Netiquette Part 2 Things Get Bizarre!

Read On – This is relevant…

A while ago I wrote about the importance good netiquette – the internet version of etiquette and I just had to share a recent, bizarre series of emails I had which sort of ties in with that. I’m still confused actually so maybe you can comment?

It all started with an email from someone who had received one of mine promoting The Six Figure Mentors with a link to their free video series. Rather than clicking the link and receiving the (free) videos this chap decided to ask me about it by email. Fair enough, I’m always happy to do that.

Two or three emails were exchanged with him asking me something and me replying. I suggested we talk on Skype and got this reply: I could talk to you on Skype yes but I am a baptised Sikh – Google Sikh to see what I mean. With netiquette in mind I did that and got some info on the Sikh religion but nothing about where Skype fits in. So I refined the search to Sikhs and Skype….

Netiquette And The joys Of Email Marketing

I found an article or two about a Sikh youngster who had been murdered by a relative – why? because this relative had seen the youngster drinking whisky while having a video chat with a friend on Skype. Ok – the plot thickens. I’m now thinking that my correspondent either has a dark sense of humour or is making a veiled threat, difficult as I said in my last netiquette rules post, to know which when you only have written material to go on. The joys of email marketing!

I decided to leave it there but got another email from my friend saying could we meet in person? I replied that in principle yes we could but as I am in Glasgow and he was in England, it might be easier for him to simply watch the (free)videos as a first step.

When Netiquette Rules Are Hard To Follow

He replied it’s not a problem; Glasgow is just a short helicopter journey for me. Now I’m feeling like he is taking the Mickey for sure. Again, with little to go, on I thought he might be making reference to the helicopter that tragically crashed into a Glasgow pub last December (his Skype reference had involved murder over religious attitudes to alcohol after all) I replied that I’d be happy to meet anyone arriving by helicopter but please don’t land it on a pub – to test my theory that he was making a joke in very bad taste.

He came back by saying that he was serious. His cousin was a property tycoon who had helped him build a property portfolio and had a helicopter he could use. He again gave me a name to Google and yes this turned out to be true – presuming of course that they were actually related. I replied that I had looked up his cousin on Google and was impressed – his reply? Word for word – “One up the b*m, no harm done”. ??????

Ooooookkaaayyyy ! After some thought I have decided that this was another attempt at a crude joke based around his millionaire contact being somehow richer than mine – In our initial emails he had asked about the founders of SFM – both young multi millionaires. I guess I’ll never know because I was kind of stumped for a reply!

This is all completely true but aside from being a good story it does highlight the difficulties of communication and why it’s such a big part of marketing. We don’t know who we are talking to in email. We can’t see or hear them so have no idea how good their command of our native language is – what’s appropriate for an initial dialogue for example.  Some people don’t know when it’s appropriate to use black humour or don’t really understand when to use idioms that are common to one culture but not another. This and many other factors are missing in text only communication. We can’t see a smile or hear a chuckle indicating a joke and we don’t have that telling eye contact.

Whatever was actually happening in the conversation I had, when I told my partner about it she came up with the valid point that the business we were discussing (initially at least!) costs less to join than a helicopter flight to ask me more about it. Not the best business acumen in the world and a severe challenge for good netiquette overall.

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