Page 31 - Today’s Business Communication; A How-to Guide for the Modern Professional

20 TODAY’S BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

a texting plan and do not care to incur charges for receiving
text messages. Alternatively, it’s not appropriate to assume
that just because someone is young, he or she is technolog-
ically proficient. All too often in our classrooms, we have
encountered students who admit, some with pride and others
with shame, that they are not “computer people” or that they
don’t text.
• Use text messaging when you don’t want to distract others
via conversations or when your conversation needs some
privacy (not legal privacy but personal privacy). And, keep
your device set to vibrate. Few things are more annoying in
a business meeting than 10 people around a conference table
with all their text and email alerts sounding out loud.
• Don’t hide behind text messages (conversations about critical
business matters should not be treated flippantly).
• Consider the nature of the relationship between you and your
audience when sending messages.

Writing for Social Media

Social media can be powerful business communication tools. These plat-
forms have emerged and evolved at tremendously fast speeds. We cur-
rently have available to us social media tools such as social networking
(e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn), microblogs (e.g., Twitter), blogs, media shar-
ing (e.g., Flickr), and forums, among others. The rules of engagement
and etiquette for social media channels have evolved almost as quickly as
the platforms. In this section, we will discuss social media use from two
perspectives: Personal and Business. In both cases, the user’s goals are sim-
ilar: to strengthen the person’s professional brand as well as the business
brand, build community, develop relationships, and respond quickly to
people and issues we care about.

Tips for Personal, Professional Social Media Use

Do you have a social media presence? As we are writing this book,
Facebook has more than 1 billion users, Twitter eclipsed 500 million
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