Pinterest First Impression

by Jayme Soulati on 02/01/2012 in Branding, Social Media

I hem and haw all the way to a new channel; everyone knows that about me. I let the leaders be first movers, ahem, Gini, and I watch and read as they navigate uncharted waters and inform us all. Why not? They’re the leaders! Heh.

And, so, I asked for and received my Pinterest invitation, thank you, Gini, and hopped on. As with anything new, it takes a bit of concentration (no multi-tasking, Kaarina) to figure out. In fact, I read the help questions which I think are helpful (fancy that).

So, here’s the first impression, guys:

Run, do not pass go, do not collect $400 (inflation), and ask for your invite right now (ask me now) to jump onto Pinterest immediately. Can you say addiction? Can you say stairway to heaven? Oy;  we who are engaged are done; turn me over and bake the other side.

 

Why you ask?

>>Visual-ness — the most appealing sensory

>>Personalization with high-level creativity

>>Engagement less serious and more fun

>>Provokes thought and (did I already say this) creativity

From a business perspective:

>>A board (what you create to pin images on) can be about your clients. You can promote clients’ products and services with the images from their websites, etc.  (Companies have a harder time promoting themselves, as you’ve read, but an agency (hands down) will have no problem. I have not researched disclosure yet; Gini, do you know?

>>Blog fodder is amazing. If you want ideas for your features on your blog, have at it. Ubiquitous . Limitless.

>>Business development in a highly creative way. Let’s pick on the Gin Blossom once more here…if you read her profile on Pinterest, you’ll find she’s an avid biker and foodie. When you look at her boards, you see the foods she wants to make in the future. If I were a restaurant and she was a celebrity chef (she is , actually, just find her Tumblr blog), I’d invite her, via an agent of course, to make an appearance in my establishment and prepare a meal under the bright lights of cameras and video, etc. etc.

For me, I took some time understanding how people were using this. But, I won’t do that again, as there doesn’t seem to be a method. As soon as I pushed my first pin, someone I didn’t know re-pinned and another wrote a note. I had to determine access points to respond, and then I continued to complete my first board, “Gems, Gems and More Colored Gems.”  I bet no one knows I want to be a gemologist in the next iteration of moi. I feed my yearning with world travels to gem locales and wheel and deal for another to add to my collection (at least I used to prior to becoming a mom).  Pinterest allows people to see that very personal side of others based on the boards with pinned images. If someone is highly private, then stop on go. Pinterest is NOT for you.

So, ask me for an invite; you will not be disappointed.

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2011 Social Media PR Woman Of The Year

by Jayme Soulati on 01/04/2012 in Public Relations, Social Media

So, I’m a few days late with this post, but it’s gonna be a goody, and you’ll be happy you read along to the bottom; promise.

I sat across the table from Gini Dietrich in Chicago just before Christmas at the Southport Grocery (you can eat there, too, with blue-eyed waiters to flirt with), and the poor dear had all she could do to get out of her chair to jog down and keep our meeting.  (She’d been on the go for about three weeks in December speaking on a killer circuit while tweeting, blogging and FB’ing in sync with the jet engine reverberations.)

Then we hit the streets to find a bench to do Gini’s first guest video post (with moi, ahem) which we had to repeat and giggle through. It was after that that I knew Gini was a special someone I loved to be with (and so, too, does everyone else), and I wanted to gift her with a little something in return.

Gini Dietrich is the 2011 Social Media, PR Woman of the Year. (Normally, I’d stop there with a #RockHot and #ThatIsAll, but this time I’ll share why. Oooh, it feels good to blog again after two weeks off.)

>>No one keeps a schedule like she does, and no one has the pulse of PR and social media CONSISTENTLY.

>>She is a mentor to the young PR peeps up and coming, and she works hard to network and land everyone a job.

>>She’ll take time to listen to a business problem and offer solutions and tips to get you out of the trench.

>>She is the author of a new book with Geoff Livingston, called Marketing In The Round, set to publish in spring, and you can pre-order just as I did on Amazon by clicking the link here.

>>She is always accessible with banter, friendly commentary, snark, and giggles.

>>She caters to public relations and social media peeps with content oriented to tools, techniques, and training.

>>Her smile, personality, humor, and love for dogs and bikes know no boundaries, and her energy is ebullient and effervescent (oh, that’s so smarmy, but true!).

>>She gives gifts every Friday; read these posts here and here, for her popular Follow Friday series.

>>She is committed to the cause – changing the perception of public relations and encouraging practitioners to become more marketing-esque with knowledge of financials, business, analytics, and more.

