Careers: The write context - Facebook vs formal writing

We are in the midst of an exciting revolution in online global communications, namely social media. It's changing the way we work, play, keep in touch and do business.

It has harnessed online communications platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and blogs, among others.

It's all the craze, and it's affecting your career right now whether you're aware of it or not.

One emerging challenge for users of social media is to recognise, in practice, the difference in writing within a social media context and writing formally. This challenge will especially be relevant to high-school and university graduates who have grown up in an age of instant messaging and mobile phone text messaging.

Let's be clear, however, the challenge is not necessarily that we are poor at formal English. It is more a psychological one where because we text, IM, tweet and chat on Facebook so much, it becomes the norm.

What we practise, we form into habit.

The reality is that practice doesn't make perfect, it makes permanent - whatever we practise.

So here's the rule of thumb to relentlessly apply whenever you sit at your computer or use your smart phone to communicate: the rules of social media do not apply when you have to communicate formally. Here are a couple of specific areas for putting this rule to work.

Spelling and Grammar

Entrepreneur and social media devotee, Gary Vaynerchuk, in a recent article for Success magazine noted: "With social media, people just want you to communicate with them. They're not necessarily obsessed with grammar or sentence structure."

That's true, but presents a potential danger.

In formal communication - internal company memoranda, letters, CV's, business emails, job application letters and similar kinds of correspondence - you had better be obsessed with grammar, spelling, and sentence structure.

You will be judged by it, make no mistake.

I've received several letters from readers, including application letters and CVs, which contained 'thnx, plz, and u", for example.

While it may not cost them to write to me in this way, the informal shorthand of social media has no place in formal correspondence, if the sender wishes to be taken seriously.

Tone

Social media thrive on openness, friendliness, and familiarity in a virtual environment. The context allows for the use of emoticons and language which create and correspond to this mood.

Emoticons are textual expressions representing the face of a writer's mood or facial expression.

Formal correspondence, on the other hand, observes certain protocols and formalities that bear remembering. 'Rosie' is friendlier, but even if you are on a first-name basis with a colleague, it is safer to avoid being thought too familiar by writing 'Rosemarie'.

Avoid the following: lol - laugh out loud; omg - oh my god; dwl - dying with laughter, and similar expressions.

Err on the side of caution.

Glenford Smith is a motivational speaker and personal achievement strategist. glenfordsmith@yahoo.com