Boing Boing Corporate PR

by Jayme Soulati on 11/02/2011 in Planning & Strategy, Public Relations

What a time to be in corporate public relations…can you pick three corporations right now that have been in a boat load of trouble lately? Right alongside these three examples are CEOs at the helm suffering from poor brand image as they take the fall for the team.

>>Avon. CEO Andrea Jung is struggling with recent mismanagement. Stories in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere suggest her leadership is suspect. Forecasts are way off base, the SEC has launched and investigation, and investors are none too pleased.

(Aside: I used to sell Avon; so did my mom. I was my own best customer. I still love many of its products but the line diversified to include Curves fitness products, attire and a teen line. Way too much; unruly, but who asked me?)

>>Netflix. No surprise, right? This company flip flopped its subscribers about DVDs and pricing while opening new markets in the UK at the same time. Who is tired of reading about Reed Hastings’s PR debacle already? Read the link on this; Gini does a fab job of rehashing the entire mess, so no need to reinvent the wheel here.

>>H-P. I was surprised to learn the company would spin off its PC business unit. Without its flagship product line as a source of revenue, how would it meet expectations on Wall Street? Then, after installing Meg Whitman, former e-Bay executive and California gubernatorial candidate, as CEO, the company flip flopped and decided to keep computers in its product suite. H-P cited expense as a deciding factor.

I am certain you have more examples to share of corporate flip flops that unfolded in the public domain.

Now, let’s segue to the corporate boardroom. For sure there is a chief public relations officer who has a seat at these boardroom tables? I mean, right? One would expect serious PR strategy and input into serious corporate decisions that impact investors, analysts, stakeholders, consumers, the media, and more.

Why then are these corporations being “permitted” to make these customer-facing errors as if they weren’t thought through? Is there no PR counsel at the table or is PR not being invited to lend its expertise? Honestly, watching these gaffes unfold and multiplied hundredfold by word-of-mouth marketing makes me wonder.

The H-P debacle is pretty intense. The company just told the world it really didn’t want to devote innovation to its PCs; rather, it would produce subpar product. That’s my takeaway after a spinoff failed. I already have a negative image of H-P’s computers anyway; having them try to get out of that business doesn’t bode well for future sales.

For any business regardless of size, here is the type of PR counsel I provide (as do my colleagues):

>>We are trained in strategy to assess the effect of corporate decisions on markets and external audiences.
>>We know how to create story angles and to which media to pitch them for best light in sticky situations.
>>We contribute to messages developed with each audience in mind, and we draft appropriate communications targeting each.
>>We anticipate the backlash and negative impact of un-vetted business decisions.
>>We develop ongoing strategy to counter market pulse and rebuild damaged brands.

It strikes me that corporate PR, in two out of three of the above examples, is getting the raw end of the stick. Who’s responsible for allowing these very public gaffes; certainly no reputable PR professional would counsel its C-suite to engage in flip flop at the risk of damaging stock, brand, sales, and future growth.

{ 8 Comments }

Strategy for Summer Mompreneurs

by Jayme Soulati on 06/06/2011 in Planning & Strategy

Hello world; I’m a mompreneur in summer. Not a day goes by starting April 1 that mom-owned businesses don’t struggle with June, July and August. It’s called summer in the northern hemisphere, and we who also dual as moms die. That’s right, we die, and don’t tell me you don’t. Let me be equal opportunity and include dads here, too. Dads, you die.

*The kids are off school.

*Camp starts 90 minutes later than the school bus arrives, and ends an hour earlier than after-school programs (-2)

*Taxi service daily required to and from camp and appointments. (-3)

*Bedtime is up for grabs; likely 90 minutes later. (-4.5)

*We may as well just subtract 30 more minutes of quality work time to make it an even five; that’s FIVE HOURS of LOST WORK DAILY IN SUMMER!

    Sorry, I’m screaming; it’s what summer does to me bar none. It’s the biggest lack of routine I’ve ever experienced, and I begin to wish for school about July 1. This year I’m not going to stress out as terribly as I did last year or the year before or the year before that. How will I do that? Not sure, but here are some things I’ve put in place:

    *Hired three people to help pick up the slack in between their kidlets being home for summer and their vacations and their full-time jobs. Heh.

