Starting Social Media from Scratch doesn’t mean your company is brand new, the day you start on Facebook, Twitter, etc. If you’ve been in business a while, chances are you have some positive pieces of mail somewhere. Just about every business that has ever touched a person has received either a thank you card, a letter of appreciation, or something from a customer that says that you are a good business. Some businesses frame these, and hang them on a wall, while others bind them up in a book, that potential customers can flip through while they wait. There are other businesses that may do nothing with these acknowledgements, and put them in a filing cabinet or drawer, to be forgotten forever.
When your company first opened, there’s a good chance you took a picture with the first customer or client. Many owners in the past have had the first dollar they received signed and dated. Was there any sort of ribbon cutting event? Did you have a group photo of your first employees? Was your company written up in the newspaper when you opened? It is time to start thinking back, remembering all of your initial press, because you are going to need it.
It’s time to dust these off, and get them ready for your social media. A good scanner is a requirement. You need equipment that will allow you to capture the age and quality of the original material and transfer it into a new digital image file. If the paper is old, if there are fold lines, if there is a small stain, that is not only perfectly okay, it is preferred. You want your copies to look as original as possible. Do not digitally enhance these image files of letters. You need to capture the air of authenticity, so never retype an original letter. Even if the original spelled everything wrong, and looks like it was written in crayon, leave it as is.
After you’ve scanned all of these letters, cards, photos, etc. you need a place to store the images. I strongly recommend using either Flickr or Picasa Web Albums. Each image has a location that is directly linkable, and you can tie these into your site as necessary. You also want to tie them in on your Facebook account. I recommend putting these images in a couple of different places. Facebook is great, but it is always nice to be able to use those images elsewhere, which is why a picture storage tool like Picasa or Flickr is useful.
Now it’s time to make all of these public. On Facebook, create an image folder, named Appreciation. Put them all in there. Invite your fans to tag themselves in your albums. Post links to these on Twitter, with statements like “Check out @yourcompany’s first happy customer, way back in 1975” or “Another @yourcompany happy customer, thanks Bob!”.
No matter how old it is, it's your press, use it. Recycling is always a good idea!
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