Many companies are moving from e-mail to texting, instant messaging or social media.  The companies I work with are still using e-mail.   Even though e-mail has been around for a while, I have found that many people still do not know basic email etiquette.

We all make mistakes on occasion, but there are a few basics people in general need to follow.

1.  Do NOT use ALL CAPS for a whole paragraph or message!  ALL CAPS means you are SHOUTING at the person you are sending it too!   Maybe you occasionally want to shout, but I hope it isn’t on a routine basis.  This goes for social media as well….DO NOT use ALL CAPS!   Use CAPS for single words for emphasis only.

2.  Make sure you include a subject line that identifies the topic of the message.   Blank subject lines are often pulled into the spam filter.

3. If you are emailing back and forth and the discussion changes to a new topic, change the subject line to match the topic.   This will make it easier to search and to track your conversation.

4.  When you e-mail, the person reading the message cannot see your face or facial expressions.  They only see the words.  So be careful with what and how you write things.   What you may think is a joke could be interpreted entirely differently.

5.  Make your messages short and succinct.  Break into several separate messages if you have different topics to cover.

6.  When forwarding messages, delete the long list of names of who the message was originally sent to.   Just highlight and delete the names or the complete header.  No one wants to have to read through a long list of forwards before getting to the real message.

7.  If sending to a long list of people, you might want to put their names/addresses in the BCC line.   That stands for Blind Carbon Copy.  You can send to a hundred people but the names will not show up when they read the message….they won’t have to scroll to get to the message.

8. Be careful when using reply and reply all!   Use reply all only if everyone on the list needs to know what you are responding.   A simple “Thank You” does not need to be sent to everyone.   People get enough junk mail without adding to it.  Use reply when you just want the sender to receive the message.

9. If you are answering a question or replying about something a day or two after the original email, remember to include the original email with your message.   If not, the person may not have a clue what the yes or no, etc. is about.

Using these tips will help you to be more successful with your communications.  This is by no means a complete list.  I’m sure you can think of several more to include.   Please add any additional tips you can think of to the comments below.

You probably receive lots of circulated emails to pass forward; some are worth reading, but many are not. 
 
If you do decide to forward them, for the sake of confidentiality, ALWAYS remove any ‘from’ addresses and even ‘to’ addresses and then send to your recipients ‘blind’ (bcc).

No names or email addresses will show up when your message is opened.   This is great to use when you are sending to a large number of people and do not want them to have to scroll through a page of names before getting to the content of the message.

You can also send emails ‘bcc’ when you want to send a message to someone, and copy another person, but you don’t want the main recipient to see the ‘copied’ person’s name.  If the person replies to all, the ‘bcc’ recipient does NOT get an email.

To add the bcc line to all of your outbound emails 
• Open a new email message, look along the top of your toolbar click on the ‘Options’ tab.
• Look along the bottom of the toolbar for the column called ‘Fields’.
• Click on ‘Show Bcc’.

To remove all previous recipients from a forwarded email
• Open the email.
• Click on the Message tab up on your email toolbar.
• Click on the ‘Forward’ command.
• Left click your mouse on one name or email address to highlight it.
• Right click on the highlighted email and choose ‘select all’ from the popup menu.
• Delete all highlighted names to clear the line.

To add bcc email addresses on your own forwarded emails
• In the ‘bcc’ line of your new email, add the addresses of those to whom you want to send the email.

You will see the names before you send the email, but your recipients will not see the name of the person receiving BCC messages.