    *Hired the 14-year-old across the street to come 3-days a week from 4:30 to 7 p.m. so I can exercise on the trails and pick up lost work time (that means finding food for the sitter, too, right?).

    *Begun to query moms for play dates in the evenings and perhaps will ask the folks to help out, too.

    *Promised to unplug from social media.  (KIDDING! But, wow, wouldn’t that buy me five hours of time a day, and I’d be back to center?)

      I have no idea how this will work, but it’s a start. What are you doing with your kids this summer when you’re working?

      { 14 Comments }

      Do You F*!@-n Jam?

      by Jenn Whinnem on 05/05/2011 in Business, Planning & Strategy

      Please pardon the borderline-naughty language today! (Hey, notice the byline — it’s NOT Jayme Soulati.)

      One of my exes was a drummer who took the idea of his drumming pretty seriously. He was forever getting the “let’s hang out sometime and jam” from not-as-serious musicians. Privately, these requests outraged him. “I’m a PROFESSIONAL. I don’t f*!@n jam,” he seethed at me after yet another one of these requests.

      Recently my best friend Steph and I decided to borrow this phrase and apply it to requests for free labor.  You know, “Can I pick your brain?” or even “want to be a part of my project (where I’ll end up sticking you with all the work)?”

      “Sorry, I don’t f*!@n jam.”

      Possibly this is an internal response. But slackers and cheapskates be warned: we don’t f*!@n jam.

      Do You Jam?

      Michelle Quillin of New England Multimedia asked recently on FB “How do you handle requests for “free” or “super-reduced price” services with a promise of “future work” and “referrals”?”

      My polite response was: “’thanks but no thanks’ in most cases, “yes” in very special cases.” Of course, what I meant was the above (sing it with me!), “I don’t f*!@n jam.”

      Small businesses need to be careful about jamming. You want to say yes, because saying yes feels good…right until you finish saying it, when it starts to feel terrible. Projects drag on and on. Your ideas are stolen and profited from. The “future work” and “referral” payoff never come.

      Davina Brewer posted how she handles the “jam” request –she lays out some good responses you can actually say aloud. I particularly like step #1 – “tell ‘em it costs money.”

      Gini Dietrich wrote about the true cost of brain-picking here. Her argument is, “…[in]  industries where people sell their brains for a living…Time is how we make our money. We don’t make widgets. We don’t sell products. We don’t manufacture anything. We don’t process anything. Our brains are our products and…every time someone asks us for free help, they’re taking us away from clients or opportunities to make us money.”

      Who’s In Your Band?

      On the other hand, you’ll play music with your band, won’t you? So who’s in your band? For me, I’ll always help out a friend, because my friends rock and give it back to me in spades. If they don’t pay me, they’ll return the favor for sure.

      If I don’t already have a relationship (business or personal) with someone, they aren’t in my band. No jamming.

      So…do you jam?

      Have you jammed? What was the result? How do you handle jamming requests?

      (Image: Flickr Creative Commons by Jonas Bengtsson)

      { 25 Comments }

      Standardize (Don’t Automate) Personal Success Measurement

      by Jayme Soulati on 05/03/2011 in Planning & Strategy, Thinking

      Rebecca A. Denison is a “klutzy, bubbly youngin’ taking on social media and PR measurement.” (Hey, those are NOT my words to describe her!). Today’s post is by an up-and-comer in the public relations profession; a woman I’ve been fully impressed by since I first met her on Twitter. Rebecca blogs over at One True Sentence (link above), and you can see her measurement topics appearing just about everywhere in PR blogs and circles. She’s got some fabulous posts on her blog about measurement, and how perfect is it that she segues from the series on Influence last week. Thanks, Rebecca, for sharing your expertise here; I’m so jazzed!

      REBECCA A. DENISON SAYS:

      Recently, Jayme wrote a great post which included some thought-provoking questions to start measuring your personal social media success (be sure to read the comments, too – tons of wisdom there). She also mentioned Klout as one tool she has used recently to measure her influence online.

