During the holiday season, I received an actual hand-written note from a friend in the mail. Believe it or not, the novelty of it was a highlight of my holidays. We are so far into the digital age (possibly even a texting age) that there are no excuses for poor online etiquette. What are some of your rules in online communications?
When in school, the number one rule I learned about effective email writing was to never press “send” while emotional. As soon as something is put out into the online universe, it is accessible by all and lingers *possibly* forever. This is why one should wait over night to respond to anything that brings out emotions. And if, in the morning you still can’t respond objectively and unemotionally – wait 2 days, or a week.
This also doesn’t mean to sound like an unemotional robot, it just means be professional, be courteous, show personality – just don’t say anything you will regret.
Funny video about passive aggressive emailing
Some other tips in email etiquette include never writing in caps, as it signifies yelling or anger. Also – don’t over use the urgent or high priority flags, it’s the equivalent of crying wolf via email. A personal pet peeve is receiving chain mail – after one contact forwarded too many, I simply added this sender to my spam filter.
Another great tip is for sending large attachments: while adding large files to a zip folder works, a better option is uploading files to a third party site like YouSendIt and filesend. Otherwise, I like uploading pictures and videos to sites like youtube or flickr, then simply sending a link to friends. Generally when it comes to links, hyperlinks work best – but basic-text email recipients won’t receive them. In that case, I suggest opting for compact urls like bit.ly and tinyurl.
I also received some great and funny feedback from the Twittisphere when I posed the question: What are your biggest email rules and/or pet peeves? Here are some of my favorite answers in 140-characters or less.
AndrewFstewart: ”Dear, youremail@gmail.com”
ebono: “To Whom it May Concern”
angielim: ALL distribution list emails go to folders. Biggest pet peeve is when people CC & raise red flags unnecessarily.
Philmoreira: pet peeves: corny templates, more than 1 color font in the message, overly (and horribly) styled signatures, read receipts
dannybittle: When someone uses ‘Best’ as their e-mail send off – so impersonal. Arrrrg.
TinaGaston87: SPAM!!!
JennaStothers: For some reason it really bugs me when people write their message in the subject line and leave the body blank.
JennaStothers: haha, well I think hitting “reply all” is at the top of my list of pet peeves for emails
joncrowley: Biggest pet peeve is the unnecessary reply all.
NateJamesBlack: Private message me to check my email :p
Let me know what you’d add to the list!
and don’t forget to follow us on twitter – @mail2web and @smichm
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Smich that video is GOLD!
haha thanks NJB
Oh, and I’ll stop dming you to check ur email
Great tips! We can add to the list of dont’s using email for important communications like formal invitations and thank you notes when really an old-fashioned paper note would be a better idea. We wrote about it here:
http://www.beruly.com/?p=629
In terms of business etiquette I think it’s important to avoid unnecessary abbreviations and never ever say “Hey John” unless it’s a casual email to a coworker that is related to hanging out as opposed to business.Those sorts of things come across as too unprofessional.
Really?
I want to say – thank you for this!
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