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Soulati Media On The Street with @Triberr @DinoDogan

04/11/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Dino Dogan owns Triberr shirts in every color; psst, he also owns Triberr.

There was a time when I kvetched and hollered about @ symbols in headlines of blogs. Now that I’m a name dropper and want everyone on the ‘sphere to know this post has video of the Kingpin himself, , founder of , I put a double whammy upstairs.

Call the headline police. I’ll wait.

This post comes to you straight from Knoxville, Tenn., site of the now infamous #SoSlam or Social Slam as it’s known. When I’m not having technical difficulties like this year, I can capture about 9 groovy unsuspecting peeps like I did last year (that’s because I had an iPhone 4S in hand).

Triberr is About Bloggers

Dino loves to talk about Gutenberg, founder of the printing press. Maybe he believes he’s a kindred spirit – you know how Johann changed the world as they knew it with his innovative creativity and launched the world of print journos? Well, I hasten a guess that Dino is bellying up to the bar to tip one with Johann in re his own creativity in creating a platform “for bloggers by bloggers.” Am I right, Dino?

Ever had Triberr go down (like it did recently) and did you notice what happened to your blog shares? Yep; nothing. That’s right; we’ve become spoiled with all the cool new gizmos and gadgets and features Triberr is creating for we bloggers. And, others are giving the Triberr team grief for pushing the envelope (see, that’s printed, too).

Without further silly ado…let me introduce Dino Dogan one of social blogging’s great up and comers.

The Basics Of Corporate Blogging

02/21/2013 By Jayme Soulati

English: This icon, known as the “feed icon” or the “RSS icon”, was introduced in Mozilla Firefox in order to indicate a web feed was present on a particular web page that could be used in conjunction with the Live bookmarks function. Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera and some other browsers have adopted the icon in order to promote a de facto standard. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There are many many reference sources on how corporate blogs become successful. At the end of the day, companies need to realize that behind every blog is a person.

People write blogs, and people read blogs.

When a company is writing a blog, there are basic elements to consider. These stand true for a brand new blog in planning and strategy phases or an existing blog with six months under the belt.

Tips for Successful Corporate Blogging

Team and Tone. When blogging for the company, ensure the team is solid. Typically, there are three good writers to assist with the company blog and one good editor to establish tone. It becomes apparent when someone writes drastically differently than peers on the company blog. Try to ensure there’s a solid thread between each writer so tone isn’t a swinging pendulum.

Topics. Company blogging runs the risk of being inside-out only. If a goal is to build a community of those who comment and follow, then be sure topics are engaging and invite others to connect and participate. If a corporate blog posts three times weekly, make sure 1/3 of the content is about external factors shaping the industry.

Goals. Like any new program, there needs to be clearly defined goals. Without that distinct purpose and consistent reference back to the goals, a corporate blog can go astray. Do not take goal setting lightly! This exercise drives success, growth, authority, and brand positioning.

Analytics. Behind every successful blog is a person and also good tracking! Without knowledge of how many people are visiting a company blog, there is no proof it’s working. Typically, companies cannot gauge success of a blog on comments alone; people lurk and refuse to add thoughts on a corporation’s blog. This means analytics are critical and someone to interpret them even more.

Bells and Whistles. There are basic elements every blog needs regardless of whether it’s a personal or business blog. Set up a decent commenting system with Livefyre or Disqus. Use Shareaholic, the best social media sharing tool on the channels. Add a way to organize archives via categories and chronology via widgets in the sidebar. Consider Zemanta which helps put other like-topics at the blogger’s fingertips to share beneath a post. Use images owned by the company. There are so many issues now with copyrights; companies need to develop their own image library for use online everywhere.

RSS and Social Media Follows. Regardless of how small a company blog is when it starts, having an RSS feed (Feedblitz is reliable) as well as social media follow buttons are critical. Every company has a LinkedIn page and ought to have a Google+ page, too. Start there and the rest will follow.