      I will be one of the first to jump at the chance to tell you why you should never rely on just one tool (especially an automated one) to measure influence. Influence is too contextual and situational. But that is certainly not my point today.

      Personal success, much like influence, is entirely contextual and situational. This is never truer as when people, brands and companies search for the best ways to use social media. And so like influence, you just can’t automate the measure of personal success. Not with a single metric.

      I joined Twitter in July 2009 when I was still a recent college graduate and searching for my place in this thing they call the workforce. Being a complete nerd, I literally wrote out the goals I had and how I would measure them. At the end of the day, my goal was to find a job, a company, a role that I fit into perfectly. But I was also looking to make a name for myself and share my passion with other nerds like me. I measured things like job offers and interviews, but also how many people referenced me as a thought-leader.

      Everyone will have different goals for their own success in social media, but there will always be direct and indirect methods to show how far you’ve come. And it all starts with your goals. So let’s start there.

      Standardize measurement of your personal success

      1. Write your goals with pen. Goals don’t have to be nitty gritty. Think big picture. At the end of the day, if you were completely happy with your success, what would that mean? Would you have thousands of followers on Twitter? Would you be running a business through social media? Dream!

      2. Define your terms. So let’s say you said you want to be a thought-leader. What does that mean exactly? Does that mean you’re well known? Does it mean your blog posts get read a lot? Maybe you are retweeted a bunch? This is where you get nitty gritty to really understand all the pieces that make up your goals. Think about setting time limits here, too. Do you want to be a thought-leader next week or next year? Give yourself time or even set smaller goals through the next year.

      3. Find direct measures. Go through all of the pieces you defined above, and write down all the direct measures you know of. If you want to be retweeted more by next month, that’s an easy way to track, right? Using a tool like TweetDeck, HootSuite or CoTweet, you can easily find out how many times others share your thoughts. If you think there is a direct measure but don’t know what it is, do a bit of digging or ask around (even ask me). Don’t focus on finding an answer for everything, though!

      4. Brainstorm indirect measures. For those terms that you just can’t find an easy way to measure, this is where you have to get creative. Something important to me was to be a source of expertise in measurement. I used the number of times someone recommended me as a person who might know the answer to track this. Not direct, but it’s close! If you’re a small business owner and want to increase foot traffic but can’t track your customers every hour of every day, try tracking foot traffic during lunch on Thursdays. If you see an increase, you can guess that overall traffic is increasing, and you can probably think up other ways to measure it more accurately, too.

      5. Set yourself up to succeed. Once you have an idea of how you will be measuring, set yourself up to measure properly. If you want something to increase or decrease, make sure you measure a benchmark for comparison later. If you will need to use a tool to help you, sign up now and start tracking even if you won’t need the data yet. Trust me when I say measuring retroactively is much trickier.

      How do you measure your own personal success? Even if you don’t take it too seriously, how do you measure progress?

      { 12 Comments }

      Define Influence with Goals, Trust, Behavior, Motivation

      by Jayme Soulati on 04/28/2011 in Planning & Strategy, Thinking

      This is the fourth post in the What is Influence series. I appreciate and thank our contributors today, Erica Allison, Michelle Quillin and Davina Brewer. Each of them are influential in their own right; they engage with their communities, they blog with aplomb, and they are accessible to anyone who wants to learn from their expertise.

      What’s amazing to me about this series is that one word can conjure (not negatively) so many thoughts from a wide variety of people who blend disciplines in this social media marketing space. Please come back tomorrow when we close the series with Aaron Sachs and Neicole Crepeau who wrap this first phase with more on measurement.

      Again, I appreciate the many comments and tweets about the blog content. I have enjoyed this! (This one is a bit longer than most to squeeze them all in…have edited a tad, Ladies, I hope you don’t mind.)

      Erica Allison is president of Allison Development Group in North Carolina. Her public relations and social media firm is active in fashion, design and other industries. She blogs at Spot On. I had the pleasure of meeting Erica at Social Slam recently!

