My Virtual Blog

In today’s virtual world, you aren’t meeting people face to face and therefore, first impressions are often formed based on either an online communication such as a tweet on Twitter, a comment on a blog or an email.  Have you noticed that a high standard of ethics and “the customer is always right” mentality is less prevalent than it used to be? Being professional in business still counts whether it is virtual or in person.  You might make a very good first impression in person, but what does your virtual persona tell someone about you?  Here are 7 tips on making a good “virtual” first impression: 

1. Respond With Care – If you are responding to someone on Twitter or Facebook or another very public online medium, please be courteous and make that response private in the way of a direct message when it may be a very personal or embarrassing topic. Reprimanding on a public forum is as bad as screaming at someone in the middle of a crowded party. Be nice. Do you remember the saying “You can catch more flies with honey than you can with salt?”
2. Promote Yourself Prudently – People use social network tools for business. We know this. But social networking is about relationships too. Provide a good bio of yourself on your profiles, but please don’t constantly bombard people with your company website link or your affiliate links in your tweets and posts and emails. Every now and then is OK – but remember the post in thirds rule. Professional, Informational, Relational.
3. Be Honest. We all make mistakes. But if you know you made the mistake, own up to it. Don’t make excuses, don’t pass the buck. And give credit where credit is due.
4. Keep Your Word – Don’t over-promise and under-deliver. Just don’t do it. Your word is your promise. Don’t tell someone you’ll get back to them and then be a no-show. This is just plain rude and completely unprofessional. Set the expectation of when someone can expect to hear from you and then stick to it.
5. Say Thank You – If someone re-tweets you and you see that, thank them for it. If they compliment you on work you’ve done, thank them. This is just common courtesy and they will appreciate this.
6. DON’T TYPE IN CAPS AND MAKE ME THINK YOU ARE YELLING. This has been part of email etiquette for a long time. Does the way I typed that seem to stand up and scream? The strongest words are heard by the softest voice.
7. Spelling – Please take the time to use spell check or hire someone to write for you if that isn’t one of your strong suits. An occasional blip on the radar is expected, but a constant stream of misspelled words is a turn off. – P.S. Grammar is just as important.

 Anything else you can think of?