>>She is the consummate social media leader for all things new including channels, gadgets, and tools. She throws the punches where they need to land, and stands tall to take the heat when it comes.

>>She is an A-lister, dammit, and she’ll deny this forcefully…but when her blog, Spin Sucks, sits in the top 35 spot on Ad Age Power 100 for months, and the peeps ahead of her are blogging communities, then why the heck can’t I call her an A-lister? I wonder if that’s a negative…? She’s a leader, and Spin Sucks Pro (her paid platform) is soon to launch for real; she’s taken content marketing to revenue-generation mode (something few have done successfully).

What other reasons besides these can anyone share? I’m sold; hope you are, too!

Love ya, Gin Blossom! I’m a proud twinster!

 

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Facebook School, Guy Kawasaki and Selfishness

by Jayme Soulati on 10/10/2011 in Social Media, Thinking

This is a story about the icon who was Steve Jobs, but it really isn’t. Rather, it’s an observation about two very different reactions by people I don’t know which prompted two very different reactions in me.

I am enrolled in Facebook school via Social Media Examiner Facebook Success Summit 2011 which launched October 5 via live webinar broadcast world-wide to some 1800 attendees. Ten minutes before the kickoff presentation to be given by Guy Kawasaki, Apple announced Steve Jobs had died. Guy is the former chief evangelist at Apple, the founder of Alltop, and an esteemed author and respected business and social media pro.

Michael Stelzner, president of Social Media Examiner, announced via email that Guy would alter his presentation and instead share a personal tribute about a very personal friend who had graced the world with such amazing talent and influence.

I listened to Guy at the top of his presentation not knowing what to expect. The email confused me as I’m not privy about peoples’ professional backgrounds, relationships, or true measure of influence unless I tune in consistently to them.

Guy was breathless and absolutely distraught. His mobile device was ringing off the hook (on vibrate); people wanted to reach out and express sympathy. Finally, he had to turn it off to concentrate on his live delivery and his in-the-moment-significant-real-time story about his close friend, Steve Jobs.

The significance of this moment wasn’t lost on me, but it didn’t carry that much weight until two days later when I read a question posed by a woman in the Facebook Summit LinkedIn group who asked, “Was anyone else upset that the first session was changed without notice?”

REALLY?!

The passing of Steve Jobs is akin to the passing of Princess Diana, Michael Jackson, or JFK Junior. This woman had the audacity to ignore the impact of this historical moment by sharing it with someone experiencing true and real-time feelings ad lib. Because of this woman’s shortsightedness and posting of a selfish question, the significance of what I witnessed in Guy’s on-the-spot tribute became more critical to me.

I have not gone to follow the thread on LinkedIn; nor do I want to. Perhaps this woman is not an Apple consumer; perhaps she lives in a country other than the U.S. No matter; if Michael Stelzner thought the passing of Steve Jobs that important to segue his kick-off presentation then the students attending should’ve relished that experience, too.

This is kind of a strange post to share, but I just had to get this off my chest; it still dumbfounds me.

 

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Is #FollowFriday Still Cool, Twitter?

by Jayme Soulati on 09/16/2011 in Social Media

This week I read a blog post by Bill Dorman who is lamenting the turn of events in social media – the “no one’s home, but the lights are on” syndrome many of us are feeling. In that same breath, he asked, “Why isn’t #Follow Friday cool anymore?”

Is it? Is the previously popular Twitter weekly hashtag, #FollowFriday or #FF, during which peeps list all their faves so others know whom to follow, now passé?

What’s your take? Here’s mine…

** I welcome and appreciate all #FollowFriday tweets; in fact, it’s darn nice to be acknowledged by someone who takes their time to put a list together and include me. Mark C. Robins is one of the most thoughtful and never misses a Friday. I am in awe of this because people are just not doing it any longer. (Mark is with  Lawyer Locate in Canada.)

** Twitter has changed forever. I lament the Twitter of yore. While I wasn’t an early adopter in 2008, I did jump on in early 2009 and was hooked…for life (we’ll see). There were rainy Fridays (kinda like today) that I watched the tweets roll in and interacted all over the world. No longer.

** My Twitter stream is laden with links. That’s why I’m trying not to add links to that many tweets any more. I want to keep my tweets authentic and humanistic. Because you ought not to RT a tweet with a link unless you open it to verify, I have changed my RT patterns, too.

** Back to #FF, as I just digressed…I hasten a guess that relationships on Twitter are more superficial than before? Do peeps take the time they used to to develop in-depth friendships as before? I’m saying no, and this contributes to the lack of recommendations.

