I saw this article while searching for toastmaster topics on "National Courtesy Month", and thought I would share it.
September is National Courtesy Month – Don’t Forget Your Online Manners By Melinda Knight
With Womentorz being primarily an online community and network I’ve had the privilege of meeting thousands of amazing entrepreneurs across multiple social media outlets. This also includes communicating using the ever-popular email. Oh, how I miss picking up the phone and talking to a live voice sometimes – although email is an awesome tool of efficiency.
Over the years I’ve watched our network grow and I’ve come across all sorts of personalities and witnessed many online dialogues on multiple forums. Most of these interactions are positive but every so often an online spat occurs for whatever reason. Many times the disagreement starts simply because there’s a misunderstanding in what was trying to be communicated. Sometimes there just aren’t enough smiley faces or they’re rushing through writing the posting or email.
This likely would have been avoided if the person’s voice and facial gestures could be heard and viewed but that’s usually not the case online. Did I mention how much I miss hearing a live voice?
I truly feel that many disputes could be resolved if we weren’t limited by the ever dreaded 140 characters. You just can’t fit in all of the darn smiley faces that are even difficult to remember in your emails. Try to look over each and every tweet or response through the eyes of the recipient and ask yourself, “Would I be offended if I read this?” If you think it’s a possibility, then rewrite or add “LOL” if you’re kidding.
What’s sometimes difficult and extremely important to remember is everything you write, whether it’s on Twitter, Facebook and even your email, is out there permanently for the world to see once you press send or tweet. You can’t take back what was said and may have to spend the rest of the day cleaning up something that was possibly just a misunderstanding. Search engines CAN find your tweets. This is especially important to remember when you’re business is primarily found online.
This same rule of thumb holds true in your personal social media interaction. Don’t post and tweet things that could come back to haunt you in your business world. I’ve found that businesses who share the person behind the idea are much more successful. Customers like to connect with the inventor of a product or a founder of a business. It makes them feel like they can trust the person when they can connect and associate a face and a name. Because of this important marketing fact, they can also see your personal choices online which could include a dispute you had with someone.
If you’re going to primarily communicate or run your business online remember that the rules you follow in your daily life (offline) should apply in your business and personal life (online.) Even though you don’t always know it….people ARE watching even when you don’t think they are. If you offend someone by mistake the best policy is to apologize and not react. If someone offends you simply walk away. If someone ‘stalks’ you on twitter or facebook, continually tweeting or posting comments, hoping to push you into a fight, block them. It’s not worth your time. You can’t force others to be courteous but you can refuse to carry on with those who are not.
