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Innovate Or Die

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Credit: Jayme Soulati via iPhone 4S to Instagram

Every news article you read, there’s something about company innovation. You can scale that to the size of your operation, and that can be in the realm of a self-published book, for example.

The examples I love and which inspire are:

Why Is Innovation Important?

Innovation is about remaining relevant. Companies that produce the same product or service the same way every day are not being innovative.

Companies that remain the same with no change for consumers become surely irrelevant.

Small businesses that never painfully challenge the status quo get stagnant after awhile.

Solopreneurs who never push the envelope to try new things cannot rise to the next level.

What is Innovation?

In this day and age, innovation can be defined in a variety of ways:

  • New products or services
  • New authority for the CEO
  • Increased levels of engagement by a company team
  • New realization that consumers are king.

Consumer Is King; Content is Queen

I want to focus on that a moment; consumers are king.  We’ve been hearing for awhile now that content is king. Nope. The throne is squarely in control of the consumer.

To innovate, companies need to understand consumer is king.

    • What does your consumer need to keep coming back to your business?
    • Where do you need to engage with consumers?
    • Where are they engaging with you?

The takeaway today is not really about defining innovation, because most of us know and understand what that means. Knowing what it takes based on market and consumer research, understanding the inside of your company, and knowing what business goals the company has set are all aspects of successful innovation.

This is such a broad subject, and I’ve only toplined a smidge of this topic. How do you break it down?

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The Happy Friday Series: 24 #RockHot Guest Authors

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thank-you.jpgThe day after a U.S. holiday is always low key, and that’s why we’re going to bang it up today and clang the pots and pans in honor of the 24 #RockHot guest authors I cajoled, nudged, begged, and just plain old invited to write for the longest-running series a blog has ever had (and longest sentence, too!).

What began as an experiment with zero nada expectation has become a weekly post on Fridays about happy. Thank you to each of you below who willingly participated and accepted my invite to be part of this blogger’s happiness project out of the blue.

Along the way, two goals were created:

1. That Jayme Soulati would never need to write (because nothing was in queue) unless she wanted to (Secret: I have a post I wrote after something significant occurred and I will post it when there’s a need.)

2. To get through one entire year of guest authors every Friday until mid-January (Jan. 17, 2013 launched the series), and so far so good!

Without further ado, let’s get on with the show! I thank, am grateful, adore, appreciate, and have so much respect for each of the people in this community below who so graciously shared a piece of their happy. XO to each and all.

24 #RockHot Happy Guest Authors

Each of these titles begins with “The Happy Friday Series:”