      I view Influence as a goal, something that I strategically work towards in business and in relationships.  If my suggestions, advice, or identification of information and insight can make someone move from point A to point B or choose one option over another, then I’ve influenced that person or persons.  If my work or writings can cause someone to stop and think, or review their point of view from another perspective, that’s influence.

      I find that the success of one’s influence is directly related to one’s relationship and level of trust between the two parties (or more) in the relationship.  If there is a high level of trust in what one person (the influencer) says or thinks, or in their credibility, based on their accomplishments and real life experiences, then that influencer has tremendous potential to change opinion, inspire action or change, and generally “influence” another.

      In addition to relationships and level of trust and credibility, I think context is a major factor here as well.  In the social media world, Klout is obviously the major measurement tool for influence.  It’s convenient to say Klout doesn’t matter or it’s flawed, but it is a consideration among folks who work in the social media world and to ignore it may in fact result in lost work, lost credibility and lost opportunities.

      For those folks NOT working in social media, and trust me, there are plenty, Klout has no relevance what so ever.  Influence is measured by results, pure and simple.  If you can’t deliver results, your level of influence is called into question.  Understanding your own level of experience, credibility and relationship ‘capital’ is key in understanding your own level of influence.

      Michelle Quillin is co-owner of New England Multimedia. I’ve had the immense pleasure of working with Michelle at The SMB Collective, and she inspired me to produce my first video that shall remain unpublished at this time. She is consummate marketer on Facebook and recently launched a new LinkedIn Group.

      How do you possibly measure influence?

      In the realm of marketing our services via social media, my behavior changes as I “see” patterns of behavior online, including my own behavior. I’m a student of people, of the way we think, of how we engage with brands, of how they engage with us. I pick up on how people (including myself) respond to calls-to-action, even subtle ones, and then I in turn make choices to implement tactics and strategies and test the response. Over time, I’m getting more and more strategic as I see what works. I bet I could’ve learned all of this in school, but maybe not. Maybe it’s all about influence.

      I’m a youth minister (7 years now), working with teens, and let me tell you – they are very, very easily influenced by media and entertainment, and they in turn wield powerful influence among their peers. They don’t even realize its happening. I wonder if we’re the same? Are we all being influenced all the time, even in ways we don’t realize?

      Davina Brewer is owner of 3 Hats Communications with a very spritely blog. She is one of the most prolific commenters I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing, and her opinions are on the leading edge.

      The biggest obstacle to defining and measuring influence in the social arena is qualifying and quantifying motivation. My motivations have been to make real connections that develop my expertise, build my credibility and yes, someday lead to a network and a community of professionals which just may include referrals and money-growing trees. If I found better, more effective and profitable ways to develop my skills, build community and establish credibility, my motivations and therefore the influence would shift.

      That said something by Gini may sway my opinion; she’s got me thinking of Livefyre. Something from someone else, because of a connection and friendship, may pull my attention to a particular blog post, on which I may or may not comment or RT. And someone’s perceived reputation and “Klout” may bias my opinions on someone’s authority and prestige.

      We don’t always argue, debate or disagree with influencers or those in positions to possibly help further our own goals and objectives. Now we certainly are NOT a bunch of kiss-ass sycophants and I love that, I enjoy the intelligent debates and discussions. But I’ll read posts from many a TopNoOneElseCaresBigNumberList and be unimpressed, yet see mostly praise in comments. I’ll follow their tweets that seem pedestrian, downright ordinary.

      I wonder WHY some have the reputation and influence they are reported to. Then I remind myself that they’ve built that reputation and cultivated their community over time, w/ lots and lots of hard work. And that anyone can think the same of me. It’s the WHY that’s the challenge. Things and people only influence us if we let them, right? So what influence I have (which is negative numbers) or who has influence over me gets into WHY I allow that, just not sure charting and graphing tweets and clicks will really reveal that.

