Why is quality important? I’m not talking about the quality of the substance of the content, which is important in its own right. What I’m talking about is making sure the structure, syntax, grammar, and spelling of your content is error-free.

That might seem like a no-brainer if you are like me – an English language nerd with a penchant for proofreading. But it doesn’t always come easy to some, even great writers. That’s why editing is a crucial part of the content writing process.

Whether you are posting to your business’s social media or are working for a social media marketing company, published mistakes can damage your business’ reputation. They reflect carelessness and are just plain embarrassing.

But you can avoid this as much as possible through these 5 quality hacks:

1) Caffeinate

The quote often misattributed to Hemingway is actually pretty good advice: “Write drunk, edit sober.” Don’t type tired (or drunk) if you’re not going to go back and edit the next day.

2) Research, research, research

You can make mistakes, even when you don’t know you’re making them. If you aren’t sure about something in your industry, or aren’t familiar with your client’s industry, research it before you start writing. There’s no way to establish yourself or your client as a leader in their industry if you are making careless mistakes in the content you are writing. Research to learn the spellings and meanings of all relative industry terms.

3) Be careful

Edits are not your free pass to be careless. Take your time, and write as if your first draft is the final draft; write like there aren’t going to be any edits tomorrow. The more mistakes you can cut down on the first time, the easier it is to catch the few you do make.

4) Be intentional with imperfection

There are times in social media writing where being completely correct is just not possible. It can be okay to use colloquial language, industry terms, or “text speak” that your English professor would mark wrong. Twitter, for example, limits you to 140 characters, so it’s possible you’d need to abbreviate some words or skip punctuation when composing your Tweet. Just remember to be intentional with those “mistakes!”

5) Edit yourself

So you’ve finished writing a blog or the week’s social media content and you’re ready to edit. Not so fast! Before editing, take a break. Leave it for the day and come back to it tomorrow, go get some coffee, or do another task. It’s better to let your brain rest rather than force it to look for errors it’s likely going to miss. You can also use tools like Microsoft Word’s spellcheck, Ginger, or Grammarly to help you catch your own mistakes.

There are plenty of other things you can do to cut down on your content errors. Maybe you need to set due dates for yourself so you’re sure to have time to edit before you have to publish. Maybe you need someone else entirely to edit your work. That’s okay!

The important takeaway is this: careless mistakes can be costly. It’s better to play it safe and do what you need to do in order to avoid having errors in your content.