Message Mapping/Mind Mapping Archives - Page 2 of 4

Citigroup CEO Launches Citi Bike With Best Messaging Ever

12/04/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Credit: https://citibikenyc.com

In a recent issue of , scored a huge tandem win in New York City with Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The financial behemoth put $41 million into a and tourists to traverse the narrow streets of Manhattan on three-speed blue Citi Bikes with puncture-resistant tires. After three years of study, the program launched May 27, 2013 (in time for a three-day weekend).

The program has been hugely successful with 4.7 million trips and 9.4 million pedaled miles “obliterating projections.”

That’s not all.

Mr. Pandit delivered messaging that so completely blew me away, I had to share.

Here is what he said word for word as extrapolated in the Bloomberg Businessweek story,

“Pandit smiled and took the microphone. ‘Citi Bike is kind of like the Zipcar for bikes. It’s better for the environment. It’s also good exercise. People will be able to borrow a Citi Bike wherever they want and return it at their destination. This should lead to fewer cars on the road. It should lead to less crowding on subways and buses and better access to neighborhoods far from public transit.’ And best of all: ‘As the mayor said – all of this without using any taxpayer money!’”

The Citi Bike Message Map

When we dissect these neat sound bites packed with punch, we can see a perfect message map that covers all the benefits Citi Bike has to offer and squarely positions Citigroup directly on top; not to mention the expert delivery of Mr. Pandit.

Let’s take a look:

Home Base Message – this is the primary descriptor of Citi Bike; the easy message everyone can recall and relate to.
Citi Bike is like the Zipcar for bikes. Mr. Pandit added “kind of like” to the description which is perfectly fine as he made the factoid his and personalized it.
Second Tier Messages – Each of these, usually four, second tier messages provide further explanation about the company or program. They could be about customers, price, innovation, benefits, investment, etc.
Citi Bike is better for the environment.
It’s good exercise.
It’s convenient – people can borrow a Citi Bike at origin and return it at their destination.
Less crowding. There will be fewer cars on the road, fewer people on subways and better access in neighborhoods.
Cost to taxpayers? FREE!

How Citigroup CEO Scored

Typically, the delivery of quick, spot-on messages is rare by CEOs of companies. What’s also rare is the fact that a journalist reported the messages in the story. Mr. Pandit earned something like 14 lines of a quote in the Bloomberg BusinessWeek story. Wonderful.

Let’s address one more thing – the subject of the story. Who can resist such a feel-good story for Manhattan? I love the point that the cost to tax payers is zilch; not to mention the proven mileage pedaled and trips tracked already!

When a publicly traded company the size of Citigroup is front and center with media, it’s customary for the highest executive to take the lead position. Mr. Pandit hit this one out of the park, and why not? He knew it was a homerun before he stepped up to the plate.

P.S. Hat tip to the Citi Bike website; it’s one of the best I’ve seen…take a look when you get a chance!

Janet Yellen Messaging Delivery To Be Tested By Senate

10/28/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Janet Yellen is a candidate to succeed Ben Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve.

Paragraph one of a Wall Street Journal story, “Hearing to Test Yellen’s Skills of Communication,” Oct. 10, 2013 about a Senate confirmation hearing for President Obama’s pick to succeed Ben Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve states this:

Janet Yellen often shows up for policy meetings at the Federal Reserve armed with carefully prepared statements mapping out her positions on key issues. Her speeches are often backed up with precisely footnoted documents. She rarely strays from her prepared text.

Janet Yellen Uses A Message Map (Essentially)

I bet she has a slew of mapped documents (based on that paragraph in the story) to keep her well prepared for meetings.

What happens, however, when she sits in front of the U.S. Senate amongst mostly friendly fire and the questions are unknown and drilled?

She’ll need to go off message, but if she’s the consummate communicator she’s portrayed as, she will do the following:

She will brainstorm every question possible about the Fed’s performance and the past performances of its leadership.
She will develop answers for every possible question.
She will practice and review and practice again. She will be ultra prepared for that confirmation hearing.

She may get a question that comes out of left field, but we’ll know from watching that she’ll ready.

Message Mapping

My recently published second book, Message Mapping: How to Sizzle External Communication with a #RockHot Tool for Leaders, helps teams and executives prepare for experiences like the one Janet Yellen will be in to earn her position and to confront the inquisitive media every day.

While company leaders are rarely in the spotlight as frequently as this by national media and the federal government, every single business leader needs a message map. Why? Because it helps put all the company factoids in one place. A message map becomes the tool leaders can use to guide them through an interview or meeting or speech or conversation.

In my book, I develop a message map for a fictitious company, and I provide the template for your own message map while telling you how to go about it. The book is a PDF download, and it’s available right here.

What are The Tells?

In poker, when it’s on TV, the announcers are good about looking for the tell in a player. What is the habitual tick a player makes that shows a bluff?

That’s not to say Janet Yellen has any of her own and hopefully not for the bluff!

What we can watch for, however, is whether she’s surprised with a question and what her reaction will be:

Stutter, hem and haw. Some executives uncomfortable with a question resort to umms and ahhs during message delivery.
Vacant stare. Instead of being able to quip a remark, some get lost staring into space.
Too fast delivery.

If someone quickly speaks and doesn’t think first about the content of the message, it can come out like gobble.

