Archives for June 2010

Cow Tipping & Blogs

06/11/2010 By Jayme Soulati

Ever hear of cow tipping? My mom did it when she was a kid. Apparently the cows sleep standing up, and when you shove them they tip like a domino (or some such).

Anyway, the headline was meant as a grabber (did it succeed?) to focus attention on the operative root word “tip.” We are tip lovers, and even that YouTube video above is in tip form!

When was the last time you read a “top 10 list?” (Oh, about 10 seconds ago.) I’m guilty as charged, and the two (only) blog posts I’ve written with tips have received the most retweets on Twitter, too.

It’s always interesting to notice patterns when blogging. I’m going to share a few for your consideration and ponder, too. May I resort to being tippish?

Checklists and tips are some of the most reader-friendly content you can develop. That goes for blogs, too, and I think it’s because the tone is appealing, it’s educational, and quick.
One never knows if anyone is reading a blog, or not. What keeps me going are the people who send emails or tweets mentioning a cool post they read.
People who comment on a blog are few and far in between. I’m not sure the invitation at the end really makes a difference in encouraging comments either.
Focusing a post on a Fortune company with intriguing commentary helps elevate content to be more authoritative. It also helps bring in the spam, too.
There are more tools available for bloggers than one can ever hope to research; it’s daunting out here.
Focus first on content – keep it fresh, keep it active, keep it current, keep it energetic.
Set some goals to explore applications and tools regularly. Not only will you learn, but others will learn alongside you.
Teaching is part of giving back. Because my profession usually gets a bad wrap, it’s imperative I teach youngsters wending their way through a growth curve and offer sage counsel about success in public relations.

That goes for blogging, too. Hope a walk down memory lane or a “you’re kidding!” were the reactions you got from this post. I see no change on the horizon. My trending forecast remains bullish on tips. Tip it up galore, just don’t get all tipsy about it.

Pre-Launch Tips for Social Media

06/09/2010 By Jayme Soulati

In the May 2010 issue of SES (the search engine strategies magazine), Robin Neifield, CEO of NetPlus Marketing, Inc. writes a decent article on Tips for Talking to Your Boss About Social Media.

I’d like to extract nearly exactly her tips because everyone eventually finds themselves at the boardroom table trying to lure the C suite into social media engagement. Perhaps it’s your client, perhaps it’s your own extended staff, virtual team, or peers…it matters not, these strong suggestions are worth a review.

Homework

Create an organizational chart of various divisions/departments where social media may touch. Might be HR, PR, legal, marketing, customer services, or elsewhere.
Create a best-practice approach to a successful social media program that meets needs.
Create an audience profile; then spend time understanding how your audience uses the Web and social media. This becomes the foundation of the social media effort.
Check out the competition among those who share your audience. Estimate the budget associated with this effort, and DOUBLE it! Social media is not free – strategy, creative, outreach, internal training, and many other items come into play.
Bring in the creative team.
Develop a content strategy and a content plan with resources outlined.
Identify a monitoring and listening tool. (Jayme suggests Radian6 or Trackur.)
Create a set of guiding principles that strongly state “Our social media program is about our customers – not about us.”

Conversation

Build relationships over time; ask for engagement internally for two or more years.
Determine what your company is going to offer i.e. programs, content, tools, discounts, entertainment, access to members, etc.
Talk goals.
Remove “viral” from the vocabulary.
Set regular check-in meetings to review program performance against goals.

Regardless of when you engage in social media, ensure you have a plan in place. Use these tips above to develop your own that are suitable to your situation, business environment, or service offering. Remember, the tips above came from NetPlus Marketing, a top 50 interactive agency established in 1996.

What tips might you offer to further the conversation?

Social Media Fear Factor Quiz

06/08/2010 By Jayme Soulati

Here’s a little quiz I created to pinpoint your social media fear factor. Seems everything I read Monday was associated with taking risks like skydiving, bungee jumping or zany scary free fall theme park rides. That would make my fear factor off the chart; in fact, I’d not survive either experience.

