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Digital Marketing Strategy, PR and Messaging

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How To Message Map E-Book Debut

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Message-Mapping-Book.jpgWhat 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.

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The Happy Friday Series: Positively Peggy

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Peg-Fitzpatrick.jpgWhen I launched this series on Jan. 11, 2013 quite by happenstance, I had no idea where it would go, what it would become, or how I would write on happiness every Friday. I instinctively invited the very happiest person I know online and with whom I’ve never spoken or met, to kick off the first official guest post for the series.

She accepted my invitation with relish, and did me and us justice; The Happy Friday Series was official and rolling.

Every Friday since January, I’ve been jazzed with a cadre of #RockHot guest authors. People who have shared their most personal thoughts and feelings, and people who have shared their passions about what puts smiles in their hearts. The series hasn’t been off the hook giggles; it’s been about life and the pursuit of happiness. Sometimes we find that happy in odd ways, with one little bit of graciousness and generosity.

As the series has continued and my invitations to many to author here have become more sparse and peoples’ time has become less to commit, I’m turning the tables to you.

This series is taking a turn; it’s my turn to thank each and every one of you for your generosity of sharing and caring right here.

And, so, today, I thank Peg Fitzpatrick for her spirit and generosity for kicking off this series right here.

Peg, Positively Peggy, writes a blog that is always generous. She’s a teacher extraordinaire, she shares happiness for real with her community, and if you don’t follow her, you’re truly lacking.

Peggy is one of those sincerely genuine nurturers and givers. She puts herself last, she puts her community first.

She’s a managing partner at 12Most.com, she manages the Google+ community for APE, The Book by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch, she is on all social channels, and she’s writing her own book. If you link to that blog post of hers, you’ll get a positive sense of this woman’s creativity and how she teaches you with relentless giving.

May I say, she’s forever in smiles, too?

Please give Peggy a nod your way; she will imbue positivity and inspire creativity — promise.

Peg Fitzpatrick, thank your for your Happy Friday. You are #RockHot!

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The Happy Friday Series: Be The Biggest Fan of Another

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Credit: Jayme Soulati

Happy Friday! This is an essay on how to weave business in to social communication.

  • What if rather than writing a blog entirely focused on you, and sharing links on your Facebook page directing fans to your blog.
  • What if rather than using Twitter as a platform to pontificate.
  • What if rather than using Instagram to share pictures of your product.
  • What if rather than spending the majority of your time on social media trying to figure out the best way to get people to pay attention to your business.
  • What if you turned everything around?

It is interesting to note that when you spend all your time talking about yourself and how wonderful you are, you are essentially telling people that you are your own biggest fan!

And, that is embarrassing.

No Cares About You

The truth is, no one cares about you or what you have to say about yourself in a business or marketing context.

If this sums up your social efforts to this point: Please stop. Just stop.

Unfortunately you are more likely to become one of those people who “gave social media a shot” but claims “it didn’t work for me” than to see any level of success.

Consider this:

  • What if you took every last minute you have been using to promote your business socially and instead you became another’s biggest fan? Just think about that for a minute… what would this look like for you?
  • What if you wrote a blog post that featured a local business professional who had a complimentary product to yours?
  • What if your Facebook wall, Twitter timeline and Instagram feeds were flooded with endorsements for quality local businesses?
  • What if at every opportunity you tried to make someone else look good instead of shamelessly promoting yourself?

from Soulati.com takes every Friday to feature a new blogger or contributor in something she calls “The Happy Friday Series.” The whole goal is to offer her platform to another in an attempt to broaden their social reach. What a great idea!

A Story From Personal Experience

I “joined the conversation” in 2010 and began my social media experience by listening to conversations on Twitter for months before engaging.

In that time, I identified 2 things:

  • The people I liked following the most were those who added value to my timeline. They engaged with other local people, they shared information and were generally just all around approachable people.
  • The people I really didn’t like were the people who spammed my timeline with self-promoting garbage.

My initial engagement strategy was to follow my city’s hashtag and engage with at least two new people each day.

Then it came, the tweet that would get me hooked on social media for business:

“Hey, I am new to #YQR, can anyone please recommend a place where I can buy Italian Syrups for my coffees #HELP!

As a man who is passionate about his coffee, I knew just the place.

“Absolutely, you have to go to Ambassador Coffee, the owner is a great guy, they will take good care of you”

I then sent along a Google map, followed her on twitter, she followed me and that was that. Two days later, she hits me with:

“Thanks so much for your help, I went to Ambassador, they were great, really appreciate it”

I replied with a “no problem” and out.

Now why is that exciting?

Well, as a mortgage broker, the DM I received 2 weeks later was social proof that being a nice guy actually makes for good business strategy.

“Hey, my husband and I aren’t ready to buy a house now, but when we are, can you help us arrange our mortgage”?

