Mastering the Art of Good Digital Body Language - Part I
For the past year, many office workers have had very little in-person interaction with their colleagues.
With in-person meetings no longer an option, people are exchanging all of their information over emails, chats, or video conferencing like Zoom, it can be hard to get a sense of how they are feeling.
In person contact also provides little clues about someone that are not possible with non-verbal communications and it becomes ever so important to understand about digital body language and how to navigate around it.
"What is Digital Body Language?" - Digital body language are the new cues and signals we send that make up the subtext of our messages in digital communication.
With that being said, we can all benefit from learning how to build trust and connection regardless of the physical distance.
Email Best Practices to Master Good Digital Body Language
Because we all know that we are living in a world of emails and there are a few quick tips to start. Applying such practices will not only help people in a remote world, but will help them as they return back in the office.
1. The first thing to consider is the email subject line.
"The subject line is new virtual first impression," said Erica Dhawan, an award winning keynote speaker and author, who also emphasized:
"Within the first seven milliseconds of meeting someone, we make a judgement about them."
Since time is precious and people are often inundated with so much information, it is imperative to get to the point quickly with a subject line that is clear and quickly establishes what the topic is about and whether there a response time expectation.
According to Dhawan, it's also practical to play with acronyms like "2D" which means in two days or 4H means I need this in 4 hours. So the individuals know what the topic is and how to prioritize it.
2. The body of an email should be constructed in the format of a webpage with clear visual cues
People don't read long prose in emails. Use bullet points and bold face or underline text to highlight. Think about writing an email in very visual way.
A good way to start drafting the email is by applying the who, what, when template for work request and get to the point rather than sending a long email with a lot of niceties. After all, the objective is to get the job done on time.
3. Keep it concise by applying simple acronyms and set clear expectations
Another thing to do in an email is to be thoughtful about responses and using simple acronym makes it super easy and practical and will avoid wasting a lot of time of follow-ups. For example, the sender can add the acronym "NNTR" (no need to respond), "EOD" (end of day) or use other acronyms to be thoughtful of others' time like "ROM" for (respond on Monday) so if you send something on a Friday afternoon or Sunday morning, you are not rushing your whole team to respond and ruining their weekend.
4. The to, cc, and bcc lines
The final rule before sending an email is when you think about the To line and then CC line and BCC line. These are not trivial things. For the To line, you expect someone to respond to your message unless you write NNTR. The CC is used when you expect they should just read it and won't respond to it. BCC line is, a rule of thumb, don't use it unless you don't want everyone to reply all.
Takeaways:
The art of the subject line - clear and to the point!
Think about your email visually and use simple, clear norms so that people know what to do next - answer the who, what and when.
Be thoughtful about responses and apply simple acronyms.
Give some thoughts on adding to the to, cc, and bcc lines before sending an email.
These are some general rules to build credibility and great repertoire by email.
More on this blog series:
Additional resources:
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