The TV show Modern Family is fun and witty, and occasionally there are moments that leave me thinking about life in a new light.  In the episode, Truth Be Told husband and wife Phil and Claire, and Phil’s old girlfriend Denise, learn that vague communication can lead to disaster.

Claire tells Phil that Denise is trying to seduce him. In Denise’s defense, Phil lets his wife read the innocent comments his old fling left on his Facebook page.  In an exaggeratedly sexy voice, Claire reads aloud: “Hey, Phil, how’s it goin’,” and “So glad to hear your neck’s better…”   To disprove his wife, Phil invites Denise to the house, introduces her to the family, and Claire is soon convinced she was wrong.  But when Claire leaves the room, Denise is all over Phil.

“Why are you wussing out?” she asks, chasing him.
“I never wussed IN!” Phil whispers, frantically fighting her off.
“What about all those things you left on Facebook?” and in her over-the-top sexy voice, “How was your day?  My neck is soooo sore…”

Then, Phil asks the pivotal question: “Why do people keep adding voices to these things? I didn’t mean anything by it!”  He’s stumbled into a pitfall of modern communication.

Updates, tweets, texts and emails are sent for people to read and interpret without any way to monitor whether your message came across as you intended.  Depending on your reader’s mood – and what they WANT to hear – you could be talking about apples while they’re hearing oranges.

In fact, a study conducted by Associate Professor of Marketing Justin Kruger and  psychologist Nicholas Epley showed that only 50% of emails are interpreted correctly.

So, the three points to take away:  1) When marketing with the written word – especially in “casual” environments such as Twitter and Facebook – take extra care to be clear with your information, offers, and promises. 2) Since you can’t be there to add a wink, nod or shrug, ask yourself “how could this be read differently?”  And 3) Don’t invite any old flames home to meet your “modern” family.