Subscribe Button. Capturing emails is the name of the game, but what will you offer in return? If people know they’ll get some decent content either on the blog or via a newsletter or other marketing collateral, they will give up their email address. Company blogs need to have this option readily available from the start. Little bit late to the party? No worries…add it and write!

SEO Pack. Blogs need to ensure articles are depicted appropriately and headlines aren’t too long. Using SEO Pack or Yoast are simple plugins to help streamline this without too much thought.

Which basic elements does your company blog have? Please share!

About Jayme Soulati

Jayme Soulati is author of Soulati-‘TUDE! which is a professional blog oriented to social media, marketing, PR, business strategy, and more. She is president of Soulati Media, Inc. and is an award-winning blogger and public relations practitioner. She is a past president of the Publicity Club of Chicago.

Streamlining Blogger Outreach With Inkybee

02/12/2013 By Jayme Soulati

It’s getting harder and harder for media relations practitioners to earn stories. There is a depletion of journos at print and broadcast outlets, and social media has altered forever the course of media relations.

Where are publicity hungry professionals turning to secure “ink” for their clients?

To Bloggers.

Blogger Outreach

There’s something agencies do called blogger outreach. It’s quite similar to media relations only it’s done with bloggers who may also have a background in public relations. When I get a pitch from a peer blogger, I typically find a way to work the content in to my blog IF it’s relevant.

Gini Dietrich went on a rant yesterday right here on Spin Sucks about how she hates PR people and provided seven tips on how to pitch bloggers better. She’s a PR pro (and I am, too), so that means she gets to say she hates her peers.

What Hugh Anderson of Forth Metrics in the U.K. has been doing is writing a few e-books and great blog posts about blogger relations/outreach. He and his team have made it a topic of choice; so much so that they made a huge announcement late last week about a new platform for blogger outreach two years in the making.

Inkybee

I jumped on the beta of Inkybee to see what his fuss was about, and I stuck around. You know a beta is great when you keep jumping from one section of the platform to the next to poke holes and try to break it. There wasn’t much broken, but I still had questions, so Hugh and I Skyped on Friday so I could get in his head a bit more.

Here’s the gist:

Inkybee is for PR pros doing blogger outreach. You enter in key words and wait for InkyBee to churn the blogs that include your key words in the category you’re seeking. I put in social media just to see if my peer group popped up; more than 1900 blogs were returned via a ranking algorithm to my email box. It wasn’t right away, but I was very impressed with the list.

When you open the home page, you’ll find great tutorials on how to navigate and use the site. The best personal touch is that InkyBee uses personalized sticky notes throughout navigation to share instruction. There are also links to both of the Inkybee blogger outreach ebooks; one of them I already downloaded, and it’s full of testimonials from the field’s leaders – one of them Ms. Dietrich herself.

The lists are awesome and really push you quickly into the task of identifying bloggers with keywords you want in your outreach and even those you’d like to look at for guest posting and business development.

When setting up a campaign, you can track and measure; this step I’ll reserve until I have an active campaign to test.

As with anything just entering beta, there are kinks to work out; I’d say, though, that Inkybee already looks polished, clean and impressive. I encourage each of you to take up the call and sign on to the free beta right now.

Anyone who has tested a product, service or online tool knows it can only get better with real-time feedback. Won’t you please lend yours?

PR Strategy For Business: Blog Post Or News Release?

01/29/2013 By Jayme Soulati

The news release is NOT dead. There is no other way to formally announce company news that meets and adheres to traditional journalistic standards.

For those suggesting a news release no longer matters should take a look at whether they have hard news to share.

Start-ups, small-to-medium businesses (SMBs), and even established companies need to use a press release to issue news either online, via the wires, or sent as a pitch by media relations teams.

Blog Post Or News Release?

More companies are realizing the value of blogging. The blog, like the news release is owned media. You create the message, write the content and publish it, post it or distribute it via many channels.

But, here’s the $5 million chicken-or-egg question — which comes first?

Should a company write a blog post to launch news or should it write a news release to launch news?

