When running a business it’s important to keep a regular style throughout your work, making sure the voice of your business is consistent is important. There’s no point building up a reputation as a smart professional business then trying to get ‘down with da kids’ on your social media.

Your company needs to all be singing from the same hymn sheet to prevent miscommunication and misalignment to your brand ideals.

A house style guide is a very constructive scheme to implement, to not only keep your company message consistent but to help train new members of your team in your company’s ideologies and intricacies quickly. A house style guide provides a quick and easy point to refer back to when certain spelling, grammar or even imagery is questioned.

For example say you were selling a car, is it called a Ferrari F355 Spider or a Ferrari 355 Spyder? Making sure you are all using the same spelling and grammar companywide ensures a more professional detail conscious public image.

Of even more importance though, is for your work to be checked before it’s sent out into the world. It often sounds quite childish to have a colleague check your work but it ensures that all mistakes are picked up on.

Here at Red Marlin work is passed through multiple hands and goes through many checks before it ever reaches the client or the public (that even includes this Blog). A typo or grammatical error will almost certainly immediately jump out to someone else, whereas you are reading it just as you had it written in your head. Another pair of eyes also helps to ensure each article sticks to your style guide.

It’s always embarrassing when a press release or social media post goes out and the client or a member of the public picks up on an error. It will still happen on occasion even with these checks but people make mistakes, it’s a fact of life.

What’s important is to reduce these errors as much as possible to ensure your company has a consistent tone, style and presence.