7 Mistakes in Messaging That Can Destroy Your Reputation

Our ancestors could not even imagine that, one day, a letter of a thousand words or the message “Hello, good morning!” would be received by the recipient instantly, anywhere in the world. Well, many things have changed since the appearance of the first inscription on clay tablets. However, even after centuries, people still make mistakes. And it’s no longer about trivial typing oversights, but about forgotten ethics, the inappropriate use of expressions and the inability to carry on a proper and respectful conversation in different situations.

O awesome.club proposes an attentive look at the most typical failures of virtual dialogues, to try to see yourself from the outside.

Do not rush to “bombard” anyone, not even your closest friends (much less your work colleagues), with messages like: “Hey?”, “Are you there?”, “Could you answer me?”. If you need an answer very urgently, it’s better to call than to spam people with messages one after another.

“Do they not care?”, “It was something we had already scheduled”, they will say. Yes, people often don’t really understand how important it is. To the other🇧🇷 But it is wiser not to link the interlocutor’s attitude with the speed of his response. Everyone has work, circumstances and personal concerns, and sometimes people just need a time to think. Although, of course, if the answer takes a long time to arrive, it is feasible to make a second attempt to clarify whether it is worth continuing the communication.

Jokes, metaphors, sarcasm and poetic lines enrich our conversations. But like a good joke, they should just be icing on the cake. A long and exhaustive answer is not always appropriate when communicating with others. When you expose yourself in this way, it can feel like you are self-admiring🇧🇷 “Now I’m going to quote Schopenhauer”, and people think: “What a boring person”.

Of course, long and beautiful messages are not prohibited. And if a person responds with a similar text, then you can continue the correspondence on the same line. But to the question of what the weather is like, usually even the closest subjects expect a clear answer about whether to wear a sweater or not, and not a beautiful poem. More important is to be brief about work-related issues: you will show yourself how a person who appreciates time of your colleagues.

We live in a society where each person has several circles of communication: colleagues, friends, relatives, gym staff, etc. And in most cases, each of them has its own communicative particularities🇧🇷 Colleagues like to use work-related topics, friends and relatives have their own life phrases, which only they know, and the academy has its own terms.

If you start talking in the “working language” with your relatives, there will be many things that they will not understand and they will feel uncomfortable, because people’s first reaction to the unknown is hostility. These rules also apply to online communication. Don’t write to a woman, “Again I’ve been reporting problems all day, the director of information systems rushes us with the release,” if she’s not on topic. Just as it doesn’t make sense for a girl to send a man a message like: “I have blue shoes and a jacket in the same color, do you think it will look cool?” Be attentive, keep in mind the communication style and level of knowledge of your interlocutor.

Affectionate treatment and funny nicknames are an essential part of family communication and between friends who have a relationship. long and warm🇧🇷 But some interlocutors tend to show familiarity already at the first stage of communication. This kind of brusque approach without an invitation generates a defensive reaction. People close themselves off and try to stay away from the “distempered”.

It is important to understand the difference between speaking candidly with a new friend on the network and communicating in a confident tone with an old colleague. And if your conversation is with a person from another country, first find out the nuances of the place. For example, in Poland, polite treatment of a man or woman begins with the words “pan” and “pani”analogous to our “sir” and “madam”.

Emojis are a wonderful invention. By the way, in the summer of 2017, during an excavation in Turkey, an archaeological team led by Nicolò Marchetti found it in a jar made before our era. it was about of the oldest emoji in history🇧🇷 In 1972, Franklin Loufrani invented the smiley face image. Ten years later, Scott Fahlman suggested the use of colons, hyphens and parentheses and, in 1998, the Japanese Shigetaka Kurita created the first currently known emojis🇧🇷 And thus began all the craze for these adorable drawings.

Emojis are sometimes much more eloquent than words, but don’t give in to exaggeration: a parenthesis with a colon will not replace a nice word. And in a romantic conversation, 10 smile and 5 kiss emojis will be much less effective than a simple “I miss you, big kiss”.

Usually, when a person wants to end a conversation or is not particularly interested in continuing to talk about a topic, his phrases begin to be replaced by monotonous ones. “Yea”🇧🇷 “Then that’s it” or “It is true”, which indicates that it’s time to end the conversation. And if, on the contrary, she wants to continue the conversation, she will ask you questions so as not to let you go. So that your dialogue does not turn into a monologue, watch your interlocutor’s reactions.

Don’t be afraid to improvise: sometimes an unexpected question it can help you discover more about the person than a week-long conversation could. But be polite: the interrogation should not annoy, scare or disappoint your interlocutor.

Some people believe that spelling mistakes should only be avoided in dictations, tests, reports and other types of official documentation. They also feel that, during a friendly online conversation, there is no need to “make an effort”. It is a mistake. What counts is the first impression and, online, it is caused by your profile picture and the texts you write. If your message has no spelling mistakes and the commas are placed correctly, your interlocutor will perceive you as a serious person. It’s true that some celebrities write “illegibly” and commit carelessness, but in our technological age, you have to be very lazy to avoid spelling mistakes.

Friends and family may turn a blind eye to misspellings and typos, but get used to spending some time checking spelling and punctuation in public conversations, status updates, and private conversations. Surely you have thought more than once that poorly written comments cause a bad impression person’s. At best, they simply won’t understand what you mean.

What errors in online conversations do you notice most often?