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  • So What is Message Mapping ?
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Soulati-'TUDE!

Blog Distribution Channels To Earn More Traffic

04/28/2016 By Jayme Soulati

Blog distribution is rarely thought of, and I’m here to tell you that has to change! Your blog posts, the most valuable pieces of owned media you have in your archives, should never just be published on your website and forgotten. These stories need to be distributed on a wide variety of channels and in a wider variety of repurposed creativity.

Let’s explore further, shall we?

Blog Distribution Channels — A Long List

1. So easy and obvious, is the very first place a blog post is published and greets the world. Ensure your website is owned by you; it’s your created domain name, and it’s on a hosting platform you’ve selected.

1a. A blog post comment section is key for links to others’ content to get added. Sometimes a blogger asks for shares, and these can get added manually. If you sign up for Livefyre, a blog comment platform, your latest blog post is automatically added to your bio descriptor.

2. LinkedIn posts are another obvious pseudo blogging channel. In fact, I had elected to craft this post and publish it on LinkedIn FIRST. Then, as I kept writing and writing, I realized how dumb that would be. I need the content and link juice for my own blog! Remember, that when you publish original content elsewhere first, you miss out on the strength of that content for links and traffic. Do build up your own archives first. Because I’ve been blogging since 2010, I have archives of more than 650 blog posts to my credit. A blogger’s life is never over; there is always a fresh audience seeking content with a twist. Stand out! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Blogging 101 Tagged With: Blab.fm, blog distribution channels, Blogging, Branding, Business, Facebook, Google+, Happy Friday Series, heart marketing, heart of marketing, Instagram, Jayme Soulati, John Gregory Olson, LinkedIn, marketing, marketing your blog, podcasting, SnapChat, Social Media, Triberr, Twitter

Why Responsive Design Is Marketing’s Greatest Challenge

03/04/2015 By Jayme Soulati

ALT="Mobile Friendly, Soulati Media"On April 21, 2015, Google will begin to label websites ‘mobile friendly.’ That means your website must be responsive and work on all sizes of screens and most of all smartphones and tablets. As is customary, Google is highly likely to label a site ‘non-mobile friendly’ in SERPS and ding your traffic, too. Is your site mobile friendly? You can test your site if you don’t know; click the link I just shared.

Two years ago, the call to make websites mobile responsive was rampant; yet, few truly new what that meant. I can tell you from experience two years later only a handful know the inside and out of responsive design. Responsive websites are marketing’s greatest challenge.
In my blended marketing firm, websites are one of the service offerings. From message mapping and copywriting to photography and design, a website is a critical component of a company’s marketing. And then there’s the backend of the site that now includes responsive design. It’s the latter that’s wreaking havoc among all businesses because it’s so new.

Perhaps the biggest developers for the largest corporations know what it takes to execute responsive design right, but what about the little guy?

There are thousands of businesses of all sizes caught in the responsive-design maelstrom right now. We consultants MUST do a better job communicating the intricate details and requirements of this burgeoning arena.

The Basics of Responsive Design for WordPress

In WordPress, a responsive design means your site will automagically resize for the 80+ screen sizes throughout the world. You know – all the smart devices and tablets, plus computer screens and now internet TVs. And when the user visits your website from a mobile device (not from a hardwired computer), your website is presented with all the navigation and calls to action neatly positioned on top.

If you elect not to take the plunge into responsive design, then you lose. You turn away traffic, you will not convert leads, you are ignorant of mobile marketing, and basically the finicky and demanding consumer will pick your competitor down the street.
Responsive design is here, now. It’s the ONLY way to code a website today; yet too many companies are still saying NO.

Communicating About Responsive Design

When you migrate your website from a WordPress template to a responsive template or custom build, there are a ton of coding, testing, sizing, more testing on all the devices, hosting, and security issues. How do you vet a web designer who has this knowledge? Is there any way to tell if you’ve hired the right team? What about the actual template selected? How do you know if it’s the right one?

Let me share the lightbulb moment:

Your clients DO NOT UNDERSTAND RESPONSIVE DESIGN. Guess what — NOR DO YOU.