** What about time? If your time is as limited as mine, then this is the biggest culprit.

** How about channel overload? G+, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tumblr blogs, your blog, Foursquare, Yelp…OMG! We are at the peak of sensory overload! Our cups runneth over! How can we develop new relationships the way we used to via social media enough to #FF?

** Like any trend, the newness wears off, and the “abuse” (I use this lightly) of #FF caused a bit of negativity. When the bots rolled in and started to add lists of peeps haphazardly with #FF, that’s when we became suspect of #FF recommendations from peeps we didn’t know. Shall we blame it on the bots?

So, finally, Bill, #FollowFriday is still VERY cool when:

1. It comes from a genuine and authentic place – your heart.

2. It recognizes someone for a job well done, gratitude, an impact, an influence, and more.

3. You want to bring a smile to someone’s face who needs a lift.

4. You want to be a coolio friend who recognizes someone else’s accomplishments.

5. You want to plain old #RocksHot.

So, I’m gonna just #FF this entire community right here…you guys do #RockHot. THANKS!

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Power Blogger Bullies Baby Blogger, Threatens Lawsuit

by Jayme Soulati on 08/08/2011 in Blogging 101, Social Media

A baby blogger in my peer group (we’re young) has been writing incredibly investigative and analytical posts about in-depth topics many of us wouldn’t take time to write. I’ve been noticing and marveling over the time and thought she’s puts into her content. She’s also become a guest author on a regular basis for several Ad Age Power Bloggers the likes of Danny Brown and Mark Schaefer.

And, that is exactly with whom she had a run in this week — a power blogger (not Danny or Mark); a run in that is akin to a cyber blogger bullying experience.

This woman wrote an article about the use of back links to drive traffic to websites via affiliate marketing. Apparently, there’s something of a black social media market for +1, links, SEO and key-word rich posts, and the like.

What ensued on her post in comments was an outright negative attack by this power blogger who demanded the blog post be retracted, threatened to sue her for libel and refused to calmly review the issue. Following this incident, the said power blogger was tooting his horn on Twitter saying he’d successfully corralled and shut down another “hater.”

Imagine that. An Ad Age Power Blogger took the bull by the horns and called out this baby blogger with no phone call, respect or attempt to understand the facts and the reality.  The power blogger’s brand remained intact with another notch on his belt while the baby blogger’s psyche and brand are in need of repair. And, the communications strategy to manage her response has been ongoing throughout the weekend; I know because she and I have been in continuous conversation about appropriate messaging and the strength of the story she needs to tell as a follow-up.

This situation makes me sad — there are so many of us who don’t know the ins and outs of every aspect of blogging — there is a back end that needs coding, there are tools and apps to drive traffic and interactivity, and link building and affiliate marketing have a key place in driving success, too. We who are innocently learning the ropes and bringing authentic content to the forefront are suffering from the likes of egocentric individuals who elect to use bullying tactics and the threat of a lawsuit instead of coherent conversation.

I applaud Neiclole Crepeau for her steadfastness in this matter, and she’s aware it’s been a learning experience. She admits she could’ve chosen a word or two differently, and she has sought counsel to determine how best to proceed. At the same time, she is smarting from the experience, and yet, she’s done absolutely nothing wrong; she has corroborated this. While I will not name names in the event that this dude gets his underwear further in a bundle, I will share that his blog rhymes with “sloppyfrogger.”

As we experience the tipping point in social media where automation is devouring authenticity, those of us still developing and delivering authentic content in small communities should open our eyes widely that something as innocent as blogging can be fraught with landmines. This situation is a good reminder that words are not innocent; they can be taken differently by whomever is reading.

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Is Twitter Broken?

by Jayme Soulati on 07/13/2011 in Social Media

The future of Twitter is anyone’s guess, and you can imagine I have some opinions on that (who, moi?). I mentioned recently, something’s afoot in social media land and I couldn’t quite tap a crystalline here’s-what’s-wrong answer.

I think I’m getting closer.

Since Triberr hit the landscape, and I’ve seen everyone in my social media circle (hi, Google+) run to adopt, my stream is, ahem, littered, or shall we say cluttered, with Triberr short url links to everyone’s blog posts. In fact, in my list of favorite peeps, there’s nary an original 140 without a link to Triberr. OK, maybe not ever, just frequently. (This is NOT bad; it’s an observation that’s bothering me a tad.)

Back in the day when I launched Twitter 2 ½ years ago, it was absolutely a channel to create community and engage authentically. In fact, to Mark W. Schaefer I owe much of my community growth as we began the same time, and his blog {grow} was our (community) home base.

