Social Nation: How to Harness the Power of Social Media to Attract Customers, Motivate Employees, and Grow Your Business

Chapter 6. PRINCIPLE 3: MIND YOUR ONLINE AND OFFLINE MANNERS

	We discover ourselves through others.
	--Carl Jung

How you say something—your tone, your expression, your written and verbal communications—is often more important than what you say. That has always been true at home and now it is becoming increasingly important at work as you seek to build fans, followers, and friends in every aspect of your business. In that spirit, achieving the right tone of voice is critical in creating a community of people in the social web who care about you and your organization. Having good manners, being gracious, and saying thank you all count.

YOU CAN STILL LEARN FROM EMILY POST

The arbiter of etiquette and good manners, Emily Post, spent summers in picturesque Bar Harbor, Maine, where August breezes can be refreshing, and the ocean views are, simply, stunning. Now teeming with ice cream shops and tour buses, Bar Harbor used to be a refined vacation getaway where lawn parties, carriage rides to the top of Cadillac Mountain, and yachting were daily activities.

Post always brought her German shepherd, Bruno, along for the summer. One year, a small yappy dog next door yapped at Bruno day after day—Bruno was in one yard; the yappy dog in another.

As Post's great-grandson, Peter Post, tells the story, one day the barking stopped. All was quiet outside. No yappy, annoying dog. When his great-grandmother ...