Now that we’re all on the same page with utter chaos, let me share a few examples why I’m qualified to write about this topic.

Soulati Media Can Do 90 Percent Of Your Website

That’s an astonishing statement, right? If you hire me to do your website, I can do 90 percent of it extremely well. The other 10 percent not so much. When you read the examples below, you’ll see what I mean about that 10% that won’t go according to plan. It’s the gray area that no one has control over, and it’s the area causing the most headaches.

Client 1
A client recently spent $20,000 to get a website designed from scratch in WordPress (I know, crazy, right?). Turns out that spend did not include responsive design although it was promised. The team hired used coders in Brazil and each time they touched a page it was developed in a hodge-podge way. Two years later, the client agreed to spend another $2,000 to redesign the site into a mobile responsive custom build. The designers, BlueHost Design, did a phenomenal job. Alas, the client did not like how the new site looked although it was nearly the same as the original site, and she demanded her original site be restored. The site is now no longer responsive, and the new responsive site is sitting dormant on a development server.

Client 2
A small business had a six-year-old dormant website being hosted with a reseller. The reseller refused to turn over access to the domain registrar to transfer the site to a true host and has convinced the client this is not necessary. Upon the build of a new website using a WordPress template and its uploading to the business’s host, the site was the subject of a total hack attack from Turkey. At one point the entire site was replaced with Islamic music and Turkish gobble. The hackers left their identity on the site, and I reported them to Facebook and government agencies. The original team installed an older template that was not properly responsive. It took a second developer team to uncover all the issues with the site and recode the backend. Once the security plug in, Wordfence, was installed, the site did not work with Internet Explorer/Bing, and the developer had to call for technical support to fix this. The client insists on using IE as their preferred browser, although among the four browsers, IE is the least reliable and is being rebuilt. The site was tested on all the screen sizes, and it took two weeks to consistently test and recode parameters to address all the responsive issues. For now, the site is secure, quiet, responsive, and stable. It works on all screen sizes and with all browsers. It took my team three weeks to fix design, update code, work through a 7-day hack attack, improve security issues, and address daily issues with the technology.

Client 3
I have consistently rebuilt my website and invested in advancing my brand to follow industry trends. The point is that everyone is learning at the same time. When I thought I bought a responsive design, it turns out it was merely mobile ready. So, it was back to the drawing board to re-invest again to add the appropriate bells and whistles. My website has gone through about six iterations each with new back-end upgrades demanded by technology disruption.

My biggest piece of advice is what anyone will tell you – you get what you pay for. If you try to scrimp on the edges, then the inside deflates. Please invest the proper amount of budget into your website and be very happy with the outcome.

Tips to Communicate With Clients About Responsive Design

To wrap this up, here are my tips on how to prepare a client for a responsive design project. Each is very important and this should ensure everyone is tracking and prevent misunderstanding.

1. Ensure your client knows the definition of responsive design and why it’s a requirement
2. Let a client know that the entire site is going to be rebuilt with new code
3. Ensure the web host is qualified to handle new site designs, has server security, is accessible to the web team 24/7 for support, and all passwords are in hand to access cPanel and ftp
4. Discuss each step in the process to migrate an old site to a new template or custom build
5. Review the budget required for re-coding and migration; testing; security
6. Review the timeline for this migration and ensure additional what-if time is built in
7. Address the browser issues and ensure all browsers are up to date among all users
8. Ask the client to test the site and help find broken links or unresponsiveness
9. Review the budget and ensure there is enough to accomplish all of the above!

Questions Marketers Should Ask The Web Team

These are the basic questions to pose with ANY web developer team you hire. If the answers are not to your satisfaction or your instinct is flaring, then please trust yourself and move on. Finding the right web partner is so critical.