January 11, 2013 — Everyone’s Happy! Kick off post by Jayme Soulati

January 18, 2013 — Power Of A Smile by Peg Fitzpatrick

January 25, 2013 — Top Five Cheery Songs by Susan Silver

February 1, 2013 — Creating Optimism in Traffic on Foursquare by Paula Kiger

February 8, 2013 — Glass Half Empty And Happy by Jenn Whinnem

February 15, 2013 — Five Favorite Dances by Erin Feldman

February 22, 2013 — Smiles From Alaska by Amber-Lee Dibble

March 1, 2013 — Should Life Be Serious? by Jamie Wallace

March 8, 2013 — Science of Happiness and Do-Overs by Geoff Reiner

March 15, 2013 — Finding Happy with Scoliosis by Sandy Appleyard

March 22, 2013 — Embrace Happiness Today by Mark Harai

March 29, 2013 — Be The Sun And Serve by Betsy Cross

April 5, 2013 — How To Find Your Happy by Amber-Lee Dibble

April 12, 2013 — Let Go Of Sad by Nancy Jean

April 19, 2013 — A Chat With Pooh by Stan Faryna

April 26, 2013 — Five Seconds And Happy by Brian Meeks

May 3, 2013 — What’s So Great About Being Happy? by Sharon Gilmour-Glover

May 10, 2013 — Spring Does Come To New England by Michelle Quillin

May 17, 2013 — Tunes of Time by Brad Lovett

May 24, 2013 — Amazing Online Friends by Kristen Daukas

May 31, 2013 — Beads, Buttons and Crochet by  Christine Esposito

June 7, 2013 — Fine Art Photography and Family by Ed King

June 14, 2013 — Taking Risk For Desert Passion by Brian Wrabley

June 21, 2013 — Life-Crafting Goals to Push The Envelope by Adrienne Jandler

June 28, 2013 — Thriving Or  Surviving? by Carolyn Nicander Mohr

How To Write For The Happy  Friday Series

Yes, it is no small feat to find a different guest author weekly for this series. That’s why you ought to consider it. I’m told it’s a highly therapeutic happening. When you think about what makes you truly happy or what your interpretation of happiness is and could be, writing about it becomes an awakening.

Happiness is introspective and few of us desire to take that kind of hard look inside; when you do you share among friends and it feels so very good.

If you care to write for this series, and I implore you to consider it, here’s how:

1. Send me a note, tweet, post of intent everywhere (even in the comment section below).

2. Write your post and give yourself two weeks to get it done.

3. Deliver it with an author bio, photo for the story, links to your blog, etc.

4. If the headline or content within needs tweaking, I reserve the right to edit. If the content really needs tweaking, I’ll send back to you for review and approval.

5. Share the heck out of it when it appears here!  Easy!

(P.S. There are bound to be link mistakes above; please inform me right away, and I will correct! Thank you!)

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The Happy Friday Series: Life-Crafting Goals To Push The Envelope

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scuba.jpgThe absence of goals, or something bigger to strive for in life, leads to coasting; slowly bleeding away happiness.  As a big believer in always having goals, reaching higher, stretching personally and professionally, it bothers me when big bulls-eye personal goals are missing on the horizon. And yet, in the past few years I’ve found it easier to set business goals than personal ones.

Maybe it’s a ‘40s thing; or a Christian thing (be thankful for your many blessings, do not covet thy neighbor’s stuff); or even a self-actualization thing (yes, I was actually paying attention during the class on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs).

Even more likely? It’s a prioritization thing. Life and work are so busy that I simply don’t have time to really focus on personal goal-setting and visualizing. So sitting down in a boardroom to “plan” parts of my personal life just doesn’t work like it does for business.
I’ve given this a good bit of thought and energy and have come to two truths:  you take inspiration where you can get it, and anything that isn’t scheduled into my week isn’t likely to occur. 

 And so, I give you… Life·crafting  (the active, deliberative crafting of the life you want) just coined today for this blog post! It is a purposeful, exhilarating and ongoing process that while previously unnamed captures a habit that leads to happiness.

 

Here’s how it works. I go to conferences, networking events, dinner parties, meetings, etc. and meet a diversity of people. With each person I meet, I try to unearth at least one really interesting thing about his or her personal life.  A few examples of cool things I’ve discovered in people this week?

  • Jeff is taking flying lessons and wants to own a small plane.
  • Kathryn discovered roller derby this year and now she’s on a team.
  • Jennifer is headed to India in 2 weeks and then to London to deliver a keynote at a blogger conference.
  • Dorien has a friend who has hosted orphaned children from other countries for the summer.

Not only do I get to enjoy interesting conversation with these folks, but also I find it helps me remember names of new people more easily  (great for business), and I get to “sample” potential hobbies, possessions and activities that might be a great goal for me.  Through these conversations, I am exposed to all kinds of things I never would have thought of.  (Who even knew you could host orphaned children from another country?) When I find something of personal interest for myself, I put it on the list. (Yes, an extended trip to India is most definitely on my itinerary in the next three years!)

