E-tiquette - Emoticons in Your Email

In the latest issue of Shape Magazine (April 2011) there are some tips on what's called "E-tiquette." E-tiquette refers to etiquette online in the workplace. One of the suggestions from Peggy Duncan, author of Conquer E-mail overload with Better Habits, Etiquette, and Outlook, was that emoticons, smiley faces, winking faces, etc. shouldn't be used in business emails. Her guideline is that if you wouldn't write it on the company letterhead - then don't write it in an email.

However, we need to look at how we currently communicate in the workplace. People are communicating with various people they've never met or spoken with on the phone, so they communicate through email. We all know that people can get in the habit of reading something into emails that the sender didn't infer at all. Emoticons can help clear up that message.

Now I'm not saying that emoticons should be used in every email or is appropriate to use when crafting an email to your CEO, but it could be useful to help clarify the tone of your email.

Sending a message by email is the most frequent way we communicate nowadays. Most people send more emails in a day than they talk to people in real life. Why? Because it's efficient. Some people are hard to reach by phone, but the majority of business folks have some sort of email capable device. And most people are glued to those devices.

Back to the advice of Ms. Peggy Duncan - emoticons can be useful, just make sure that you're using them appropriately. Happy emailing :)

Book Review: Viral Marketing by Russell Goldsmith

Although this book is nine years old, it still gives a good introduction to what viral marketing is and examples of how it's been used. Goldsmith is a UK native and therefore the statistics and survey results that he analyzes in his book are specific to the UK. That said, it's still interesting to read how many people (out of the 800 surveyed) said they would pass along an email to a colleague and what type of information they would be most likely to pass along.

I would bet that most people today would think that they've never been part of a viral marketing campaign or even viral marketing itself, but most likely they have. What do you do when your friend forwards you an email with a joke about the workplace? You send it to colleagues that you think would find it funny. That's viral marketing!

One good point that Goldsmith pointed out during this quick read, is that marketers need to keep in mind the saturation point of a viral marketing campaign. How many times will someone receive the same message from multiple friends before they start to perceive the brand, product or service negatively?

Read this book if you're new to marketing, viral marketing or just want to hear about some clever viral marketing ideas.