For someone the likes of Janet Yellen, my expectation is that she’ll smile as often as she can and attempt to warm the Senate while impressing them with her expertise and confidence. Of course, she’ll be the first woman ever to head this prestigious group, and that’s a critical opportunity for those women who enjoy the climb.

Why did I say she might smile a lot? In the photographs we’ve seen once she was selected by the President, she was beaming.

Now, we get to see if I’m right about her comportment as she vies for this venerable position to lead us through financial crises on a global scale.

Content Marketing: Can You Master It?

10/16/2013 By Jayme Soulati

By Cision

The online world is awash in content; it’s ubiquitous, invading our every sense and cell of brain power.

Are you contributing to the torrential downpour of words to ether? Are you doing it well and have you mastered it?

It’s anyone’s guess who has mastered content marketing; in fact, I proffer no one. If you are a blogger, then your mastery of content marketing is slim to none, as blogging takes years of daily learning and there’s always more to figure.

The biggest culprit in content marketing is Google. Look every day at Google’s announcements, and you’ll find yet another app destroyed and algorithm rejiggered much to the chagrin of we onliners who think we’re grasping the solutions only to be dismantled with one flick.

Last Friday, I was keynote of the content marketing track at ConvergeSouth. This presentation truthfully made me ponder the meaning of content marketing and where people are headed on this journey.

Do you know?

In this SlideShare deck just below, I provide you with several ponderances:
1. Timeline of a Blogger – Years 1, 2, and 3 and what you may expect (from my POV, of course)
2. Content Marketing definition, data and ideas for content
3. Marketing Automation tools

Content Syndication

A successful content marketer needs tools to syndicate content. In a test campaign I did with Cision Content Marketing Suite, five of my blog posts were amplified to the Washington Times, USA Today and Bloomberg. In 13 days, I saw my traffic rise exponentially with 90 percent unique visitors. It’s a fantastic solution and for serious bloggers wondering about what’s next, this is a grand opportunity and especially for company blogs.

Attend a FREE Webinar

Are you familiar with Cision? It is the mainstay of public relations solutions for we who do media relations. Over the years (and I launched my career with Bacons, the precursor to Cision), the company has methodically innovated additional solutions and tools for public relations and companies to boost engagement and execute more systematically with an eye on results.

You’re invited to join me and Heidi Sullivan, SVP of Digital Content with Cision at 2 p.m. ET on Halloween, Oct. 31, 2013 for a discussion, What Is The Future Of Content?

It’s free to sign up, and based on my call with Heidi yesterday to plan our approach, there’s going to be a lot for you to hear.

Here’s the link:

If you have your own thoughts about content and its future alongside yours, please share in comments. Maybe you’ll sign up for the webinar and post your question in the online chat feature during our session?

Buy Message Mapping E-Book

Lastly, did you hear I launched my second book?

Message Mapping: How to Sizzle External Communication with a #RockHot™ Tool for Leaders

You can see why you need this business guide and get your copy (PDF ebook) via https://MessageMapping.co.

How To Message Map E-Book Debut

10/14/2013 By Jayme Soulati

What is a message map?

In Jayme Soulati’s (that’s me) new e-book, Message Mapping: How to Sizzle External Communication with a #RockHot Tool for Leaders, I explain the concept of message mapping and why any company small, solo, mid-sized, or large needs this tool.

The e-book, available only at https://MessageMapping.co, also provides a step-by-step example of a message mapping exercise for a fictitious company. Readers are walked through the exercise to create messages that form the foundation of external communication.

Message maps are born in the media relations field within the profession of public relations. I have been doing message maps for 20 years for a broad brush of companies in all shapes and sizes with expertise from Chicago’s agencies.

Those people who work in the crisis communications field also use message maps to ensure that spokespeople are on message and less apt to stray from the approved messaging platform.

In this era of social media, companies may be in the spotlight of journalists less. This doesn’t mean preparation is not required or necessary; to the contrary. Spokespeople need to be ultra prepared today to ensure they can answer questions from many different channels. Having a message map is the first step in ensuring that comfort.

My book teaches marketers, public relations executives, business owners, and more how to work with a facilitator, the steps in the process, how messages are developed, and finally the step-by-step process to making a message map come alive.

Buy my e-book now, right here.

It’s a tool every company needs for copywriting, social media, media relations, website development, internal communications, and more.

Big Thanks

A team was instrumental in bringing this book to market. Without the help and expertise of Scott Quillin of New England Multimedia; Glen Moyes of Glen Moyes Design; and, Jenn Whinnem, this book would still be a seedling. My heartfelt thanks.

Two Books

Within six months, I have authored two books.

The first, “Writing with Verve on the Blogging Journey,” available as an e-book or softcover via Amazon or Greyden Press, is a three-year collection of blog posts about blogging. It was a book that needed to be published first, and it showed the steps through the world of self-publishing.

Message Mapping: How to Sizzle External Communications with a #RockHot Tool for Leaders, is not available via Amazon or a publisher’s store. It is only available on https://MessageMapping.co in an e-commerce setting.

Once I understand more about this journey in the online world of e-commerce, I will have more learnings to share with you. For today, I’m so happy to launch my second book in 2013, and I’m hopeful it will be a hit for the business world.