The mental “trying on” of these potential goals always elicits a quick reaction:

  • Pilot Lessons – would love to, but probably not interested enough to invest the time and mone
  • Roller Derby – I want to keep my teeth, 44-year-old-bones do not break well
  • India – Yes, please!
  • Orphaned children – could be a life-changing summer for all involved

Once a month I schedule time to review them.  I make an occasion of it – sit down, light a candle, have a glass of wine (or a cup of great java), some good chocolate and sort through my list. Sometimes they are small goals, skills I want to develop, hobbies to explore, etc.  But sometimes they are the spark for much larger, far-reaching goals. I ultimately became a (small scale) commercial real estate investor as a result of this process.

So I no longer plan out personal goals along with business goals once per year. It becomes a life-crafting process that evolves from month to month, along with free-flowing beverages and chocolate.  And presto! There they are – cool, fun, different, stretching goals that inspire me. And that makes me happy.

How do you find inspiration that challenges you to grow? What’s on your list?

 

About The Author

Adrienne Cregar Jandler is the Founder and President of Atlantic Webworks, a full-service web and interactive marketing firm in Greensboro, North Carolina. When she’s not working with clients on web strategy, she’s likely to be on the lake, traveling or working on property improvement projects. She also enjoys scuba diving with her husband, and is an Indian-food addict and cupcake connoisseur. Be sure to give her a tweet and circle her on Google+ .   

 

 

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Triberr Is Blogger Treasure

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Since the earliest days of Triberr, I have been on board. Triberr is one of the best and most-needed blog sharing tools around; in fact, there isn’t any other.

Bloggers can elect to join a tribe of nine bloggers or join multiples of tribes as I have. What happens to the tweet stream, though, when you’re in more than 25 tribes, like me, is chaos. Some of those tribes consist of 100+ members that connect me with 5 million folks? (Don’t think that’s really true, but OK.)

121217- Digging Into Triberr

121217- Digging Into Triberr (Photo credit: Rogier Noort)

Sound stupid? I agree, of course, but there is a method to my madness and insatiable thirst for knowledge and curiosity.

I have received several direct communications via Twitter and someone even filled out my WuFoo contact form that my tweet stream is too full of retweets. It has become annoying because of the quantity of content loading into my stream. I was asked to set up another Twitter account for retweets of Triberr content (which is totally impossible due to the RSS feed, branding and outreach). Others have said how boring it is to see the same tweet from a variety of bloggers (they’re obviously in the same tribe).

I understand all of the concerns from the folks who are not professional bloggers and who don’t realize the merits of Triberr.  I’m going to share why I continue to accept tribe invites and why I pay $10 monthly to Triberr so I can share more blog content faster. Besides, for any platform the likes of Triberr, they deserve my $120 annually to continue to innovate at the speed they have for the last three years.

