Social Media Optimization – Consider the Telegram

At first, the connection between telegrams and social media would seem like a stretch. The use of telegrams hit its peak around 1929, when 20 million were sent in the United States. Moreover, the telegram effectively died in 2006, when Western Union discontinued the service for lack of interest. Nonetheless, there are some useful lessons to be learned when creating viral and social media campaigns as part of your online marketing initiative.

The first lesson? Conserve your space. Telegrams used to charge by the word, so people learned to use elaborate abbreviations (like text message slang) to send messages. Twitter gives you 140 characters. If you’re sending out an announcement, you need to be remarkably concise with your message. For an interesting piece of trivia, see this 1928 piece on telegram writing guidelines, and consider how it relates to shrinking a message into a Tweet.

One space saving method involves shrinking your URLs so they fit into the 140 character space. Most of the time this is done automatically, but there are also services that do it for you. The beauty of embedding links in your messages is that people can always go back for more information if they’ve been hooked by your message, and you can even to track the effectiveness of a campaign by seeing which URLs generated the most traffic and conversions.

Second? Consider the audience. If you have established followers on Twitter or Facebook, they may already understand more about you or your business than a new prospect. You may be able to pepper in a little more industry jargon, or reference industry news that an outsider would not care about. If you’ve got a network of sales reps or affiliates, little “telegrams” on a regular basis can be used to keep people on track, share success stories, and keep people motivated.

Another side of considering your audience involves understanding them as a demographic. People who have smart phones attached to their belts are usually in a particular age group, have a certain income level, and are more oriented toward using technology. As a group, they would respond better to information about new tech trends, phone accessories, calling plans, and so on. If your demographic is tech-phobic and unlikely to change, then exploring the social media world may not get you the results you want.

Third, think of delivery. Telegrams would often get delivered by messengers, teenagers on motorcycles, or cab drivers. You can send Tweets to mobile devices, and Facebook is often updated by Blackberry. This opens up a new window of opportunity beyond emailing your messages. Social media optimization generally involves finding ways to make money by using new channels of communication, so messages should have an immediate call to action. The delivery of messages to certain customer segments (like frequent buyers) works well when it includes a coupon code or special offer. If your business depends on seasonal traffic, you can Tweet them in advance of prime sales dates so they have you in mind. For instance, if you sell summer vacation rentals, you could tweet special offers to repeat customers before they become known to the general public.

One way that social media diverges from the telegram format is in the delivery of bad news. Important information should be announced through official channels, on the phone, or even in person. A Tweet or a Facebook posting with news about a layoff, closure, or impending sale is not going to have much space for any “silver linings” and may convey the wrong image for your company. Negative tweets or micro-blog posts can take on a life of their own, and even become news items.

A final thing to consider when creating a social media strategy, or optimizing your social media, is to keep your ear to the ground. Today’s fad might become the next big thing, or it may get supplanted by a new technology or trends. The social outlet MySpace.com was popular for a certain amount of time but has given way to Facebook. Before you invest heavily in social media, you should build in some flexibility so any method of organizing messaging is “future proof” to the extent that is can be upgraded for new media channels. Even though the telegram took 150 years to disappear, social media trends can go in and out in a matter of months. If you’re chasing the fickle interests of the general public, the last thing you want is to launch an “uncool” social media project that looks like a relic from the past.