If You Mean Business, E-mail Me!

A few months ago my granddaughter sent me this text. “Hey Grandpa, it’s my birthday.”

By the time I got my thumbs coordinated enough to text my congratulations she was a year older.

More recently my friend Michael Hyatt posted a blog entitled, 3 Reasons I Hate Text Messages. His post was right on. This got me thinking about all the messaging possibilities and which social media method is best for which kind of message. Here’s where my scattered brain settled…

 If you are doing business of any kind, stick to e-mail.

(See Michael’s blog linked at the end of this post) I know the younger generation thinks e-mail is for dinosaurs, but if you want to do business or have a request that needs addressing, e-mail ensures that I will see your message and respond in a timely manner.

Think about it! People who are active on social media are often connected via a number of networks. Personally I am active on my website – Facebook – LinkedIn – E-mail – Text  – Instagram – Twitter.

Some people have even more! There is no way anyone can check each of these forums every day and absolutely no easy way to efficiently pass info from these networks along to the people who can take action on important issues.

I value communication with my friends, business associates and fans, so it’s distressing that I have lost dozens of important messages and delayed action on hundreds of others that could have been handled immediately if they had come by e-mail.

If it is business and requires a response, I may see it more quickly in a text message but once opened it is easily forgotten. I will never see it in a Twitter DM because I have stopped using Direct Messaging on twitter to communicate. (Thank you SPAMMERS! ie Have you seen this naked picture of yourself?!!)

There is only one place that I see messages daily and keep them organized so that they will be handled….  E-mail

So what about the other networks? Here’s my not so humble opinion…

TWITTER

When twitter first came out I wanted to shoot myself. The people I followed were constantly updating me on every detail of their life.  “Walking to church” “Eating lunch” – (photo of lunch) “Breathing air”  (photo of air or lungs) I gained three pounds just looking at pictures of the food people were eating.

Twitter is the place for short raves and rants, quick updates on what’s going on in your life, stating your opinion of current issues and most importantly directing people to the products, services and more detailed information available on your website.

FACEBOOK

Because I am a public figure with almost 40,000 Facebook followers, Facebook requires that I have a fan page. I could easily disable the messaging aspect of the fan page but I enjoy getting messages from my friends and fans and I enjoy responding to them.

Facebook messaging is best used for informal messages, responses to posts, reconnecting with old friends etc. I check these messages weekly and respond to many of them. However it is very complicated to try to do business via this medium.

TEXTING

Apart from doing business, I like texting. It keeps my thumbs in shape and keeps me in close touch with the people I love the most. Including my team and some of my business associates. But we don’t DO BUSINESS via text. Appropriate messages for texting are short and require only a short response.  “I love you” “I’ll be 30 minutes late. Delayed in traffic.”  “Let’s get together for dinner, give me some available dates.”

I also enjoy some of the hilarious pictures and short videos I get via text. Texting is a great way to immediately capture someone’s attention.  It is used on many campuses to alert students to dangerous situations.

If you were to text me today about a business opportunity or about anything that required an ongoing exchange of information the best chance of keeping my attention would be to ask for an e-mail address where a detailed account of your request could be considered and responded to.

LINKEDIN, GOOGLE +, etc 

Perhaps the best way to handle business messages and messages that require extensive exchange of information is to make sure your business e-mail is available in your profile and that you request business exchanges to be handled there.

What is your opinion?

If you know of a book that has been written on how to do business using social media messaging. Please share it with us. If you haven’t read Michael Hyatt’s book, Platform: Get Noticed In a Noisy World get it here.

Check out Michael’s blog post 3 Reasons I Hate Text Messages  come back and tell me what you thought about his post.[reminder]