Perhaps some of you feel the same way about social media? I’m also thinking you’re not sharing it if you are; hence, this line of questioning to get it all out in the open. Then you can move out of your own way and engage already.

While you’re mulling over why you’re not engaged, I’m here to help push the envelope. Want to chat for 15 minutes about why you may not be tweeting? I’ll offer baby steps you need to launch. Want to chat with me for 30 minutes and get a tutorial on Twitter and learn more than just basic elements? I’ll help you do that, too. Don’t be afraid to ask and receive!

Check all the boxes that apply in each question. When done, count them up and look below for the unscientific analysis.

1. You have a Twitter account that:

[] Is dormant [] Is used ~4x/week or less

[] Has <100 followers [] Has <100 tweets

2. You don’t tweet because:

[] You aren’t clever enough to write 140

[] No one needs to know your life story

[] You have nothing to sell

[] You’re happily married and don’t need a new partner

[] You don’t have a blog so there’s nothing to promote

[] You lack confidence

[] Twitter is a bunch of malarkey

3. You refuse to launch Facebook because:

[] Farmville sucks

[] No way are you re-connecting with high schoolers

[] You want privacy

[] No one is using it for business anyway

4. LinkedIn is definitely OK, but:

[] You can’t get as many links as your boss

[] It’s dormant except for the occasional invite

[] Too many strange questions on groups annoy you

[] It’s a popularity fest and you hate to compete

5. You’re not blogging because:

[] You have nothing to say

[] You have no time

[] You need your extra sleep

[] You haven’t the faintest idea where to begin

[] You don’t know what SEO means

[] You’re too old to start something new

[]You’d rather talk to your dog

6. You’re not engaging in social media because:

[] Social media is a fad and it’s going away

[] Social media is a waste of time

[] You have nothing to sell, so why bother

[] You have no time to learn anything new for now

Unscientific Analysis

If you checked 25 to 29 boxes, you have serious antipathy against social media and you’re likely never to get over it.

If you checked 18 to 24 boxes, you’re on the brink of not seeing the forest through the trees. Call me to save you.

If you checked 10 to 17 boxes, you are engaging in social media although you’re just not a freak like some of us.

If you checked 1 to 9 boxes, you have hope! You can easily be rescued from social media fear factor!

(But call me anyway…if you’d rather talk to your dog than start a blog, I’ve got to change that ‘TUDE!)

10 Tips for Social Media Moxie

06/04/2010 By Jayme Soulati

This is directed at you — the laggers who are likely NOT reading this blog among my colleagues (who shall remain nameless) who are creeping along outside the action like a voyeur.

I hit a wall this week with the umpteenth public relations and/or marketing peer not engaging in social media with the basics of basics – Twitter. Then there was a fabulous new company launch with a highly creative site from an old colleague with whom I was eager to tweet. Sadly, his last tweet was 20 days ago.

Are you engaging for real, people? C’mon, don’t kid yourself…we both know you’re not.

From a seriously real cross section of colleagues, peers, practitioners of all ages and experience ranges, who are experts in their own right with budding businesses, etc., the writing is on the wall. Marketing and public relations are NOT engaging in social media, and that’s a SAD state of affairs.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT GOING AWAY! SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT A TREND! (Yep, caps on purpose; felt better than boldface.)

I’m here to push you off your derrière and raise your bar. How can you ignore something so incredibly exciting for marketing public relations when clients and employers expect you to be the expert who leads them to social media opportunity?

I own a virtual public relations agency, Soulati Media, Inc. I can’t find anyone yet (within the confines of my circular engagement) who knows more than me in social media. Why’s that? Because I’ve been busting my chops for the last three years to learn, engage, test, fail, test, and become knowledgeable. (See that “fail” word in there? Painfully, it has to happen to become learned, and then the doors swing open and shut more smoothly.)

