Social Media rules for business

In a time when more and more business discussions are taking place via LinkedIn, Twitter or email than over cocktails and canapés – it is vital that professionals know how to present themselves online.

Finance and accounting recruitment firm Robert Half has created a new guide ‘Business Etiquette: the new rules in a digital age’ to help its clients and candidates navigate through the minefield of digital tools. The guide offers advice on social media protocol and gives practical solutions for handling sticky situations.

The information was gathered from surveys of professionals, independent research, input from social media and etiquette experts and the experiences of Robert Half’s own team of recruiters working with job candidates and clients throughout Asia Pacific.

While steering professionals on how to put their best foot forward on networking sites (such as LinkedIn), the guide also shares tips on how to avoid dilemmas that may arise through social networking, and how to get the most out of Twitter.

The guide reminds users to think about how they represent themselves when using social media and offers practical advice, such as: ‘If you wouldn’t want to read it on a billboard, don’t post it on your Facebook wall’.

It also provides tips and guidance on the more traditional communications approaches of email, instant messaging, mobile devices and remote conferencing and covers how to deal with a tricky situation.

A recent Robert Half workplace survey found 86 percent of New Zealanders believe technology etiquette breaches affect career prospects. A significant majority (68 per cent) also admit to having mistakenly emailed someone the wrong message or copied someone on a message without intending to.

Robert Half General Manager, Megan Alexander, says, “There is an expectation that you know what the rules are, but these can change depending on the type of business you’re in and culture of the organisation.