I can still remember the day before texting. We had email. We had phones. But the two worlds had yet to collide. I’ll be the first to admit I never saw coming how prolific texting would become in our society.
I was slow to jump on the texting bandwagon. This was mostly due to the fact that texting required an enormous of time and coordination to work through each number on the keypad to get to your desired letter.
After that came smart texting where the words would auto populate based on the order of letters typed in which came with a steep learning curve, but cut serious time off sending a message.
Finally, there was the full qwerty keyboard which almost at once, made texting accessible, and a viable form of communication.
Even then however, I was still slow to fully adopt texting as a valid means of conversation in my business and personal life. That was until I fully understood the value and benefits of sending a text opposed to a call or email.
Some of these benefits include:
- Convenient My phone is always with me and I can quickly send off a message or a thought while it’s fresh in my mind.
- Less Intrusive If it’s not an urgent or pressing matter I can simply send a text which allows the respondent to reply when they have time. This was the main factor in my full fledged texting adoption.
- Concise The nature of texting requires you to be concise, as well as highlight one issue or thought at a time.
- Ubiquitous Texting is quickly becoming (if it’s not there already) the primary means of communication for the younger generation and is being used more and more by older demographics as well.
Texting Done Right
As my father always told me, if it’s worth doing it’s worth doing right, so here are the Top 10 Texting Rules so you can get our message across clearly and cleanly.
1. Short words don’t need abbreviation
Words like “ok”, “no”, “yes”, “thanks”, and “great”, don’t need abbreviation. While the beauty of texting is in a shorter and more concise message, when the word is already short, it’s normally a good idea to use the full version.
2. Go easy on the Emoji’s
This is especially true for a business setting. Where the occasional smily face, really can hurt someone. You.
Consider the audience, setting, tone, and timing of the message before sending any emoji’s along with it, and when in doubt leave it out.
3. Don’t call in response to a text
If someone texts you it may be because they’re in a situation where they couldn’t talk on the phone, or didn’t want to. Either way, the best thing to do is reply with a text and if you want to then ask if now is a good time to call.
4. Max two texts at once
This prevents a waterfall of texts that either looks confusing or needy. Send one text at a time and if you forget something a follow up text is fine, but avoid sending line after line, paragraph after paragraph. This is what we have email for.
5. Avoid texting in ALL CAPS
All caps makes people uneasy. It’s not polite in email, and it’s not great for texting either.
Important Final Tip: Never text while driving. It’s dangerous, and bad taste. If you text while driving you’re 23 times more likely to be involved in a crash. http://www.textinganddrivingsafety.com/texting-and-driving-stats
Texting is a great tool to quickly and easily send messages either in your business or personal life. The key (as with all forms of communication) is to know the right context to use it, and how to use it properly.