This is not about blogging, either. It’s simply about carpe diem. There’s gold in them ‘thar hills, people, and if you don’t go mining, you’re never going to get your social media mojo.

Here are Jayme Soulati’s 10 Basic Social Media Engagement Tips:

1. Launch a Twitter account associated with business. Brand yourself as an expert, but first believe you are one.

2. Expect to fail (failure comes in many sizes) and embrace the pain as learning anything new. You will get through that episode (spoken from my own trial and error).

3. Re-launch the Facebook account you closed down because you couldn’t handle connecting with high school alumni. Consider it a business venture and make it so with a fan page to fuel your business or expertise.

4. Adopt a mentor, but don’t suck them dry! Be respectful of their time and their own hard-earned pathway to knowledge.

5. Engage, people, really engage. That means post a comment on a blog with your perspective. Make yourself known to the blogger you’re reading who has no idea you exist. Communication is a two-way street.

6. Understand fear and get beyond it. Your fear may be lack of confidence in your own expertise. Get out of your own way, and just do it already.

7. Tackle one new thing every day. This is as easy as tweet five times. Follow five people. Post one comment on a new blog every day. RT someone’s blog post. Explore a new social media application everyone else is so you’re in the know, too.

8. Don’t get left behind! I’ve been tweeting for maybe 15 months now, and it’s the sole reason I’ve met the cool people who are now my new colleagues and friends. It saved me days of boredom through the dark winter because social media takes you to Bali, Singapore, Australia, and South America where peers there seek engagement, too.

9. Set a goal. While I’ve never written goals, they are in my head. Yesterday I had the same number of followers and following on Twitter, 1817. Because I compete, I want to get to 2000, but it’s getting tougher to create a Twitter stream that’s not littered with spammers, scammers, and salespeople. So, I’ll go for quality over quantity. Don’t let the numbers fool you.

10. Ask for help. I don’t know what I don’t know, but I’m glad to help you get there, too. Post your little question down below, and we’ll journey.

Got social media? Please say “yes!”

Got Messaging, Singlehop?

06/03/2010 By Jayme Soulati

I’m catching up on reading, and never get ahead. The February 2010 issue of Website Magazine is now a mass of tear sheets with more blog fodder than I know what to do with.

The article, “Reliability in Hosting,” featured Chicago Web hosting provider Singlehop as “most reliable hosting company” for October 2009 by NetCraft’s monthly hosting rankings.

Here’s the quote from the SingleHop vice president of sales and marketing, “Being named as the most reliable Web hosting company by a trusted source like Netcraft confirms Singlehop’s tireless commitment to providing our customers with the best service possible,” said the man. “We finished an extensive upgrade of our network earlier this year with all-new Cisco switches, routers, and systems. That consistent investment in our services, along with our exceptionally dedicated employees, is what enables us to achieve this kind of 100 percent uptime reliability.”

Whew. What a mouth full of peanut butter and banana.

Gog messaging, Singlehop?

That quote was exactly half the story. Unfortunately, that quote came directly from a badly written press release that didn’t do Singlehop any favors. (Well, and it was published by Website Magazine, too. Sheesh.)

Do yourself a favor. Write messaging that tells audiences why they should care. Website Magazine offers a golden opportunity to sell to a specialty professional audience who need hosting services. Its readership is your next customer, Singlehop.

Singlehop wasted precious wordscape saying the same thing every other company does “tireless commitment to providing our customers with the best service possible.”

But, the second half of the quote has promise.

It speaks to an extensive upgrade, with all new brand-name switches, routers, and systems, employees who love their work, and a hosting service that NEVER breaks down. (Hmm, sounds pretty expensive.)

Mind if I do a little rewrite with a more powerful resonation?

“The recognition by Netcraft is well deserved throughout Singlehop and reflects the dedicated teams who put our customers first with the promise of 100 percent uptime we maintain as our benchmark,” said Singlehop.

That shows pride in the product and the people without saying “We’re excited and honored to receive this award…” Everyone says that, too; yawn.