Most people would agree that using e-mail is a good thing. Many people would also agree that going out to eat at a nice restaurant is good as well, but there is one thing that can spoil these two very different activities. It’s called bad etiquette.

When it comes to using e-mail, you don’t have to worry about using the right fork to eat your salad. However, if you want your e-mail messages to be effective and future e-mails to be read, it’s advisable to follow these basic rules of etiquette.

Don’t use all UPPERCASE letters in your messages – It’s the on-line equivalent of shouting and it makes e-mail messages almost painful to read.

Select appropriate subject lines – Make sure the subject lines that you choose accurately reflect the content of the message. For example, try to avoid ambiguous subject lines such “FYI,” “Hey,” or “Thought you should know.”

Careful with color – Make sure to use color sparingly in your e-mails. Colors such as red can send a signal that you’re angry when you don’t mean it. Other colors, such as blue, may cause confusion because some e-mail programs use blue to indicate that text in a message is part of a reply.

Save “high priority” messages for the truly urgent e-mail – Many e-mail programs allow you to designate messages as important or high-priority. Make sure that you only use this feature on messages that are truly urgent. If you designate too many relatively trivial messages as “high-priority,” then the next time you do have an important message, the recipient may think you’re doing the e-mail version of crying-wolf.

Don’t request delivery receipts – This is another feature on many e-mail programs that can cause annoyance for message recipients. Delivery receipts notify the sender if a message has been read or deleted without being read. Though this sounds like a good idea, it’s very annoying for the recipient as it automatically causes an option box to pop-up when they click on your e-mail. If you want to know if a message was received, just ask the recipient to let you know.

For large groups of e-mail addresses, use the bcc field – If you need to send out a message to a large group of recipients, place their addresses in the blind carbon copy (bcc) address field. We have instructions on how to place addresses in the bcc in our Info-Bytes archive. http://www.huntel.net/home/newsletter/Archives/040113.htm One reason to use bcc is to protect the e-mail addresses of those who receive the message. Many an e-mail account has been spammed because someone sent that address out in a mass mailing. Also, who wants to receive a message with 50 people in the “To” header?

Avoid attachments without prior approval – Don’t send your vacation pictures or any other attachments to everyone in your address book without prior approval. Pictures, video clips, and other large attachments can clog in-boxes and cause important messages to be delayed.

Go easy on the “Reply All” button – When messages have multiple recipients, be sure to use this sparingly. This button will send your reply back to not only the originator of the message, but everyone who received it as well. This button often creates many unnecessary e-mail messages and can at times pass along information that you may not want all of the recipients to see.

If you have any questions regarding e-mail or any other Internet related issue, please contact our tech support team. We can be reached at 533-5777 or 1-888-491-9115. You can also send us an e-mail at techsupport@huntel.net.