In the last many weeks, I’ve noticed a change in my Twitter stream content. (Have you in yours?)

* There is less original thought to anything without a link attached.

* Followers who are real people are fewer and far in between; there’s a plateau and brick wall obstacle in the speed with which you can create a genuine community.

* There are more spammers sifting through the cracks and sending DMs with links from my trusted peeps. I opened a few of those just this week several times; clever, too: “Jayme, is this you in this video?” I fell for that.

* I have often promoted Twitter to my clients as the hub from which links stem and drive traffic to blogs, landing pages and websites. This is still sound strategy, but it’s becoming more of a challenge to get peeps to open links.

* This is where community building comes in, STILL. To build a community, you need to be a trust agent. To be a trust agent, you need authentic content, to develop authentic content, you need to be original and not spammy. To be successful you need to cut through the clutter of automation and keep the real you  you.

I’d love to get your opinion on this; who else is seeing this something happening with Twitter? (And, OK, Twitter is NOT broken, necessarily, it’s evolving to a new level for the masses; it’s the post-engage phase where ROI takes over.)

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Run to Google+ to Engage!

by Jayme Soulati on 07/11/2011 in Branding, Social Media

I would be remiss if I did not share my thoughts about Google+ after a weekend of playing. Here’s the upshot…RUN to Google+ and reserve your profile and nickname before others, especially if your name is common or there are duplicate names to yours.

The site is intuitive, addictive, fast, and organized. My network is not just being built from Twitter and Facebook, thank goodness, it’s coming alive with people I don’t even know.

* And, that’s what’s cool. Google+ is organized in circles. You can put peeps into a circle of friends, social media types, PR, family, following, or any other category you create and name. I found that I have pretty much three circles only; not sure I need to skew them deeper than that. If I did, it would be a simple click with a really cool interface to make it happen.

*As for content, I’m a bit unsure about posts up there. The weekend was full of banter; ahem, Ms. Dietrich was scamming the poor system in search of “free beer.”  I think she found it.

*What people are saying, and I fully agree, is they don’t want to see content being cross-posted from Twitter and Facebook. Because so many of us are connected on all channels right now, the cross pollination of content and repetitiveness would become  unruly. This remains to be seen…how folks will elect to share.

* The jury is still out how to best use this channel. What I’m hoping for is a more professional channel of business folks that would create a hotbed of learning, testing, and challenging/useful content. Again, if you follow those types of peeps and organize others into circles, that is highly likely to happen.

* Here’s one critical tip — secure your nickname. Here’s the link and it appears like this when you’re done http://gplus.to/jaymesoulati In box one, type in the name you’d like to use to identify yourself. In box two, copy and paste just the numbers from your current Google+ account (found in the url in your browser). Click “add” and voila. You can use this to identify yourself rather than a cumbersome set of numbers and unwieldy url.

* When people  you don’t know add you to their circles, add them, too. In this beta phase, all peeps should be safe (not spammers yet unless her name is cough, Gini, cough).

* Re analytics, there’s a lot of banter about whether this channel will help drive blog traffic. Why wouldn’t it? I already had an alert for my profile here; I know that Google, being the search engine it is, is going to be monitoring traffic inside and pushing attention to the outside.

* One thing that is slightly disturbing to me, though, is the amount of data being transmitted via Gmail, to Crackberry and to iPad2, plus other mobile devices. Think about it…how will we keep data plan charges down when the mobile providers are all going to fee for usage plans? Anyone else have a thought on this? I got the idea after seeing the huge spike in Gmail traffic to my iPad and Blackbery; that’s a bit worrisome.

What’s your first impression, folks?

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Google+ Will Social Media Fall?

by Jayme Soulati on 07/06/2011 in Social Media

This post first appeared July 16, 2010, and what prompted me to head back through the archives to find it again was this post by Antonia Harler about Google — A Successful Road to  Failure. She shares all the write ups about Google + that we all have seen. And, she hit on what I suggested a year ago — no one has more time to develop yet another social network, do we? (Thanks, @GiniDietrich, for the link there.)

See if this resonates from a year ago with you…I felt pretty strongly about developing more networks a year ago; I may be less against it today, but my time is more limited. Share your thoughts!

It’s all about community, connectivity and social networking, and people are joining in droves. Apparently, 96 percent of GenY have joined a social network. The fastest-growing segment on Facebook is women 55 – 65 years old.

The more cool social networks, publishing networks, and professional networks that launch to accompany Stumble, Posterous, YouTube, Friend Feed, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and the like, the more consumers will weary. No one has time to find friends to add to a network. Do you?

