First Impressions – Electonically

I admit I tried the internet “dating” thing. I actually signed up for the site to laugh at the profiles my friends were laughing at. And some of the profiles were down right laughable. In the end it worked for me. That’s how Brett and I met.

But I also had an opportunity to learn a lot about a lot of different people, or types of people. And especially the importance of a first impression.

They say that “you never get a second chance to make a first impression,” and this is true even in an electronic world. It’s why there are now companies out there just to help people create that good first impression on-line.

On-line the first impression can start one of two ways, either with the actual profile or with the messages being sent out. And while the profile has it’s weird quirks and pitfalls, I want to talk about words and how the words used on-line give a certain impression of the person using them.

The thing that would really get me when I was meeting people on-line would be how they would say what they wanted to say. Did they capitalize correctly? Can they use punctuation? Because a person who doesn’t know how to use a shift key is probably lacking in other skills. I know some people consider it their style. It’s not a style that appeals to me. One guy actually got upset with me because I called him on his lack of shift key and punctuation. He said I shouldn’t be judging him on that. I told him it was his first impression and asked if he really want to come across that way. I didn’t hear from him again. His photo was also of his “six pack.” Definitely not my type.

I get the same thing when I read blogs. A person who can express their ideas with proper capitalization and punctuation automatically carries more weight for me than one who doesn’t. This is also true for the justification of the blog (right, left, centered). What is it with all the center justified blogs? It makes it real hard to read and follow paragraph breaks.

I know of someone who used to participate in on-line political discussions. I could never give their words any credit because there were blatant misspellings, punctuation and capitalization issues, and an overabundance of text-speak. It was like showing up at a debate in your pajamas. No matter how good your ideas are, if you look like a fool people will think you are one.

There. Those are my internet pet peeves. Punctuation. Capitalization. Justification. Abbreviations. If you want to sound intelligent, look intelligent. It’s the same whether we’re talking about the physical world or the electronic world. If 90% of face-to-face communication is nonverbal, a good chunk of on-line communication is how the words are presented and not just the words themselves.

This week I found these two articles, one about e-mail and the other about on-line profiles (specifically facebook). They’re worth a look.

• KSL – Bad e-mail etiquette can hurt you.
• My Life Scoop – Facebook Etiquette: 11 Dos and Don’ts