Even a few years back, very few people would know much about email signatures. But now, over 52% of professionals have their own email signatures. An email signature generally includes the name of the person, name of the organization, role in the organization and postal address. Some people also put in cell phone numbers, land line numbers and skype id.
Conspicuously, links to one’s social media pages are very rarely included in an email signature. Twitter is included more than any other social networking page.In fact, postal address and cell phone number also go missing from email signatures quite often.
The concept of email signature started with Usenet, which is one the oldest computer network communication systems. Usenet required a person’s postal address while sending a message. Therefore people started signing off mails with their postal addresses along with their names.
But Usenet highly discouraged putting any other details into it.
There are some things that one should keep in mind while including an email signature. Firstly, always separate an email signature from the body of the mail by putting it within “-----”. Never include a flimsy URL as a part of your signature.
Besides, think very carefully before you include the links to your facebook or twitter page in your email signature. And if the mail is going to an international crowd, don’t forget to include an international prefix.
An email signature is particularly helpful in differentiating between mails from ‘real’ people, and marketing mails.
