by Jayne Cravens
via coyotecommunications.com & coyoteboard.com (same web site)

Mastering the Basics of Online Culture & Community

Revised as of May 17, 2020

Interacting with people online is much harder now than it was back in the 1990s, or even in the first decade of the 21st Century. In those first two decades of the Internet's widespread popularity, people communicated online primarily via email, online bulletin boards and instant messaging, via text they wrote themselves. Now, people communicate with photos and emojis, sometimes with no text accompanying it at all, as well as with animated gifs and images with text created by someone else, often conveying something humorous, political, or a comment on some aspect of society or modern life. As a result, how I talk and advise others about online culture now is very different than how I talked about it back at the start of the century.

Some people don't need much guidance at communications, online or face-to-face - they seem to be intuitive at connecting with people. Just as a person can be fantastic at walking into a room and engaging in a series of quick conversations that make many people in that room feel like they have made a strong connection with that person, or a natural at putting someone at ease in a face-to-face meeting like a job interview, there are people who are naturals at online communications. There are also people who attend Toastmasters or take classes on facilitation and participatory meeting techniques in order to do better job talking in groups or one-on-one. This page is for folks who are either intimidated by communicating online with others, particularly as a part of their job or volunteering, or who know they are in need of some improvement.

The internet started off as mostly text-based communications - what would be seen now as long messages. These were, and still are, sent via email or online communities, and before the new century, these were usually read by the recipient, not just glanced over - or ignored altogether. Now, more and more people are attracted to messaging that can be digested in just a few seconds. This has a significant downside: shorter attention spans, people doing other things when they should be paying attention to the conference call or video call, and easily-shared misinformation and misinterpretations of messaging.

I do think that online communications is no more difficult than face-to-face, onsite communications: even if it's rehearsed, you cannot edit whatever it is you are saying to someone in an offline, live conversation - once it's out there, it's out there. You can rehearse, but in the moment, it is what it is. You have to speak clearly, sound natural, sound sincere, and that kind of pressure, like an actor on stage, can be downright frightening for many people. Added to that is that people can misinterpret facial expressions, tone, choice of words, body language - even silence. And not everyone is good at interpreting a person's facial or voice "cues" or body language: such can and is often misinterpreted by the viewer or listener.

Here's the key in meaningful, effective online communications: it's about engagement, not just promotion. It's a conversation, not just a billboard someone drives by or a flyer someone receives in the mail. My dictionary says interactive is an adjective that means two or more people or things influencing or having an effect on each other. Yes, there can still be a leader in that conversation, but that leader also has to be a listener and an observer, and that leader has to show that what's being said in response is influencing him or her in some way. And those interactions must be perceived as authentic: sincere, from a place of genuinely wanting to hear what others want to say.

It is easy to get in the mode of seeing the reading and responding to emails, social media posts and text messaging as a long to-do list rather than human interaction. But approaching online communications this way, as just a long to-do list, or using artificial intelligence or automatic responders to interact with current and potential clients, donors and volunteers, leads to emotionally empty communications - messages that your audience won't feel any emotional connection to and, therefore, they won't feel any particular desire to donate, volunteer or otherwise support you. Your communications staff - and that includes everyone that regularly communicates with current and potential clients, donors and volunteers online - should look at virtual communications as fundamental for your programs success at your nonprofit, NGO, school, government agency or other cause-based organization.

Also remember: Online communities, Facebook posts, Tweets, or other social media posts are not online newsletters - they are meeting places. To be successful in online communications, you have to treat online discussion groups and social media platforms as communities, as real as a physical neighborhood or an audience at a workshop or a meeting in real-time where everyone is in the same room.

A variety of communicators

Years ago, I wrote about the wide variety of communicators I've experienced online. Here's what I said:

Some write e-mails, instant messages and social media messages exactly as they talk.
Some use punctuation and "smileys" to show emotion or expression, just as they use lots of facial expressions.
Some write formally, per the standards of a traditional, printed business letter.
Some post lots of memes on their social media, to express sentiments with an image and maybe a few key words - and use the words of others more than they write their own original thoughts.
Some write using online jargon that may be common among their peer group but rare outside of such (like writing "LOL")
Some write short and to the point.
Some write long, detailed paragraphs, even when instant messaging / text messaging.
Some write often.
Some interpret silence as approval, others as disapproval.
Some will freely share political views and jokes with everyone; others will keep communications formal, and save any personal information, such as their vacation photos, only with their closet friends online.
Some will email you and then call, as they aren't absolutely certain of technology and need the approving voice.
On online discussion groups, some will post frequently, some will post occasionally, and many will just "lurk" and never post at all, or send questions or comments directly to you instead.
Some may misinterpret intent or tone based only on the way a message is written, not what the message actually says. This is true particularly of those who are new to the Internet or don't use e-mail or online discussion groups frequently.
(For instance, one-word answers to questions may be interpreted as "snippy." Other people interpret questions themselves as "attacks", or signs that the person asking the questions does not like them or trust them; more on this at handling online criticism).
Some write messages littered with punctuation, spelling and sentence structure errors, but are quite articulate on the telephone and quite respected in their professional field.
Some are not completely aware of all of the functions on their email software (setting line length, type size, having a signature, setting the default to reply to the sender rather than everyone, etc.)
Some are "documenters" - feeling it is necessary to keep the full reply even if it is the 6th message passed - and some "snippers" - responding in a concise manner, so much so that it can be hard to figure out what they are responding or referring to (this may not be a culture difference, as much as a difference in email systems or the person's technical know how).

All of that is still true, for the most part. Added to that now are people who will respond mostly with emoticons or animated gifs (a video clip of a well-known TV star giving a thumbs up, for instance), and people who rarely use their own words - they post quotes from others in meme form to make their point.

As is noted in Working Together Online, an excellent publication by Maureen James and Liz Rykert (that, sadly, is no longer available), "Never make assumptions about what you are reading." (but note: that's true in face-to-face, entirely verbal situations as well). You cannot assume someone is unintelligent or not worth listening to because of a text message full of spelling errors, or that someone is angry because of an abrupt reply via email. One person who involves volunteers online said to me, "A few times when I 'etalked' with people for years as if they were undergrads, then found out they were department heads!!!" The same has been true for me, only in reverse: A few times I have corresponded with an online volunteer for several weeks as if that person was a working professional, because of the tone of the person's e-mails and the quality of work. Later, I've realized, upon reviewing the original volunteer application, that the person is actually 14 or 15 years old. Think of the times you have seen someone who you would characterize as "frumpy" who turns out to be quite wealthy or who runs a very successful company - it can be similar online. In short: be ready to let go of first impressions.

Learning How to Communication Online: Lurk

You can start learning how to communicate online by observing how others do it - you don't have to post any messages at all. There is no better way to learn about online culture and how to communicate with others effectively via the written word than by observing!

Look to the emails you are already receiving and reading for guidance on how to write your own and how often to send emails. What subject lines in an email make you want to read it? What subject lines make you not want to read it? Who writes emails that you understand? Who writes emails that are confusing, incomplete or off-putting, for whatever reason? Who sends you what you consider too many emails?

For instance, I loathe email-based conversations with multiple people, resulting in half a dozen or more emails, many with just one or two words ("yes" or "I disagree"), and all with the same subject line, even if the conversation topic has changed. When I see that long list of emails, I dread having to go through them and figure out what in the heck everyone has been discussing and where I fit in. When I write or respond to email, I make a commitment to always having an accurate subject line, so anyone just looking at the subject line would know if the email is something they need to open, read and take action on.

Subscribe to some email newsletters by organizations you support. Make a commitment to reading them. Which do you consider good and which do you find yourself just skimming? Which prompt you to respond and which seem to be just talking to you and not wanting your feedback? Here's more advice specifically regarding email newsletters.

Same for blogs: which do you consider good, which do you read regularly, and why? Who writes too much versus who doesn't write enough? Which do you yourself comment on and why? Which blog authors handle comments well and create conversations?

Make a list of Facebook pages and groups for news organizations, political organizations and fan-based genres (fans of a particular type of literature, fans of a particular series of movies, etc.) - it's not enough to "like" them because Facebook might not regularly show you these pages in your newsfeed. At least twice a day, look at the comments on articles posted to these pages. Join Twitter, if you haven't already. Follow only those people and organizations on Twitter you really want to read regularly; put others on lists - one for media, for instance, another for people and organizations based just where you live, etc. - so you can easily see only specific information when you want. Look for posts that have lots of comments and read through them. Join Reddit and read some subreddits - I moderate the volunteer subreddit. As you read through interactions on social media and online communities, ask yourself these questions: are there debates? Is the page administrator or community facilitator regularly responding to questions, comments and criticisms? What comments do you see as helpful, even if they are provocative, and which are merely "trolling" - trying to insult and provoke negative responses? Is anger always a bad thing online? Can anger be expressed without insulting? How are conflicts and debates handled? Do page administrators or online facilitators ever apologize? How do you if a comment is sharing something truthful versus a rumor or out-and-out lie? How do you know how to trust someone online?