I learned today that Stumble requires a network of Stumblers who share cool sites with one another. I’m always interested in seeing cool sites, but I’ve no time to develop a network of connected Web site lovers. When I launched Friend Feed, I thought I could consolidate my social media into one platform (which I can), but it, too, wants friends to connect on the same platform and be networked. On Twitter,  new followers invite me to join them on Facebook. Why? I don’t even know them.

And, that’s it.

That’s the reason social media will fall flat on its pitoot. People cannot spend eight hours a day creating community and populating it with more and more friends. There are only six degrees of separation from all of us, but seriously, folks, who has that many “friends” for real?

Not I.

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Twitter Police Needed For Citations

by Jenn Whinnem on 06/17/2011 in Social Media

When I first dived into Twitter, my initial impression was “why is everybody yelling at me?”

For the first few months of my involvement, it seemed anyone I followed was ranting about/bemoaning the “bad behavior” of other Twitter users. Don’t do this, don’t do that. It was extremely off-putting.

And then I’d run into the “Don’t tell people they’re doing it wrong! You can’t do it wrong!” No wonder people drop off Twitter. Who can keep track of the etiquette when it contradicts itself? It would seem from all those ranty tweets and posts that you certainly COULD do it wrong. WTH, everyone?

Of course…I became one of those people! I cringe when I see the ALL CAPS TWEETS. Meaningless #FF tweets. Or on Facebook, which I joined after Twitter. Really, song lyrics as status update – are you a 13yo girl? Does your JOB know you play Pet Society this much? Hide hide hide hide.

Still, even as I was sucked into the etiquette police, I wanted to write something about not yelling at everyone so much. Especially lately. But this morning I woke up to this item from one of my favorite shopping sites, Modcloth.com: The social media citation pad.

Where are my programmer friends at? We need to digitize this. Let’s just do it. Like a version of someecards. We can just cite people in a tweet and get on with our lives. CITATION: ACRONYM ABUSE! CONSIDER THIS A WARNING. Each citation will be accompanied by a picture of a sad dog – maybe Jon Buscall’s basset hounds!

We can do this.

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About Condoms & Social Media, Heh

by Jayme Soulati on 05/21/2011 in Social Media, Thinking

credit: blogs.laweekly.com

It’s Saturday and finally hot. My mind takes silly twists and turns without the confines of intense focus of the customary work week (which has grown to encompass nights and weekends).

I’m sitting in the streaming sunshine with streaming thoughts (stay with me here) marveling at all the comments still active on three blogs I commented on and wrote yesterday (do people ever put up boundaries?). Scanning a headline in O’Dwyers “Congloms, PR service firms see big Q1 gains,” I did a double take — condoms? Really?

And then my mind immediately returned to a sassy comment I’d made the other day in conversation (what, me sassy?); whatever happened to the condom (the link is clean…from Wikipedia)?

There’s a high profile case that has me blown away (well only wind blown) — that of the Terminator having sired a love child 10 years ago with his housekeeper while married to his also-celebrity wife Maria Shriver with whom he sired three(?) children.

And, let’s not forget John Edwards whose high-profile wife was terminal with cancer while he sired a love child he tried to keep under wraps unsuccessfully with a vendor to his presidential campaign. I’m not the man in the heat of passion with some young tart wanting a piece of his DNA; however, wouldn’t one think if he was a man in such a position of power and celebrity as these two both were that a condom would be in order?

I don’t know, call me stupid.

So what do condoms have to do with social media? Uhmm, nothing…but let me stretch the confines of creativity to ensure I’m ready for Monday…(you know keeping my brain cells focused on intense work over a weekend).

Let me define this useful item, (rarely used by celebrity males at least two we’re aware of which keeps mass production in check), as a sheath or protective barrier (it’s also defined as such by Wikipedia, a link above). And, a protective barrier has many uses in social media…here are three for you:

  • **How do you protect your Facebook page from getting spammed with negative comments? Let’s ask Burson-Marstellar! Why, you just remove the unacceptable posts from unfriendlies and hope for the best (aka suffer the backlash).
  • **How do you protect your Twitter account from being seen by your boss? You keep it locked and only accept tweeps by approval, of course. For sure; that’s a marvelous way to grow a community and engage, isn’t it?
  • **How do you add more subscribers and commenters to your blog posts? You take off the protective barrier and hope that posts like this don’t offend anyone. And, if your “subscribe” widget isn’t working or you miss the deadline for the Feedburner distribution by 20 minutes, that really helps protect anyone from reading a really bad Saturday post that truly stretches it.

That is all.

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