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Tweetables:
The signature in your email is an opportunity to do a little self-promotion. #vatip 
Gotta Tweet!
If there’s only one social media link, I’m looking for Facebook. #vatip Gotta Tweet!
I’m expecting to see your face when I go to your website. #vatip Gotta Tweet!
In Words:
Hi! You’re listening to episode number 77. I just want to share with you a little something you may not realize when you’re sending emails or inquiries or whatever reason you would email someone. Maybe you’re asking them about their business or what have you. But let me just take you through my process in how I filter through emails in deciding who to respond to and who not to respond to because, you know, we get a lot of spam that does not land in the junk or spam box.
Because of the podcast, I put my email out there and my Facebook page, all that good stuff, so different people send me messages and questions and stuff like that. I’d love to be able to answer everybody, but I want to make sure that I’m answering the actual real person. This is not foolproof. I’m sharing this so that if you’re the person who this applies to, you could fix it.
Okay. This is what I do. If someone’s email to me appears spammy, I do some digging because sometimes the email is real. It’s an actual email, actual website, all that stuff. So I go digging. I look at their website, especially if they’re a virtual assistant.
I’m going to your website and I’m looking for you. I’m expecting to see your face.
Okay, it’s not on the header. Fine. No big deal. I’m scrolling down. Okay, don’t see it. Is it on the About page? I go to the About page. No face. The website starts to feel corporately to me, which means the email I got could be spam. I’m looking for a person, the person who sent me the email. I don’t see them.
Okay, social media. Now, I’m going to see social media. I’m doing this very quickly on my phone, a quick press of the link from the email to your website, a quick scroll down looking for you. A quick click on the menu of the About page because I know what I’m looking for. I’m looking for you.
Okay, I go to social media because that should be somewhere on your website where you’ve got your social media links really easy. I’m looking for icons, not links. I’m just looking for the social media icons either at the top of the website or at the bottom of the website. I don’t see them anywhere.
On this particular website, there was only one and it was Instagram. Well, I didn’t click on it because in that instance I felt like this was a spam email and I decided to delete it and I took some quick notes. I was like, oh, this would be perfect to share on the podcast because you might not realize this.
What tells me you’re a real person?
Again, this is not foolproof. This is just my process. I live online pretty much, you know, my clients are there with email and social media and all that good stuff every day. So this is my process of elimination after I did not find you. I’m not looking for a stock photo. I’m not looking for a picture of anybody. I’m looking for you, the person who send me the email.
When I say that I’m looking for your social media links, if there’s only one, I’m looking for Facebook.
I’m not going to Twitter. I’m not looking for LinkedIn. I’m looking for Instagram, and the reason why is that Facebook is where real people are. Real people are on Facebook. Whether you’re there for your personal or you’re there for business or both, you’re on Facebook.
Think about it. How many people do you know that’s not on Facebook? When you find out someone’s not on Facebook, what is usually your response? Whether you say it out loud or not, what’s your response in your head if you don’t say it? It’s weird. It’s weird for people not to be on Facebook, right, and it doesn’t matter whether they post every day or share every day. You at least expect a profile. I’m not digging around for your personal profile on Facebook.
I’m just going on your website looking for social media icons, and looking for the Facebook icon specifically.
I’m not looking for LinkedIn because, keep in mind, this is based off getting an email and I’m not sure if this is a spam or a real person. When I think about LinkedIn, I think about people looking to hire other people so I’m not going to LinkedIn for you.
Instagram, gosh, Instagram has just as much spam as my email inbox. You never even know who’s real on Instagram. But I don’t get so caught up into that. Spam has become part of the culture of Instagram so you just accept it.
Twitter usually doesn’t have a link, I mean, you know, it may or may not have a face. But really, I want Facebook because, again, I’m looking for a real person. You’ll be real on Facebook. We post quotes and all kinds of different things on Twitter. Some people are real. Some people are not.
But again, this is my process of elimination for when I get inquiries via email and I don’t know that it’s a real person.
The flipside of that, because by now I’ve deleted the email and gone on, but I wanted to share with you because it’s a learning opportunity for all of us is that when we email someone, they’re looking for something. We don’t know. They may not realize we’re a real person. Maybe the wording is off. We don’t know, or maybe they just are curious about who we are.
So in your email signature, you could have your website link, your social media links, your mission, your motto, whatever, a little blurb, whatever you want. Your signature on your email is an opportunity to do a little self-promotion. Some people will see it. Some people won’t. They will definitely see those links. Why make them hunt for your social media links when you can just have it right there in your email signature.
Go check your email signature if you’re not sure what it looks like, or send yourself an email.
No, not only that. Send yourself an email from your computer and then yourself an email from your phone. There may or may not be two different signatures just depending on how you have it set up, but look at both. Don’t assume because it’s one way on the computer, it’s going to be another way on your phone, because you have to set up something else different from your phone.
If you have in your phone signature, “Oh, please excuse the misspellings. This is an iPhone,” take that off. Do not waste that space telling me you’re emailing me from an iPhone because it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. [Laughs] I don’t care that you’re emailing me from an iPhone. You know, that was something people did long time ago.
Remember BlackBerry? Way back when, you know, we started out with BlackBerrys, then Apple came out with iPhone. You know, that was in the early days. We’re further along into it. So take that off. Use that space. It’s valuable. Take advantage of that space because for the person who reads it, you want them to read some good helpful information. Not, “I’m on my iPhone. Excuse the misspellings.” Okay.
All right, so I just wanted to drop in and give a quick tip this week. Doing something a little different. You guys know I’m in a different mode, redecorated the office last weekend. I just wrapped up the Facebook Live shows. I did Monday show, Tuesday show, and I just was in a talking mood. So I was like why not go ahead and record the podcast and get that done with.
I had a set schedule before. I was doing it on Saturday mornings, recording the podcast and getting that all set up. But there is not rule that says it has to be just Saturday morning, especially when the information is fresh in my mind. So it’s perfect. Just go ahead and record now. I’m just sitting here, and I think I was scrolling Facebook, waiting on my YouTube video to upload and all that good stuff and thought, hey, I’ve got my notes here for this week’s podcast. Let me go ahead and knock it out.
Guess what your action step is this week? Fix those signatures in your email.
Add your social media links to your Facebook page. Add you to your website because somebody is looking for you, and somebody didn’t find you and they left. You may be wondering why did they never respond back? They could not find you in your website, they could not find you on social media, and so they thought you were spam and your email got deleted. Hopefully, they didn’t totally write it off and mark it as spam, because the next time you email it will be spam. Hopefully, it was just a straight delete and you get another change.
Anyway, you’ve got your action steps. Thank you so much for tuning in.
Thanks so much for tuning in. If you like what you heard, stay tuned. We’ll be back. Tell me what’s going on with you. Come on over the Facebook page: facebook.com/tiffanyparsonbiz, or if you prefer a little shorter message, come on over to Twitter: @tiffanydparson.
See you next time!
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