If you work with young people, you might consider following a social media account or joining an online discussion group of a TV show that's popular with teens, and observe how the youth interact with each other. Reddit is a great place to lurk.

As you observe (or "lurk") on these groups and networks, notice the variety of ways people relate to each other via written communications, the differences in communication styles among people of different age groups, how a person communicates regarding politics versus in a professionally-focused online community, how the "culture" of each group is unique, how someone may get upset about a message that he or she interpreted as hostile but that looked quite benign to you, and so forth. Look for ways that people make their emails or social media posts as appealing as possible -- the way the introduce a topic, the way the sign their emails, the way they respond to others, and so forth. You may see that the way a person talks with friends online in social settings is quite different from how that person talks with people in professional settings online.

Penny Leisch, then of the Arizona Pioneers' Home Volunteers Association offered this advice for communicating with volunteers online:

"People interpret written words based on their experiences, culture and education. Some people are very literal, good readers and very good listeners. Other people need the same information repeated several times before they assimilate everything."

Indeed, key messages have to be repeated - you can never assume that just because you posted key information once to all your social media channels that everyone heard it. As I say in my onsite workshops, everyone has heard of the restaurant chain McDonald's and, yet, McDonald's still advertises. You cannot assume that someone heard you the first time you said something - or even the third.

Put Your Learning Into Practice

As you observe online communications, think about how you want to be perceived online. Couple that with your experience observing and you are ready to start posting comments, responses and messages. Be deliberate, be thoughtful, be sincere, be honest, and when in doubt, don't post/send it. Your goal is to create trust in your online brand - you want people to see you or your organization's name and know that what they are going to read is reliable and worthy of their time to read. You want people online to trust you - just as you want people in onsite, face-to-face settings to trust you. Cultivating trust takes time and attention to detail, and having that trust by online readers is essential to success at online communications.

Almost everything you post online is forever, meaning that your words can always be found online. Some things do go away: not all of my first blogs are available at the Wayback Machine / archive.org, meaning all those initial thoughts and opinions I wrote really are gone. And as you post more and more blogs, comments and social media posts, your older online material gets harder to find. Still, think of your posts as publishing something in print: they are your official words, because you produced them, and they can, and will, be used to judge you.

Yes, you will make mistakes - just as you do when you open your mouth. If you have made a commitment to being honest and fact-based, and your posts are a reflection of that, an apology is going to be accepted.

The fact is that challenges in communicating online is a problem far harder to overcome for many people than using technology itself.

Dealing With Misinformation Online

Rumors and misinformation online get their fuel from:

misinterpretations of what a person or community is seeing, hearing or experiencing,
low literacy skills,
low media literacy (lack of understanding on how to evaluate news and news sources),
previous community experiences,
strongly-held cultural beliefs,
willful misrepresentation by people who, for whatever reason, want to derail a development or relief activity,
unintentional but inappropriate or hard-to-understand words or actions by a communicator, or
the desire of an individual or community to believe an alternative narrative, a desire that is stronger than the facts

I have an entire section of my web site devoted to dealing with Folklore, Rumors (or Rumours), Urban Myths & Organized Misinformation Campaigns Interfering with Development & Aid/Relief Efforts, & Government Initiatives, & how these are overcome. It goes into detail about building trust and establishing credibility, understanding the psychology behind those that spread and believe misinformation, and ways to recognize and address misinformation campaigns.

Online Civility

When I began writing about online culture, back in the late 1990s, misinformation was at a minimum and easy to identify, and hateful trolls were oh-so-quickly banned from online communities. Now, hate and misinformation rage online. Can online civility be restored? Is it possible to challenge misinformation and destructive speech in the strongest, most deliberate of terms without being accused of hate speech yourself? This page, Resources Regarding Online Civility, links to efforts focused on online civility - none of these efforts are by me, BTW.

More Resources

Also see these blogs from me:

Get to know your volunteers now on a new level (thanks to meeting online with them in their homes!)
Why You SHOULD Separate Your Personal Life & Professional Life Online
Virtue & reputation in the developing world
Judgment & reputation online – and off
the scale of how we communicate online
A warning re: Facebook privacy from Nicholas Thompson

Another resource that may help you to learn more about effective online communications may be the Virtual Volunteering Project's suggestions for accommodations for online volunteers who have learning disabilities or emotional and anxiety disorders. Most of these suggestions are fundamental to the successful management of ANY person via e-mail and the Web. This information also will help you address the various learning styles and working styles of online volunteers.

