t drive a truck that weighs 9,900 pounds across a bridge that says “Limit 10,000 pounds” because you can’t be that sure. If you see something like that, go a little further down the road and find one that says, “Limit 20,000 pounds.” That’s one you drive across.”

Quote #4
“I had the luck of getting turned down by Harvard, which meant I got to study under Ben Graham at Columbia, which changed my life. All kinds of things have worked out. So I just hope I stay lucky. I’ve been lucky for 80 years.”

Quote #5
“But if you’ve got the principles, if you know what makes a good business, if you know what makes a good manager, if you know what makes a good product, and you learn that in one business, there is some transference to other businesses. As you go along, you learn what things you’re not going to understand. Knowing what to leave out is just as important as knowing what to focus on. Somebody said how to beat Bobby Fischer; you play him any game except chess. And so I don’t play Bobby Fischer at chess.”

Quote #6
“When my wife was pregnant, I didn’t think I was going to deliver a baby. If I get a toothache or something, I don’t take out my own tooth. I turn it over. I followAdam Smith‘s advice; turn it over to a specialist.”

Quote #7
“Part of making good decisions in business is recognizing the poor decisions you’ve made and why they were poor. I’ve made lots of mistakes. I’m going to make more. It’s the name of the game. You don’t want to expect perfection in yourself. You want to strive to do your best. It’s too demanding to expect perfection in yourself.”

Which quote is your favorite? Share it by leaving a comment below.

Photo Credit: Fortune Live Media