If you would indulge us for a moment, I’d like to say a few brief words to mourn the global loss of one of the most enduring rituals involving long-distance communications: that of opening a telegram.

The Christian Science Monitor reported last week that sometime on July 14, 2013, India’s last telegram will be delivered. After that, the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), India’s state-owned telecommunications company, will shutter the service, citing significant annual losses in revenue.

As a social media agency, we generally don’t tend to send telegrams. I actually can’t even remember the last time I sent a telegram, if at all. I can’t remember if I’ve ever even received a telegram. When I was growing up in the Philippines, big, life-altering events would happen around me — coups d’etat, the whole People Power Revolution thing in 1986, earthquakes, my dad’s death — and in that pre-web era, urgent news would still be delivered either by phone (we were the only apartment with a phone in our block) or actual messenger. Telegrams were around, but people just didn’t use them.

However, we were all aware of their existence, and even those of us who never received nor sent them still romanticized them. How could you not? That’s how Hollywood conveyed urgent news in the movies, after all. Death, wars, declarations of love, natural disasters, elopements — a lot of these big moments in the movies were announced by telegram. These often preceded fainting spells, explosions of joy, sudden tears, and even reckless apartment-trashing. Remember that critical scene in Breakfast at Tiffany’s when Holly (played so memorably by Audrey Hepburn) learns of her brother’s death in a jeep accident? Few people could trash an apartment as elegantly as Ms. Hepburn, and then we all find out why when her concerned neighbor Paul (George Peppard) reads that somber telegram.

Telegrams had a language of their own, much like Twitter. Whereas brevity on Twitter is dictated by that network’s character limits, telegrams were charged by the word, so senders would be economical in their messages for a reason.  Tweets are stuffed with abbreviations and symbols, the better to convey so much in so little space: #breakfast @TiffanyAndCo anyone? Telegrams were often no less cryptic, and their power — unlike today’s ephemeral tweets and posts — could linger in the air like gunpowder smoke. People held it against their chest, sometimes overcome with emotion. They kept it in memory boxes and hope chests, tucked in jacket pockets through war and revolution, and neatly folded in Bibles. I”m sure there are plenty of yellowed, crumbling telegrams still carefully stashed in attics and basements across America, many of them marked Western Union (which, by the way, ceased telegraph services in 2006 and now almost exclusively offers only money transfer services).

Telegram fans will note that, contrary to what the Christian Science Monitor is reporting, July 14th won’t actually signal the very last telegram sent or received in India, let alone the world (as also reported by the Monitor and many other news outlets). ITelegram, which spun off Western Union, surprisingly still offers actual telegram services in numerous countries — including the United States — and plans to pick up right where BSNL drops off in July.

Still, there’s good reason to mourn the death of the telegram in India. Telegrams served as an essential tool of communications for the British Empire. Its very vastness across continents around the world necessitated the use of quick and inexpensive means of message delivery, and India’s busy telegraph system is a very visible example of that legacy. (Fans of the movie Lawrence of Arabia will remember the scene near the beginning of the movie, when Lawrence, bored out of his mind making maps in the Cairo office of the British Army, receives the telegram that will change his life and the course of the war in the desert.) The demise of the Indian telegraph system may be just around the corner, but about 5,000 are still sent every single day on that subcontinent.

It’s only a matter of time that telegrams will disappear entirely, and the very last one sent will again be marked with mournful obituaries and eulogies (assuming that newspapers are still around then). The last telegram BSNL sends may only mark the death of that company’s service, but soon the only telegrams left in the world will be those gathering dust in albums and boxes, iTelegram’s optimism notwithstanding. It will be a very sad day indeed.

STOP.

Photo by Anna L. Conti on Flickr.

You’ve been so diligent. You promote your latest blog post on Facebook. You share it with all of your friends. You even add those snazzy “social share” links on each post to nudge-nudge-hint-hint your readers to promote it to their own networks.

And yet you still can’t get anyone to “like” your content. What gives?

As a social media agency that specializes in working with small businesses and nonprofits, that’s one of the most common questions we get asked. The short answer, of course, is simply, “Create great content!” But obviously that’s terribly unhelpful, and sometimes patently false. Even I know plenty of amazing writers and bloggers who post gripping content on their websites and promote them on Facebook…only to see that content disappear pretty darn quickly into the vacuum that is the web.

So how can you get your fans to “like” your content and share them with friends?

What we’ve found is that a lot of businesses — of all sizes, not just the small ones — overlook some basic steps in posting and promoting their content. Try these tips to help you overcome some of that “invisibility” and get your content in front of more people outside of your network:

1. Promote it on your personal accounts. In my admittedly unscientific observations, this is probably the most neglected step. Most businesses publish content to their blog and then promote it on their company’s brand page on Facebook. However, the business owners, managers, and workers themselves often don’t share them on their personal networks. Even if you use your personal Facebook account purely for connecting with family and friends, consider promoting the content on your LinkedIn profile, Twitter feed, and Google+ (if you have it) accounts. 
2. Encourage employees to promote it on their accounts. This always stumps me as a social media strategist when we work with clients who neglect to promote their content with their own staff. Turn them into brand ambassadors by making sure that your staff subscribe to your blog via email so that they’re always notified when a new post is published. Encourage them to promote it on their LinkedIn profiles, Facebook networks, and Twitter feed. Again, if they only use Facebook for personal reasons, that’s fine, but LinkedIn is a great place to share business content. It also benefits them by giving their personal LinkedIn accounts more visibility as a result of all that fresh, new content regularly added to their profiles.
3. Personalize the shares and the asks. Maybe you run a vintage clothing store and you just published a post about how to tell the difference between a fake Gucci handbag and a real one. Not only should you promote it on all of your social networks, but consider sharing it in a personal message to a few people who you think would find it interesting and informative — say, your friend’s fashionista niece or even the editor of your local newspaper’s Style blog. The message doesn’t have to be long. A simple note along the lines of, “I know you love vintage purses and thought you’d find this interesting” should suffice.
4. Always, always, always include pictures. Studies have shown that Facebook content with photos are shared 53% more often than those without. Be sure that when you promote the post on your social networks, the photos are included with the links. Unfortunately, a limitation with many third-party applications that “automagically” promote your content across your social networks is that they often don’t include the featured image. If that’s the case, either find an app that does or just manually promote it with the pic. It’s more effort, but worth it in the long run.
5. Oh, and create shareable content. You can’t skip this step. This means well-written and well-organized content that gets people to read it all the way to the end. Forget the rules about the number of words you should have for SEO, or how many keywords you should weave into each paragraph. Focus on creating content with information that your audience is craving and will find useful. Do you run a doggy daycare? Publish content about the latest training methods, dog accessories, and even book reviews. Operate a hair salon? Review tools and beauty products, offer tips on the best way to cut bangs, and publish videos. Manage a nonprofit that helps veterans find jobs? Publish videos with interviews of the veterans you’ve successfully helped; offer tips on resume writing geared specifically for vets; post jobs; and profile companies that are especially vet-friendly.

Do you get a lot of likes on your social media content? Care to share some tips that have worked for your company? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

It happens to the best of us, and the bigger the company or organization, the more likely and more frequently negative comments will show up on its social media feeds. Celebrities and other public figures find out very quickly that “haters” and criticism are part and parcel of fame and visibility, and companies are no different.

So what do you do when you find a negative comment on your Facebook page or Twitter feed? Suppose your company sells skateboards and all the accessories and clothing that go along with the sport. One morning, you wake up and find that a disgruntled customer has taken to Twitter to complain about the poor quality of one of your products. Assuming that it’s not a competitor engaging in public sabotage, there are a few things you shouldn’t do when dealing with negative comments on social media:

• Don’t lash back. Depending on the severity or intensity of the criticism, it can be very tempting to fight back, either by hurling insults or otherwise maligning the other person. Just don’t do it. Don’t even do it “privately,” i.e., via Direct Message on Twitter or Private Message via Facebook. Don’t even do it via email (assuming you know this person’s email address.) Most of the time, it only exacerbates the problem and makes the business look petty and the very opposite of “customer-oriented.” Even if you think that your product is the best in the world and you have reams of customer testimonials to prove it, don’t damage your credibility by engaging in a fight with a customer. Take the high road, focus on the criticism and not the critic, and figure out how you can turn the situation around and turn that customer’s experience from a negative into a positive.
• Don’t try and delete or “mark as spam” or otherwise try and censor the criticism. Assuming that the person’s criticism doesn’t contain hateful, libelous, racist, sexist, abusive, or otherwise offensive language, it’s rarely a good idea to “make it go away” by deleting the comment on Facebook. Companies have gotten into trouble by removing negative comments, thinking that they’re doing “PR damage control,” but considering how fast social media and online communications in general moves, it almost never works, nor is the censorship ever fast enough that someone, somewhere, didn’t see it and already commented on it, either on the page itself or on their own social accounts. Remember: every company has its detractors. No company can satisfy everyone. Even one of the biggest social media stars on the planet — Starbucks — has plenty of Negative Nellies. A brand Facebook page with zero negative comments looks awfully suspicious to today’s social media-savvy consumers. What’s important is not the negative comment itself but how a company responds to it. Respond well, focusing on the customer and how to turn that negative experience into a positive one, and you just might win more fans, not lose them.
• Don’t ignore them. The opposite and yet also inappropriate response is to, well, offer no response. Some companies do this, thinking that if they ignore the comment it will simply “go away” or quickly be forgotten. Chances are, no. The original commenter will certainly notice that she never received a response and now has even more reason to criticize you, and others will likely see it when they visit your page and check out your content as well. Ignoring comments only makes companies appear as if they don’t care about their customers, and certainly not enough to even address a customer concern.

So what should you do when you find yourself dealing with negative feedback about your company and/or its products and services on social media?

• Respond immediately. Don’t form a committee or call four different managers to figure out how to respond. (If that’s the way things are done in your company, you  need to rethink that policy.) People unhappy with a company take to social media with their complaints partly because they want an audience for those complaints, and partly because they want an answer now. Respond as soon as possible (certainly no more than 24 hours) to the complaint to assure your followers and fans that your “stellar customer service” isn’t just boilerplate marketing copy but a real value your company takes seriously.
• Stay calm, and focus on the criticism, not the customer. Does the customer have a valid critique? Did they have a negative customer service experience? Did they receive a defective product? Did they simply not like your product, or did it not work for them? Regardless of the tone that the commenter uses to express her dissatisfaction, the point is that they’re not happy, and they’re telling you they’re not happy. In other words, they’re giving you the opportunity to respond. Step up to the plate and say those magic words that always help soothe even the most furious customer: I’m sorry and Thank you. These words let the commenter know that (a) you care about their concern, and (b) you appreciate their business and the opportunity to serve them. 
• Respond privately, if appropriate. Sometimes, it’s better to reach out to the commenter via a private message, especially if you’re going to give out a direct number or email address. This lets them know that you’re taking the complaint seriously and are committed to addressing it to the customer’s satisfaction. Don’t forget to post a public reply to the original comment letting them know that you’re contacting them via private message so that your audience knows that you’re taking action on the comment and not simply ignoring it.

How have you dealt with negative comments on your company’s social media accounts? Do you have specific policies in place to address them? Please share in the comments below.

Photo by quinn.anya on Flickr.