At this point, there are few people in the real estate industry that do not know how to send and receive e-mail. There are, however, still several rules of etiquette that many e-mail users are unfamiliar with. In this guide, we will walk you through these various rules.

Understanding file size

Rule 1 - file size: Have you ever sent an e-mail with pictures attached to someone and found out later that they supposedly never received the message? Have you ever received an e-mail informing you that the email you just sent was rejected by the receiver? Before you call you your e-mail provider or local technical support person and start screaming, there are a couple of things that you should look at. One of the most common reasons for e-mails to get rejected is due to size of the e-mail exceeding the limits of the receiver’s account.

What does file size mean? File size refers to the size of the file. The bigger the file, the more space it takes up.

I don’t understand the whole file size limit/space thing. This is where many people start to have problems with sending e-mails. Think of it this way: your computer is a shed filled with different boxes. The person’s e-mail account that you are trying to send an e-mail to is another shed in a far-away city. The e-mail that you are trying to send is a box in your shed. In order to get the box to your friend, you must first put it inside a truck. In this case, the truck represents the e-mail server or service provider. Examples of these would be AOL, MSN, Hotmail, Gmail, Sellstate.com, etc. Basically, whatever comes after the "@". If you are trying to send a 10-foot x 10-foot box, you will need a truck that is at least 10 x 10. Suppose for a moment that the only way to ship this box is to put it in your compact car. Obviously, your box cannot be sent.

The same thing happens with e-mail. Although the files are digital, they still occupy a certain amount of space and are bound by space limitations. For this reason, occasionally some of your e-mails may either be rejected or fail to be sent.

Suppose now for a moment that you were able to use a 14 x 14 cube van to move your box. In this case, you would be able to get the box to your friend’s shed. If your friend does not have at least 10 x 10 worth of space in the shed or if the shed itself is only 8 x 8 then your box still cannot be delivered. This explains why, in some cases, e-mails seem to send fine, but do not arrive at the destination.

How do I know how big my e-mails are? When you are putting an e-mail together, there will usually be an indication of how large the message is. The number will either be written in kilobytes (KB) or megabytes (MB). One megabyte equals 1,000 kilobytes. Your e-mail will show a number followed by one of the size indicators. Typically, when you add an attachment, you will see beside the attachment the size of the file.

How big is too big? This is the key question. It's difficult to say how big is too big as each e-mail provider has their own limitations. Although there is no internet-wide standard, there are some guidelines that we can follow. Now before you start worrying about having 2,000 words in your email, you must realize that text alone typically does not significantly affect the size of the message. When writing an e-mail that is nothing but type, size will almost never be a factor.

To be safe, we will set a limit of 5 MB for all major providers, and 2 MB for lesser-known providers. By major providers, we mean providers that are common: AOL, MSN, Hotmail, Gmail, etc. The lesser-known providers would be someone such as examplecompany.com or somewhere.com.

Adjusting file sizes

Rule 2 - controlling file sizes: The most common problem with e-mail size comes by way of attachments. It’s not how much you type that generally creates the problem, but rather how large your attachments are (in MB). In most cases, the problems result from pictures being attached to e-mails. Digital cameras are a wonderful invention, and the newer the model the better the pictures they take. The one drawback to newer digital cameras, however, is that the picture file sizes can be extremely large.

Now before you go and throw out your brand-new camera to buy a first-generation digital camera on eBay, allow us to explain how cameras work and how you can adjust them to make the picture file size smaller. When you go to purchase a digital camera, one of the most common features salespeople promote is the camera's megapixel ratio. A pixel is a tiny dot on your screen. What you see on your screen is actually the combination of pixels. Basically everything you see in the image is comprised of tiny dots crammed alongside one another. In short, the more pixels on your screen, the better the picture quality.

So a camera's megapixel ratio refers to a system that tracks the number of pixels (dots) that the camera can capture in an image. The larger the number, the better quality of the picture. As an example, you may see a camera advertise 5.0 megapixels, while another may offer 7.0 megapixels. The 7.0 model would be able to take a more detailed picture.
This is where the problem begins to occur. Remember how pixels are tiny dots across your screen? Well, there is really only so much detail that the human eye can detect. Beyond that, very few people can notice any difference. So if that's the case, then why the higher megapixel counts? The answer has to do with the ability to zoom in on a picture after it has been taken. If your picture is taken in a high megapixel setting, then when looking at it on a computer later, you will be able to zoom in or crop the picture to a very small area without the image appearing blurry or grainy.

This may sound like a desirable setting, but this is where the problem comes into play. The higher the megapixel setting, the more pixels, and the larger the file size will be.

Remember how our rule of thumb suggested that for best results, you should keep your e-mails under 5 MB? In the case of newer cameras, a single picture taken at the maximum quality setting could be 7 MB in size alone. This is a problem, especially if you are attaching multiple pictures to the e-mail.

So what is the solution? It's simple. Consult your camera's user guide and find out how to lower the picture settings. A camera that takes 7.0 megapixel images is also capable of taking 1.0 megapixel pictures. This may reduce the picture size from 6 or 7 MB down to 500KB (0.5 MB). To simplify this further, you could potentially send 10 pictures (500KB x 10 = 5 MB) at 1.0 megapixels in a single e-mail. At 7.0 megapixels, you may not be able to send one single picture. Please note that the file sizes and scenarios are rough estimates and may vary from camera to camera.
Lowering your picture settings will not only help with sending pictures as attachments in e-mails, but will also help you to save space on your computer’s hard drive.