How do you like that? Never once did I mention mortgages or business or anything else sales-y. She obviously read my twitter bio or clicked through to my website from my profile.

Six months later, I closed their [substantial] mortgage simply because I answered a tweet and recommended a local business.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that there is no value in content marketing. Actually I believe wholeheartedly that content marketing is the future of business communication.

Further to that… if good business communication is all about “people should do business with people they know, like and trust”. Ask yourself:

How are people getting to know, like and trust me?

Before you start throwing your own content out there, what if you developed an audience that actually wanted to hear what you had to say?

What if your social business strategy was to become a trusted source of information on every local business EXCEPT your own?

About The Author

is the principal broker for in Saskatchewan, Canada and the executive editor of the Jackson has a passion for marketing and carries weight in the Canadian mortgage and real estate industry. Jackson is a serial entrepreneur who is always looking for better ways to do things. His twitter bio reads: @kiltedbroker – I am wearing a kilt right now. I have consumed coffee today. Family Man. Innovator.

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PR Is NOT Press Release

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news-release.jpgHello, my SEO colleagues and internet marketers. For several years now I have cringed when I hear the word “PRs” emanating from your neck of the wood over to mine. Upon the first hearing, I wasn’t sure my ears had picked up correctly, must be that invisible hearing aid.

PR Is Public Relations

For, the abbreviation PR has always been for one thing and one thing only – public relations, my discipline, my profession, and my world for many decades – yes, I’m ancient.

Your continual delivery of PR as “press release” is confusing because people in PR, the practice of public relations, are migrating over to the word news release. And, I’ve share why on many an occasion.

When SEO folks get a turn at a “press release” to optimize it and push links, it’s not a press release at all; it’s merely a communication tool we can call a news release IF there is news within it. The point I’m trying to make to save anyone from having to go hunting down a rabbit hole is this:

Back in the day, the press corps was everywhere following folks and the press conference was a gathering of journos listening to a spokesperson shoving mics in his face (yes, it was always a he back then).

Today? Not so much.

Press Corps

There really isn’t a mass grouping of press, the print media, covering companies like groupies. The press corps is relegated to U.S. federal government officials, like POTUS and the secretary of state.

So, when the term press release is used, I switch it out for news release because that’s the goal of the communication tool – to be a vehicle of news.

When an SEO professional uses “PR” for press release and not public relations, I will kindly correct your vernacular and inform you to kindly remove that abbreviation from your vocabulary and call it a news release.

Wouldn’t you agree the word “news release” is so much more powerful than a “press release” anyway?

Note: Jayme Soulati is a veteran public relations practitioner of 30 years; she has a right to defend the purity of her profession.

Google’s New SEO Rules For News Releases

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storytelling.jpgBack in the day, when there was a press corps in addition to those who travel with and follow the secretary of state or the president of the U.S.A., we in public relations communicated to the press with a press release.

Today, it’s customary to call that document a news release.
A news release is a tool public relations professionals use to communicate to any audience; it used to be primarily and first and foremost for the media (thus a “press release”). Times have changed; news releases are written that may or may not be shared with media and thus my preferred label.

Over the years, I’ve worked with internet marketers who call what I write “PRs.” Every time I hear this term from someone untrained in my profession, I cringe. PR is short for public relations and to an internet marketer who drives SEO via links and key words, PRs are short for press releases.
Herein is the issue.

New Google Webmaster Guidelines

The folks who have adopted the news release as an SEO link-building tool complete with optimized urls and anchor text throughout just got a comeuppance from Google.

In the last three weeks, Google issued new webmaster guidelines that eliminate optimized anchor text for link building within online news releases. More and more, suspect news release distribution services have popped up across the internet, and Google is reining in the practice of littering online news releases with optimized links.

No more will its search engine crawl the news release and boost SERP as a result; however, users can still click on the links in a news release and head on over to a website or landing page. It’s all part of the Panda and Penguin updates and SEO professionals will know what this means.

Sarah Skerik, @SarahSkerik, vice president of content marketing at PR Newswire, wrote a really good blog post about what’s going on and for sure you ought to read it.

A point she makes I’d like to share is that a news release is for raising awareness and the sharing of messages.

Indeed.

A news release was always and still is intended to inform an audience and complement blended marketing strategy. Either way, I’m still going to recommend a news release as part of the overall public relations strategy for my clients. I share recent samples of how you write a news release here.

If there’s something you should take away from this article, it is the following considerations:
1. To inform audiences, you need a cohesive, well-thought and well-written news release.
2. Your website should have a news center that is home to the archive of news releases your company issues.
3. Use a news release to draw attention to your product, service or to make a company announcement.
4. Your target audience needs to hear from you, and a news release makes it official.
5. A news release is owned media; you control the message and using this vehicle, you earn media.