       

       

      { 9 Comments }

      Three Influencers on Influence

      by Jayme Soulati on 04/27/2011 in Planning & Strategy, Thinking

      This week we’re talking about Influence. I invited several influencers (for who is the true judge of influence?) to help shed some light on this esoteric topic, and the thoughts are provocative and inspiring. Thanks to yesterday’s contributors Brian Ellis and Rachel Minnihan, and I appreciate today’s thoughts via Ivonne Vazquez, Petya Georgieva, and Shakirah Dawud. The purpose of this series is to provide opportunity for opinions on a theme to be shared.

      Ivonne Vazquez owns VIVA Virtual Assistants, and she is a contributor to The SMB Collective as well as her recently re-launched blog:

      Here is what I think about influence, but particularly, online influence. What social media has allowed us to do, very freely, is to impart information at the click of a button. Imparting information, retweeting an article or paraphrasing what someone else has said is not influence, it is an echo and echo’s fade. Tools capturing the effect of the echo – such as Klout track the amplification or the fading of the echo…but it is not influence.

      Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary defines Influence 1: to affect or alter by indirect or intangible means; 2: to have an effect on the condition or development of…

      Influence in its quiet command and confidence, may empower the influencer with the ability to understand and, by one’s actions persuade or sway others into gaining their own understanding of a situation, cause or topic. Conversely, influence has a dark side.

      Enter perception. Perception and online influence go hand in hand. If one is perceived to be an expert (whether or not it is quantifiable) then you have influence. In the digital world, the intangibleness of influence is directly related to the fact that perceptions can and do change in the blink of an eye.  Be it the posting of a controversial blog topic, a misunderstood tweet, or lack of engagement with one’s followers.

      The measurement of online influence, in my opinion, is akin to a dog chasing its tail. The perception is that the tail is within reach, the reality is you’ll make yourself dizzy chasing after it!

      ****

      Shakirah Dawud is a prolific copywriter at Deliberate Ink and also an editor. She provides further provocation about her thoughts on influence:

      To be influenced is to be inclined to a direction due to an outside force. It ranges from immediate physical force to subliminal redirection over time, and from individual counsel to collective peer pressure. Influence is not easily quantifiable, because of its varying degrees, and because it’s often a combination of many rather than only one.

      In the social media arena, Klout calculates and reports an individual’s interaction or engagement with other individuals. But the influence of those influencers may very well have come through another influencer of that individual’s opinion.

      Klout (wisely) makes no attempt to calculate the degree of influence. Only the people involved know the real dynamic of their relationship, and wise researchers into background would take the numbers from Klout more as a representation of the degree and color of an individual’s presence on social media, rather than his or her power in that arena.

      ****

      Petya Georgieva, is my colleague who blogs from Bulgaria, and she’s highly connected. Here are her thoughts on influence:

      Influence is something very powerful. It can change perceptions and behavior manners of a person or a group of people. But not everybody can be influential. Influential people are special, interesting and different – they have a set of abilities such as trustworthy, authority, knowledge in particular field, competency, even charisma; they are successful and authentic, they curate content and interact actively with other people; they are trend-setters and early-adopters, etc.

      Finding influencers, as Gini Dietrich said, is hard work mainly because it requires time and a lot of digging. Hence, the important part of social media strategies is to listen and detect conversations as well as to spot the most interactive and compelling speakers. Working effectively and efficiently with opinion leaders is a great way to build reputation and to strengthen corporate / personal / organizational image. It’s important to highlight that building influence is an on-going, never-ending process.

      But… Influence isn’t measurable or at least there isn’t one tool that can measure accurately the power of an influencer. I consider it can be defined thanks to different criteria according to every particular situation. For example, polls may be a good way to check out the change in perceptions for a particular period of time. On the other hand, boost of positive conversations about a brand and decrease in the negative comments, thanks to the interaction with opinion leaders, can be also measured as successful influence.

      So most importantly we, as communications specialists, have to define our particular goals, then think how we are going to accomplish them and how networking with influential people in the particular field can support this process. When we finish these three steps, it’s time to define our success indicators, according to how we can measure the effect of positive influence.

      Please share your applause for these insights below! Thanks, All!