A blog post seems like the easiest method to put news out there; albeit, the audience that sees the post is questionable (especially on a brand new blog with zero analytics).

If a company was to launch news of a new product, service or other innovation for the very first time via a blog, then that news is no longer fresh.

A blog is NOT the best place to announce major company news first unless a news release is included in that news strategy with strategic timing.

Here are the steps I recommend, and afterwards I share why:

1. To launch company news, draft a news release and blog post at the same time.

2. Get the content for each approved via the overall marketing and legal teams at the same time.

3. Set distribution of the news for both the blog and news release at about the same time. A blog post can be scheduled at any time of day.

4. The news release should hit the wires first, and the link to the news release should be included in the blog post just before clicking “publish.”

Rationale For This PR Strategy

If media get wind of a start-up’s news announcement and the company’s blog is the vehicle to share that news, then any attempt at issuing a news release, featuring the same content, and garnering attention is likely to fail.

When media relations practitioners pitch media, a blog post is not the vehicle of choice to inform media of news. It can complement; however, it is not an official vehicle.

Corporate blogs have a variety of authors and topics. To establish the company blog as the official word from the C-suite would take months of consistent writing with on-message topics. Media relations cannot be done via an occasional heavy-hitting blog post.

The news release must prevail first complemented by supporting vehicles with the content emphasized and packed with punch.

Thanks for reading Soulati-‘TUDE! Blog Post #400! Please subscribe, up and to the right, so you miss no more!

Fixing The Social Media Plateau

12/03/2012 By Jayme Soulati

Pinterest featue in Metro - 27th February 2012 (Photo credit: Great British Chefs)

There’s a social cultural shift on the ‘sphere and the ‘webz; have you felt it? More’s the question…are you experiencing a social media sea change plateau yourself?

Many in my community have been on this social engagement and blogging journey for an average of 18 months. For me, it’s almost four years.

When you look at that timeframe doing almost the same thing day in and day out, it’s time to grow or die.

The signs below may be an indication it’s time to step up your game, take it to the next level, and grow or remain complacent. See if these strike a chord and whether you might add a few of your own:

10 Indications You’ve Hit a Social Media Plateau

1. Learning new things becomes more rare; another 20 ways to use Pinterest blog post isn’t providing new insight over what you know now.

2. Your favorite bloggers seem to be echoing the chamber more frequently, and there’s a reason you’re spotting that — you’re ready to grow because you know.

3. Posting wit and banter on the channels is more of a chore and you find yourself sharing posts without reading to keep your Klout score up.

4. Facebook’s continued alterations and altercations have you yawning as you realize other channels may be a better fit.

5. You read some of the posts and shake your head at the nonsense.

6. When you find a new blogger with some awesome content and you write a comment saying so and get crickets in response.

7. When you see a favorite blogger MIA or changing it up so drastically you can’t follow whose writing you’re reading.

8. When whining becomes more the rant and a feeling of morose amplifies emotions in posts.

9. When the Triberr stream is populated with content that boils down to limited scope, repetition and topics you’ve seen already a dozen times.

10. When the road ahead is a question mark.

How To Fix The Social Media Plateau

Not saying you need to feel all of these or any, but when you begin to question your purpose and experience a few of those listed above, consider these possible solutions to fix The Social Media Plateau:

1. Take a hiatus and refocus on your core business. You’ll buy back tons of time; yet, your social brand will suffer.

2. Reduce the time spent on the channels that don’t return much to you. That way, you’re not spread as thin.

3. Guest post on national blogs or other more high-traffic blogs (only after you engage and make a connection with the bloggers’ community, of course).

4. Tackle a whole new area, which can be any or all of the following — web design, analytics/big data, content marketing and lead gen, podcasting, webinars, passive income, affiliate marketing, speaking, e-books/books, and, and, and…

OMYGOSH…look at #4 — there’s my laundry list to push the envelope and avoid a social media plateau! What about you? Did any of that tickle the pink?