How do I know how low I can safely lower the picture quality on my camera before it becomes noticeable? Unfortunately, the best way to figure this out is simply by trial and error. Take pictures of the same thing at all the different settings and then take a look at them on your computer. When you start to notice the quality is lacking, then bump the settings back up once and take your pictures from there. In general, 1.0 megapixel images are acceptable for use in e-mail and web-based scenarios.

Although pictures are not the only form of attachment that can cause an e-mail to be rejected, in most cases they are the culprit. If you have found that your e-mails with pictures attached are not getting through, take a look at the size of the file and see about changing your camera settings.

Common courtesy

Now that we have a good handle on managing file size and can be assured that our e-mails are arriving with the intended recipients, we need to look at some common e-mail courtesy that should be applied.

Rule 3 – e-mail common courtesy: Below are some tips to keep in mind when sending e-mails.

• No. 1 – Do not type all in capital letters. In the online world this represents shouting. For example: when you write "I THINK YOU SHOULD GO STAND OUTSIDE" the person reading it will get the impression that you are yelling at them.
• No. 2 - When to use smiley faces. You may have seen variations of smiley faces attached to an e-mail or text message. An example of a smiley face would be :). If you cannot see the smiley face, look at it from the side. The : are the eyes and the ) is the mouth. Bottom line - these are acceptable in personal e-mails, but should not appear in business-related e-mails.
• No. 3 – Punctuation and "internet speak". A common trend in text messaging and e-mail is to use "internet speak". Internet speak has many other nicknames, but basically refers to abbreviations or short forms that are used in place of full words or sentences. For example, "talk to you later" is commonly abbreviated to "ttyl". Like the smiley faces, internet speak should be restricted to personal e-mails.
• No. 4 - Formal e-mails should be treated the same as formal letters. Proper spelling, grammar and punctuation should be used as well as paragraphs and formatting.
• No. 5 – Check before hitting "send". Be sure to check over your e-mails prior to sending them to ensure that they read the way you intend them to read. When speaking with someone you are able to pick up on tones that suggest whether or not the person is joking, angry or being sarcastic. When reading an e-mail, it is not possible to sense the emotion of the author. In some cases, sarcasm or a joke could be taken as anger.

Chain mail

One trend that has been around almost since the beginning of e-mail is the "chain mail". Chain mail refers to e-mails that are passed along to a large number of recipients who then typically forward the message to more recipients.

Rule 4 – rules of chain mail: Below are some tips to keep in mind when dealing with chain e-mails.

• No. 1 – Though popular, chain mail is still a leading cause of viruses on computers. If you have people on your contact list that enjoy sending you chain mail, tt is important that you use some sort of virus/spyware protection.
• No. 2 - Some (ok, many) people do not like chain mail. You may receive an e-mail that you think is the funniest thing you’ve ever read or seen, and feel the need to pass it along to everyone you know. Please keep in mind that not everyone enjoys receiving chain mail. If you’re not sure, it would be a good idea to ask the people on your contact list if they mind receiving chain mail.
• No. 3 – Choose the account carefully. Often times, people will have a personal e-mail address and a business e-mail address. If you absolutely must forward a chain mail message, use the recipient's personal e-mail address whenever possible.
• No. 4 - Keep subject lines in mind. It's common for people to check their e-mail accounts (even personal accounts) at work. As an act of common courtesy, if you know the contents of the e-mail to be inappropriate for a work environment you should include "not work safe" in the subject line so the recipient knows not to open it while at work. Conversely, should you know the content to be safe to open, you may also wish to include "work safe" in the subject line.

Auto responders

Auto responders refer to an automatic e-mail that is send out when you receive an e-mail. These are often used when leaving the office on vacation and you would like to send auto notification to the person e-mailing that you are away. They are also commonly used to notify people that you have received their e-mail.

Rule 5 – common courtesy when using auto responders: Below are some tips to keep in mind when using auto responders.

• No. 1 – If you activate an auto responder, ensure that you enter information. In many cases, people activate auto responders but fail to enter any information. The result is a blank e-mail that goes back to the original sender. This is very annoying as people have to deal with a tremendous amount of junk e-mail as it is. The last thing you would want is for them to add that e-mail to their junk list. It would then cause them to not receive future e-mails from you.
• No. 2 - Some people do not like auto responders. Please keep in mind that although you may think they are a good idea, many people do not like auto responses. It is always a good idea to do a quick survey to find out if your clients are likely to respond positively or negatively to these e-mails.
• No. 3 – Do not use pictures or large graphics in your auto responder. Nothing is worse than having to sit and wait for a message to load a massive picture that is in the background of an e-mail that says "I have received your email".
• No. 4 - If you use an auto responder informing someone that you will be out of the office until a certain date, make sure that you turn it off when you return to the office. It is extremely frustrating when someone sends an e-mail on March 27 and you receive an auto responder that says you will be returning to the office March 24.
• No. 5 - Do not be rude with your auto responder. Believe it or not, in many instances auto responders come across as being rude. Sometimes people are trying to say that they check their e-mail at certain times, but the way they write the response comes across as very rude. Be sure to run your auto responder message by someone else prior to activating it for the world to receive.