You may also want to create your own Netiquette guidelines for staff and volunteers. These online Netiquette guides are outstanding places to start:

Netiquette Guidelines

Netiquette
By Virginia Shea, published by Albion Books. This online edition is from 2004 and I still love it. It has terrific advice: Remember the human, Respect other people's time and bandwidth, Respect other people's privacy, Don't abuse your power, Be forgiving of other people's mistakes, Flame wars, Apologizing, Email harassment and more. Everyone who wants to engage with people online should HAVE to read this. I'm not even kidding.

If you want to delve in-depth into working with volunteers online, there is this exhaustive, detailed resource, which I co-authored with Susan Ellis:

The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook

available for purchase as a paperback & an ebook

Published January 2014, there is no more detailed resource on using the Internet to support and engage online volunteers, from using the Internet to screen candidates to providing appropriate support to virtual teams and absolutely everything in between. This book represents more than 20 years of research and experience from many different sources and is written in a way as to timeless - no matter how technologies evolve and social media fads come and go, this book will, I hope, remain an essential tool for mission-based/caused-based programs.

A Historical Note

A resource from August 1997 provides a fascinating insight into the debates about what community online may or may not be when the Internet was becoming mainstream: Net Surfers Don't Ride Alone: Virtual Communities as Communities by Barry Wellman and Milena Guilia of the Department of Sociology and Centre for Urban Community Studies, University of Toronto. The references list alone is worth review to show just how much hasn't changed in more than 20 years.

You might also want to see an earlier version of the page you are reading now, to see how my advice for communicating online has changed. You can do that by going to the Wayback Machine / archive.org, and looking for this URL: http://www.coyotecommunications.com/culture/culture.shtml. The biggest different in my earlier advice versus now? Before I emphasized learning about different styles of text-based communications; now, I think it's much more important to focus on building trust and credibility.

Also see:

The Difference in Email, Social Media & Online Communities: A Graphic Explanation.
It can be difficult for people to understand the difference in email, in social media and in online communities, especially since email can be used to create an online community, or social media can be used to create an online community (Facebook Groups, for instance). And they all are people sending messages to people - so what, really, is the difference? This is my attempt to graphically show the difference, but I'll still have to use words to more fully explain what I mean. All three of these avenues for online communication can intersect. But one online avenue of online communication may be a better avenue for a communication goal than another - this resource examines that as well.
Building a team culture among remote workers
Coming together face-to-face, in the same room, does not automatically create team cohesion and a strong sense of team. Yet, many people think having online meetings automatically means it’s difficult for staff to have a strong sense of team. When thinking about creating a sense of team online, try to get away from that aforementioned belief. People feel a part of a team if they feel heard and included, whether online or off. And they will attend meetings and pay attention to those meetings if they feel the meeting is relevant to their work - on or offline. This resource offers ideas for live events, asynchronous events & activities that can build a sense of team among remote workers.

Leading in a virtual world
There is a plethora of information about leading a team online, but not much about online leadership-on engaging in activities that influence others online, that create a profile for a person as someone that provides credible, important, even vital information about a particular subject. What does it take to be a leader online? This web page explores that.

Why Every Staff Person Should Regularly Read At Least One Online Discussion Group
Participating in online groups will contribute significantly to your professional development, helping you both on the job you have now and the jobs you will have in the future.

Handling Online Criticism
Online criticism of a nonprofit organization, even by its own supporters, is inevitable. It may be about an organization's new logo or new mission statement, the lack of parking, or that the volunteer orientation being too long. It may be substantial questions regarding an organization's business practices and perceived lack of transparency. How a nonprofit organization handles online criticism speaks volumes about that organization, for weeks, months, and maybe even years to come. There's no way to avoid it, but there are ways to address criticism that can help an organization to be perceived as even more trustworthy and worth supporting.

Virtual Volunteering research and other articles
A compilation of publicly-available research and evaluation reports regarding online volunteering, online activists, online civic engagement, online civil society, and online mentoring (not PR pieces but, rather, reviews and research that more than mention these subjects); AND a list of various research documents and articles relating to telecommuting, virtual teams and Internet culture.

Return to my list of resources relating to online culture & communities of volunteers

Return to my volunteer-related resources

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