How to improve your online communication

With the introduction of the internet you have know been exposed to a whole new way of communicating and unfortunately since online communication has started people have gotten lazier with their communications, which has led to improper grammar being used, incorrect spelling and just plain laziness in general writing. But the good news is that there are things that you can do to improve online communication in your office.

Difficulty rating: Easy

Step one:
Do not type in all caps - most people consider typing in all caps to mean that you are yelling or screaming online. If you type in all caps you are considered rude and lazy because you are not being considerate to others who are reading what it is you are writing. If you have to type in all caps due to a disability then you should also take the time to explain why you are typing in all caps so that people will be more understanding and not think that you are yelling or screaming.

Step two:
Do not format your emails with colored text and background colors or images in your day to day communications - keep these kinds of emails for friends and family members, but even then you should think twice about it because it makes the emails harder to read because of the busy background. Keep it simple, this doesn't mean use no color just use some that are easier to read.

Step three:
Never give out phone numbers or personal information. This applies to both your personal information and that of others you know. If somebody is asking you for somebody else's personal information before giving out that information be sure to check with the other person before doing so or take the party's information who is asking for your friends information. Also before you give out your personal information you should check to make sure that the company is reputable.

Step four:
If you receive a nasty email either do not respond or wait until you have cooled off to answer that person back. By taking the time to cool off before responding you can avoid potential problems that can arise, such as offending people and creating a huge argument. Most often the people who are sending you nasty emails are doing it to try and get a rise out of you and are trying to bait you into an argument; your best bet is to simply delete the email and move on to the next.

Step five:
When sending an email to a large group of people you should not include everybody's email address in the to line because this will allow everybody to see all of the email addresses. Rather than doing that you should use the BCC field, which stands for blind carbon copy. This will block everybody's email address from view so that you are not giving out people's email addresses to others who are strangers to them.

Step six:
Another good rule of thumb to remember is to not forward virus warnings, most of the virus warnings that are being passed around online are hoaxes, if you do get a virus warning from a legitimate site, such as Symantec you can pass those along to friends and family, but chances are they probably got the same warning.

Step seven:
If you are the type who likes to forward jokes, chain letters, and other such types of emails do not forward them to people unless you have that person's permission. What you might not realize is that forwarding all of that stuff fills up their email box and can cause people to become annoyed with you because they have seen that email hundreds of times.

Step eight:
Another thing that you need to be aware of is using acronyms. There is a time and a place to use these, but one thing that you need to do is to make sure that you use them sparingly and that you are not making up your own acronyms. If you make up your own versions you will only end up confusing people and that is not going to help improve online communication.

Step nine:
The most important thing that you are going to need to do to improve online communication is to make sure that you are using the correct spelling, grammar and punctuation in all of your online communications. Basically what this means is that you need to avoid using abbreviations, unless it is considered appropriate in written communications, and make sure that you are spelling everything out and proof reading what is being typed. Basically what this means is to not be lazy when communicating online.