       

       

       

       

      { 15 Comments }

      Your Digital Media Mash Up Opportunity

      by Jayme Soulati on 02/17/2011 in Planning & Strategy, Social Media Strategy

      The Washington Post recently announced Trove, a service to allow readers to build customized news sites based on personal interest. The New York Times has News.me, an app culled from Twitter followers’ reads.

      Ongo is a paid service that organizes news by sources selected by subscribers. Paper.li has been out awhile on a smaller, individual reader scale doing much the same – customizing posts and content from RTs and hash tags on Twitter.

      What does this mean?

      • It’s a goldmine for social media, media relations and public relations professionals. Those who have typically pitched vertically into trades may just have more opportunity for stories with customized or specialty content.
      • What does this mean for writers? More of a chance to niche and offer specialized content to one vertical.
      • How about marketers? When the first analytics start coming in they’ll scramble to feed product campaigns to push sales.
      • Advertisers? This may just be what the advertising industry needs to push it into higher profitability.

      We are on the fringe of a huge content mash up; do you see your opportunity on the horizon?

      { 3 Comments }

      Toyota’s Creative Mobile Marketing Prius Campaign

      by Jayme Soulati on 01/11/2011 in Branding, Planning & Strategy, Social Media Strategy

      Toyota Mobile Marketing

      “Prius is expecting; the Toyota family is growing,” states the full-page ad in the Jan. 10, 2011 Wall Street Journal in time for the annual Detroit Auto Show.

      The clever ad asks people to snap an image of the circular icon (to see the sonogram) with instructions inside that say “Snap me” with a mobile phone image and a numerical text address. This is a Snap Tag mobile marketing program by SpyderLynk.

      So, just for kicks, I did what I was told – snapped a photo with my new Blackberry Torch (my first image); texted to these numbers (my first time texting that way), and within seconds I had a response from Toyota “Meet the new additions at http://prius-sonogram.com.”

      • I am marveling at the creativity of Toyota’s interactive digital shop for this campaign.
      • I’m marveling at the opportunities for integrated marketing and public relations to launch this campaign both traditionally and via online engagement marketing (my preferred vernacular for social media).
      • I’m marveling about everything I don’t know and how much there is to learn.

      Apparently, I’m in good company.

      “Kids Lend a Digital Hand” in the same edition of the Wall Street Journal is about advertising agencies coming up dry with new interactive talent they can acquire in the market. They’re turning to kids – preteens and students to “get up to Internet speed!” Wow…I don’t feel like a numbskull any more.

      The story states, “Ad and marketing agencies are under enormous pressure to reinvent themselves as technology multiplies the ways to market to consumers, from placing ads on Twitter to creating a branded application that people can find on Apple’s app store.”

      Continuing with a tired and true statement, companies that went under the gauntlet to shave expenses eliminated training programs. The big agencies, ala JWT North America from the story, are now racing to fill the intellectual pipeline for its ranks. Everyone needs to get up to speed three months ago on how to do online engagement marketing, mobile applications, location-based marketing services, and so much more (forget about Twitter and Facebook; they’re old hat!).

      Here are my takeaways from this post:

      • No one knows it all; everyone can learn every day what’s new and next.
      • Innovation and creativity drive business development.
      • Never assume those you work with know how to execute.
      • The pace is fast and furious; even the online courses and traditional college degree curricula cannot educate people as fast as the market continues to explode.
      • Integrated marketing is the future. It’s going to take a highly integrated team to impress the big corporations – that means public relations must continue to re-invent and ignore the age-old discussions about who owns social media and how traditional media no longer brings the opportunities it once did.

      It’s been a new day for about five years; carpe diem!

      { 4 Comments }

      Frito-Lay Sun Chips Social Media Biodegradable Bag Fail

      by Jayme Soulati on 10/07/2010 in Planning & Strategy, Public Relations, Social Media Strategy

      (Frito-lay/Associated Press/Washington Post)

      My first reaction after purchasing Sun Chips in its new, snazzy biodegradable packaging (because I recycle EVERYTHING) upon trying to open it was “dang, that’s noisy!”

