How to Practice E-Mail Etiquette : Emoticons & E-Mail Etiquette

E-mail etiquette covers the way we use emoticons in electronic messaging. Learn e-mail etiquette and popular e-mail features in this free communications video.

Expert: Tracy Goodwin
Bio: Tracy Goodwin has a masters in corporate communication and 10 years experience in professional speaking.
Filmmaker: MAKE | MEDIA

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Closed Caption:

Next let's talk about emoticons. You know,
those smiley guys that are jumping, or maybe
they're frowny guys who are frowning, or one
of them is running, or it's a dancing bunny,
or whatever it is. Don't go there. Especially
in business. Never, ever; even if you have
a casual business relationship with someone.
You never want to put those guys into anything;
any letters, any correspondence that you email
on the business level with. You must rely
on your language; your strength of words.
Your ability as a writer is to get your point
across. Leave all the smiley faces out of
it. Now on a personal level, again, if you
have a strong personal relationship with someone
and you guys correspond via email and you
know that they'll know what you mean, then
it's ok. But you never want to use them as
a replacement for actual words, actually describing
what you are trying to talk about.