More Digital blog

Email is, without a doubt, the most important form of business communication there is in 2012. Forget phones, forget social media or SMS or the postal system – email dominates the workplace, and how we learn to use it can define how efficient we become as employees or business owners. But so many people tend to misuse it, or have clashing email etiquette – it’s not uncommon to send an email written in a formal tone to receive a quick response and a smiley face in return.

One of the things I think a company needs to focus on more than anything else is what I call the “instant image”. When your email arrives in my inbox, and you’re a company, or a journalist, or a PR rep, the word “Gmail” or “Hotmail” will lead me to one of two conclusions; either you are computer illiterate, or you are not willing to invest time, money and effort into your communication. Both of these are serious failings, to me. Let’s look at a potential solution.

Google Apps

I’m a copywriter, and hence, I have a company email account. I also have many other accounts, for shopping, for freelance, and so on – not one of those, bar my required Google account, is free or generic. They are all set up using custom domains, and this is because I want to be able to brand myself, to show people that I am part of a unit that I built, or at least one that does not match your elderly relatives who just needed a cheap, quick email solution.

I’m not knocking GMail (I will knock Hotmail – it’s archaic and, in my eyes, nowhere near as slick as its Google counterpart), by any means – all my email addresses run through the GMail system via Google Apps, and it’s this tool that can help you set up a custom email in no time at all. Let me show you the steps you’ll need to take.

1. Make sure you own a domain. This will cost you a varying amount dependent on the value of said domain, but an original domain can be as low as about nine dollars a year. If you can’t afford to spend that, you’re in big trouble already.
2. Second, head over to Google Apps and register. Once you have done so, choose one of their many verification options to prove your ownership of the domain in question, and they’ll start setting up your account for you. Standard includes a wide range of apps, from email to calendar services, and Business (a paid subscription – standard is free) includes additional tools from Google, sitting alongside a considerable wealth of third-party applications.
3. You’re done! Either use the GMail interface, or enable IMAP/POP to run your email through a client, like Outlook or Thunderbird.

It really is that simple – take it from me, as I set up Google Apps for every domain I have and it only takes me five to ten minutes to get it set up, give or take a while for Google to verify domain ownership so you can finish the registration and setup process. There’s no excuse for a free email account in 2011 if you’re running a business, however small. So once you’ve set up your domain-hosted email accounts, all that’s left is to start using them. Unfortunately, for some people, that’s another obstacle altogether.

Learning to Write

Yesterday, I was digging into a Kindle ebook sample by a successful novelist. The writing was solid, and I was enjoying the work, when I stumbled across the writer’s confusion between the words “role” and “roll”, and which one to use in a particular context. Given that this is a professionally produced work, and I’m planning to pay for it, their job is to make sure I think they can speak the language properly. If you can’t do that, you’re stuffed.

A lot of people claim grammar isn’t an issue, and of course, it’s not, if you’re having a conversation with your friends. However, if I see the following in a business email:

hi Cristos

Just a quick ntoe, need those files for Momday.

Bob

I’m not going to take you seriously if you write like this. There are countless university graduates looking for work, and many of them can write really well. So to have a high-level employee of Company, Inc. write to me as though they’re back in primary school is unacceptable. Would you write a legal contract or a client proposal this way? If I’m a client or a co-worker, taking the time to word yourself properly and check your grammar is a subtle sign of respect that few are aware of – until you don’t bother, at which point, you look lazy. Small businesses who look lazy do not do well.

Can business emails be friendly?

In addition to this, there’s the conundrum of when to let your guard down and be a little more casual in an email after you’ve known someone for a while. I say simply keep it formal until the other person lets their guard down, although this could potentially foster the “you first” scenario where both people are waiting for the person they’re emailing to throw a “heya” or a “cheers” in there at some point, but most will usually relax eventually.

There’s nothing wrong with starting out with a friendly tone, but it’s important to remember that this is generally reserved for people working in roles where being friendly is a job requirement – PR is a good example.

Lastly, don’t do any of these things. I cannot agree with that webcomic enough, and I recommend you frame it and put it on your desk if you are, as an adult, making any of those errors. I wish you the best of luck – setting up an email account doesn’t guarantee you’ll become the next Facebook, but it can’t hurt your chances, either.

Back to Mashable again today, it’s quite the addiction, like Huffpost or Apple Rumors. I was reading through the media updates for the day and came across an entry on Bccthis, a new way to incorporate or add BCC conversations to Twitter and Outlook.

I admit I have only come to really use Twitter in the last year, though I’ve had my membership for almost three years. In fact, I just went through my posts (the first from April, ’07), it’s interesting watching the evolution of ‘status update’ a la Facebook to posts with actual content with references and links. I can see from looking at those early day posts that the reason I didn’t use it so much before was because I couldn’t see the point of it when I can use email and FB. I usually find myself asking ‘Why?’ and ‘What’s in it for me?’ whenever something new comes along. And admittedly it can take me some time to come around or find an application useful to me. Certain applications, though, like Skitch, a great screen capture tool that came out about three years ago, I was so interested in I was on message boards trying to get someone to give me one of their invites. Looking back, I can’t really imagine why I was that anxious to have it, though at least I use it often. Come to think of it, I’m a bit of a glutton for new apps, even the ones I don’t use. I loved xoopit (it compiled ALL of your pictures in gmail for easy access), I gave a real shot at using ‘Remember the Milk’ (only I never remembered to use it), and if I could remember that I have Ubiquitous installed and could remember the commands, I am sure I would be a lot more efficient in sending maps, events, pictures and doing random other things. But, yes I am a geek and yes, I have too much time on my hands.

But, here I am again and I’m wondering about this new app, Bccthis. My initial thought was that it looked pretty cool, not difficult to use (though really, do I need yet one more plug in on Firefox so it can crash another two or three times a day) and definitely rates on my ‘cool new tricks’ meter. But. Here’s the thing. Bcc already exists. And, so does forwarding. And, to boot, doesn’t the very nature of Twitter make it seem sort of silly to be sending specific bcc messages? I can see branching off being a cute thing to do once in a while, but if you are going to start a message as a bcc, why not just use email. I mean, people do still use email, right? The application looks more useful within Outlook, where you can add a bcc within an email. In any event, I installed and tested it, but if I have to be on bccth.is in order to see my responses, it’s really not worth it for me. I already tend to have two browsers and ten to fifteen tabs open at any given time. When it comes down to it, I WANT new apps, but I want them to be so integral to the way I work that I can’t live without them. And if they could make my coffee, too, all the better.