      Lo, Frito-Lay, owned by PepsiCo Inc. and maker of Sun Chips, has pulled its snazzy biodegradable packaging from shelves (available since January) wasting exorbitant amounts of money in so doing because it failed at consumer test marketing (IMHO).

      I’m amazed companies the likes of Pampers with its Dry-Max debacle I wrote about here and now Sun Chips have launched products (after cycling through the usual market research, focus groups, product development et al I assume) only to pull them or engage in defensive posturing due to consumer outcry AFTER the fact.

      How could Sun Chips not know that bag was noisy? Have you ever heard it?

      Tumbling sales and consumer-created videos on social media sites contributed to the decision by these corporate giants to return five of the six flavors back to non-compostable packaging. So much for saving the environment from potato chip bags, eh?

      Here’s the fail – because social media is at the fingertips of all consumers and corporations if they regard it as more than a passing fad, all Sun Chips would’ve had to do was the following:

      • During market research, it would’ve been simple and inexpensive to produce and launch a YouTube video asking for a nation-wide vote about which bag consumers prefer – the current (non-noisy) bag or the new, biodegradable (noisy) bag. I can assure you, Frito-Lay, that video would’ve garnered tremendous word-of-mouth attention and off we go to the races.
      • On your lame attempt at a Facebook page  where one consumer calls the new Sun Chips bags “great idea, freakishly loud,” you could’ve asked for votes on which bag is preferred and then point to the YouTube video to secure hits there, too.
      • On Twitter (are you @Fritolay or @Frito-Lay?) with your confusing identity with the same avatar where one of you currently apologizes for the noisy bag and asks for another chance, you could’ve launched a campaign to engage the tier-one social media pros to ask for a Twitter strategy (because obviously your in-house public relations department or unsavvy agency did not help you in this regard).

      Well, hindsight is always 20-20, right? And, no one asked me, so I’ll just keep my 26-years-in-public-relations-counsel to myself.

      { 21 Comments }

      Should We SMB Facebook?

      by Jayme Soulati on 09/14/2010 in Business, Planning & Strategy

      Twitter offers lovely surprises when you least expect it. I had no idea I’d banter intelligently with Neicole Crepeau (@neicolec) and invite her to a phone chat which resulted in both of us describing ourselves as SMBs frustrated with the health care reform situation. Nicole runs Coherent Interactive  and blogs on social media here.

      My initial thrust in reaching out to Neicole was oriented to “what can we do as bloggers” to fight back?

      Neicole, idea person that she is, suggested a Facebook page. That put the wheels in high gear. I’ve been avoiding starting a Facebook page for Soulati Media, Inc. because the Web site is still not where it needs to be (my designer is in la la land and not responding), and my blog pages need to be built with informed content. Why open yet another channel when my house is not in order?

      Rather than Facebook about me and be so repetitive and boring, Neicole and I briefly addressed a Facebook fan page for small business owners struggling with high emotion about taxes, insurance, finance, and all other issues that form the backbone of our businesses.

      Several years ago, I registered a domain name that would address the administrative inside of a business; the site would be a plethora of resources for all SMBs to tap and enable a smooth sail for these issues that plague us. My dream is still a dream, but this Facebook page is more a reality and easier implemented, too.

      Here’s the invite…

      We’re seeking SMBs (that’s small-to-medium businesses) to join us on this venture. Our aim is to create a forum for us in business to voice our concerns, share tales, and lend support to our peer groups. The role of those who engage would be to add links, content, comments and encouragement to anyone stopping by.

      There’s no monetary gain here unless you get a lead from a prospect eager to engage in our conversation. The commitment is one of intellectual stimulation, some time, and the ability to freely say “I’m ticked off that SMBs continue to be gouged for more taxes, higher premiums, and more accounting demands…etc.”

      As Neicole and I run successful ventures that keep us hopping (see above), we’re eager to find like-minded folks to launch this yet-to-be-named forum.

      If you deem this cause and our mission agreeable, please join in. Just a note below is all we need to engage. If you think the Small Business Forum worthy and you’d participate, please also give me a nod here.

      From the pod of a seed, big ideas come and a community is generated.

      { 16 Comments }