In this day and age, you’d think that everyone has mastered the art of writing emails. Well, you’re wrong. The truth is, most people still get confused between personal and professional emails. Such confusion, while fairly understandable, is still unacceptable in the professional world. So whether you’re applying for a job, or just writing an email for business-related communications, following these tips will ensure that you give your mails the professional touch it needs.

1. Be Descriptive With Your Subject Line

Since we’re all coping with cluttered inboxes every day, ensure that your subject line conveys exactly what your whole message is about – especially in a professional setting, where the person on the receiving end can be insanely busy.

Be as descriptive as possible in writing your subject line. Something as vague like: “Thought you’d like this” works fine if you’re passing a helpful article to a friend. But something as detailed as “Great article for networking” is better for your professional contact.

2. Use the Traditional Greeting and Signoff Components

We understand that you want to keep your email as brief and direct as possible, but there’s no need to eliminate the traditionalcomponents – greeting and signoff – just to write a concise email. The greeting and signoff is what ties your whole message together, and maintains a certain level of professionalism.

Whether you want to use something more conversational or go with a super formal greeting is completely up to you. The important part is you include these standard elements into your emails.

3. Ditch Emoji’s and Shorthand’s

Although the two forms of communication became remarkably similar, understand that emailing is still not the same as texting. This means completely skipping shorthand’s and acronyms like OMG and LOL, and using complete phrases like “That’s so funny” or “Wow” to get your point across in a more polished and professional way.

4. Proofread Your Emails Before Sending

It goes without saying, but we’ll remind you again to proofread your mails before sending it. Check for typos and grammatical errors, and ensure that you correctly spelled all the proper nouns. Also, don’t neglect to check your recipient’s email address (you’d want to make sure you’re emailing the right person) and the subject line.

5. Respond Promptly

When it comes to responding to professional emails, make it your goal to reply on time – typically within one business day. Even if you can’t produce a detailed reply in that span of time, you should at least let the sender know that you received his or her message, and you’re working on it.

However, don’t sacrifice the quality of your reply for speed. You wouldn’t want to send a reply too quickly that you neglect crafting a beneficial and thoughtful response. Remember, people won’t be happy to receive a reply that fails to answer all of their questions.

We’re all chained to our inboxes, so who can blame us if we let our email etiquette slide a bit? When it comes to career- and work-related emails, however, it’s crucial that you do your best to be as professional as possible. Put the aforementioned tips to work, and you’re sure to craft professional emails in no time.

As a platform dedicated to networking concept, LinkedIn is an undeniably powerful tool for boosting your professional reputation and making new connections. Sadly, it’s a social networking site that most people fail to put much interest and effort into. But if you’re willing to give the account a chance, we’ve got you covered. Here are six tips you need to know to leverage the power of LinkedIn, and get the most out of the account you used to ignore.

1. Frequently Update Your Profile

Before you start making the most out of LinkedIn, you’ll want to make sure that your profile is in its pristine form. After all, you’d want your new connections to see the most updated and accurate portrayal of your knowledge and skills.

Instead of plainly writing down the university where you graduated or the number of years you’ve been in the working world, tune up your profile by switching out your photo to a more recent one, adding new positions and job descriptions that adequately captures your duties, and adding some personality to it. Lastly, put in some little elbow into re-writing your summary. Also, make it a habit to read through your profile every now and then to double-check if everything’s still accurate, as well as to add new career developments to it.

2. Use the “Who’s Viewed My Profile” Feature

Even if you’re currently not seeking new work opportunities, using this feature will still be beneficial. In fact, it’s actually a great spot to start your goal of expanding your network and making meaningful connections. These people viewed your profile for a reason; they probably got interested with your professional identity.

So the next time you see someone in your ‘who’s viewed my profile’, take some time to send them an invitation to connect. It may seem creepy, but it’s actually not. In fact, you can start several professional relationships using this same tactic.

3. Practise Sending Connection Requests

Another way to effectively use LinkedIn is to proactively reach out to people you admire or want to get to know more about. That photographer in Singapore you’re hoping to work with, that marketing manager you’ve always admired, or that magazine editor you’d love to talk – you surely want to connect with all of them. But chances are, they won’t approach you out of nowhere. So go ahead, send them a connection request and start a conversation. You’ll never know what may happen.

4. Create and Send Personalized Connection Message

Before sending out any connection request, you need to be aware of one of the golden rules in LinkedIn: Always personalize your connection message when you’re requesting to connect with someone. Instead of settling with the generic request message, get a little personal and tell the person why you’d want to connect.

5. Focus on Creating Meaningful Relationships

Sure, adding lots of people in LinkedIn is fun, but it’s also important to remember that your goal is to establish meaningful and quality relationships through the site. So spend your time looking for people whom you think could benefit your career path. Whether they’re frontrunners in your industry, or people with skillsets that could help you later on, focus your energy and time on creating valuable connections.

Use your connect requests as a starting point for your conversation. Then ensure to stay in touch by congratulating them on new accomplishments or simply liking their interesting posts. There’s no need to send and answer lengthy emails every day, but make some effort to ensure you stay in the loop.

6. Utilize the LinkedIn Pulse Feature

LinkedIn Pulse is a site feature that allows you to self-publish a content. It’s a space meant for sharing your views and skills even if you’re not a writer. You can use this platform to publish your original content and give you some credibility, thus taking your LinkedIn profile up a notch. So go ahead and write about your favourite photography equipment and style to use, or your views on the changes in the healthcare industry.

At first, LinkedIn may seem like a useless and stuffy site that you only signed up in because you felt like you had to. But if you just spend some time exploring it, you’ll realize how amazing and powerful it can be. So sign into your account now, put these tips to work and prepare to get some great results.