1. How many WordPress responsive design websites have you built?
2. Were they template migrations or custom builds?
3. How do you know a template is the most current version for responsive design?
4. How will you inform me a template is out-of-date, supported by a developer or ready for responsive design?
5. Are you a designer only? Who on your team is the developer? How deep is your web team?
6. How long have you been in this business?
7. Have you ever managed website security issues – hacks or malicious files?
8. Are you accessible for crisis management evenings and weekends if there’s a hack?
9. Once a site launches live, what do you do immediately following during transition?
10. What security plugins do you recommend for WordPress sites?
11. Share the most challenging responsive design project you’ve ever completed
12. What are the top three risk areas you will be watchful for?
13. How will you bill for this project? At what point are you going to nickel and dime and what’s the best way to make this relationship mutually beneficial?
14. I don’t want my site held hostage because you’re waiting for money. This happens all the time and I need to hear your philosophy and work ethic.
15. Why should I hire you over another developer?
16. What size of customer are you comfortable working with?

These issues will continue to plague marketers and clients. Only when everyone can get on the very same page and understand all the ins and outs will an experience go well. Over communicate and over explain and overdo the due diligence.
The reason above are real and true and based on solid, direct experience. Managing that 10 percent gray area is where the headaches reside. And, here’s the final nugget — it’s technology, folks! It’s going to break and get fixed.

Filed Under: Marketing, Technology Tagged With: backend website design, Google+, mobile friendly websites, Mobile Marketing, responsive design, website marketing, websites

The Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe Antitrust Conspiracy And PR

05/05/2014 By Jayme Soulati

Credit: Mashable

Credit: Mashable

Google, Apple, Intel and Adobe Systems conspired in the biggest hiring antitrust case the U.S. legal system has ever seen. Please tell me you’ve heard the news. I’m still reeling from the true ramifications of what it means for our allegedly anti-monopolistic economy.

It feels like political parties ran roughshod over the electorate, or the monarchies of Great Britain and the Saudi Arabia launched a war. Alas, it’s merely four giant Fortune 10 publicly traded U.S. corporations named Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe Systems that conspired against their very own employees as if they were chattel.

The four leadership teams agreed behind closed doors the contents of which stayed hidden from 2005 to 2009 to a series of no-recruit agreements. Neither of them could recruit programmers from the other’s company. If they did, it was going to be war as stated by Steve Jobs to Sergey Brin, “If you hire a single one of these people, that means war,” extracted from Bloomberg Businessweek cover story May 5, 2014. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Business, Public Relations Tagged With: Adobe Systems, Apple, Bloomberg Businessweek, Google+, Intel, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs

Get @TheCityHourApp For Social Networking

04/17/2014 By Jayme Soulati

Soulati-Screen-Shot.jpgI recently had the distinct pleasure  to speak with Lance Seymour, chief marketing officer with CityHour, in this Google+ HangOut On Air. During that session, I also got to to send Alex Lubinsky, founder of CityHour, in the Ukraine some big love from we in the U.S. See what we get to do in sponsored posts? We can send hugs and kisses on a personal note across countries and oceans to those in strife. Big XO to you, Alex!

Now back to scheduled programming…

Hear About CityHour Here

CityHour is a new social networking tool with a big vision.

Have you ever traveled and had downtime in an airport or wandered aisles at a tradeshow wishing you were meeting someone instead? How about meeting someone totally new who also wants to do the same?

That’s what CityHour app does for iPhone users (coming soon to Android). Within minutes, and I mean minutes, you can hook into peeps you don’t know with your same interests and make connections happen. I’m impressed, and after seeing what Lance has to say below, you are going to be impressed, too!

Enhanced by Zemanta

Filed Under: Business, Social Media Tagged With: Alex Lubinsky, Android, App Store, CityHour, Facebook, Google+, iPhone, Ukraine

There Is No Online Invasion Of Privacy!

04/03/2014 By Jayme Soulati

Image representing Microsoft as depicted in Cr...

Image via CrunchBase

Last week I read an article by Matt Wilson via PR Daily. Titled, “Microsoft reportedly accessed blogger’s email to trace rogue employee”, the company was called out legally snooping in the blogger’s email, despite its Hotmail privacy policy.

Long story short, Microsoft is reviewing and “evolving” their policies after being reminded of its extreme criticism of the big G.

At the end of Matt’s article, he asks you if Microsoft’s promise to be more careful is enough. GO THERE to post your answer. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Technology, Thinking Tagged With: Apple, Google+, Hotmail, iTunes, Jon Stewart, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter

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