Reasons Why Triberr Matters

  •  Founders. As I’ve joked with Dino Dogan, founder and front man of Triberr, the fledgling company is like Two Men and a Truck. They fly by the seat of their pants, but anytime you speak with Dino or Dan Cristo, the energy to innovate is palpable. I’m including a link here for my Soulati Media On The Street chat with Dino Dogan at Social Slam in April. Energy? Uh-huh.
  • Innovation. In the three years since the launch of Triberr, back when Dino and Danny Brown were gaming Klout with sheep (yes, that really happened), Triberr has launched about a dozen new tools to help bloggers automate shares. And, that word “automate?” In this case it’s not cuss.
  • Tribes. Being in multiple tribes means you comb for the cream of the crop.  You can mute bloggers not in your genre, and you can meet new bloggers publishing leading content. You can also launch and join an atomic tribe; one blogger with unlimited followers. I have learned so much from my peers on the ‘sphere, and the only way I can reasonably do that is via Triberr. I save productivity time being on one platform with ~500 bloggers at my fingertips on a given day.
  • Reader. Triberr has become my new reader. You see folks on the quest to find the next best Reader after the demise of Google’s and the migration to Feedly. Triberr works wonders for me; not sure I’m going to find any other blogger not already in a tribe I belong to. In fact, if I do, they get an invite to join my tribe.
  • Content. A newer feature called reblogging allows bloggers to republish content from another’s blog with the original author featured. This is one aspect of Triberr I don’t yet care for; when I read peoples’ blogs, I want to read their content primarily. If I see only reblogs happening 90% of the time, I’m discouraged visiting. For bloggers who want to post more frequently and don’t have time to post consistently, then re-blogging works; just not for me. I reserve the right to change my mind.
  • Reading. I love being able to read blogs from Triberr without going anywhere. I can quickly scan and see if the content is worthy of going to the blog and leaving deeper tracks. This has helped me be more share aware; there are so many who still say, “don’t share unless you read first.” That’s one issue for me being in so many tribes; I can’t read everything and have to trust the authors’ credibility which I’ve vetted already once they’re in my stream the first time.
  • Commenting. The new Triberr dashboard now allows easier reading of blog posts right on Triberr without having to go to a blog. What this means is not good for bloggers (because traffic isn’t recorded on the blog), but it is convenient for readers and tribe mates. An email comes alerting me that someone commented on my blog on Triberr. Comments are up 50% since the guys fixed all the glitches. I have seen some bloggers using the Triberr comment system along with another system like Google. Interesting.
  • Content Marketing. The best reason to use Triberr is to review the content and topics others are writing about and with what angle. It helps to know what’s new and trending and it also provides fodder for your own writing.  Topics can get pretty boring quickly when you see all the bloggers writing on Facebook hashtags and photos in comments, for example. That’s when I have to select one only and ignore the rest. It becomes an echo chamber and I know my Twitter followers don’t want that.
  • Shares. Shares are down with Triberr. Even with the ridiculous numbers of tribes I’m in, I have fewer shares of my blog content. Regardless, without Triberr (when it was down for an extended period), traffic is nearly zilch.

 When you add up all of the above, bloggers need Triberr. For those on the receiving end of the tweet stream for bloggers in massive numbers of tribes, patience is the virtue. It’s my responsibility to share my tribe mates content; in fact, if I don’t, they don’t share mine. So, I apologize to all of you not blogging and invite you into my tribe so you can experience what I’ve just shared.

 

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12 Most Snappy Headline Writing Tips For Bloggers

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Do you know that many blog headlines suck? No, seriously, they do, and here’s why… the headline is the single-most important aspect of a blog and writers often stop short by featuring a less-than-pizzazzy headline.

In this era of time constraints, a headline has to describe the gist of the story, draw readers in, and be creative. With that said, here are 12 tips to get you thinkin’ on better headlines to attract and keep readers coming back:

1. Summarize the story in the title. Give readers the low down of the story right on top. A headline provides the gist of the news, content, story angle, etc. Be descriptive in a concise way. Spend the most time writing the headline FIRST; trust me, this is the best way to get it right.
2. Be creative! Can’t stress enough how critical it is to let the creative juices flow like hot lava. It’s your job to draw a reader in and make them click on that title to see what else is being featured. When the headline is the only chance you get… well, spend more time on it!
3. Say no to hashtags. If you think you’re killing two birds with one stone writing a headline for Twitter with a hashtag, think again. A headline with a hash tag is unappealing. Besides, Twitter is not the only channel for sharing; other channels don’t use hashtags to capture topics, so why do it?
4. Reconsider name dropping. You may be in love with that book author, client or peer in your tribe or feed, but guess what? Your readers have no clue who that person is. When you name drop with the @ sign in a headline it diminishes the headline and becomes very promotional.
5. Use more than one or two words! Amazingly, bloggers think a headline with one or two words is acceptable; rather, it’s an immediate signal to run for the hills. While the content may be decent, there’s no way to tell because one-word headlines say and do nothing to entice a reader to open the door.
6. Be tastefully raucous. Some writers never use raucous words in a headline and that’s up to the discretion of the writer; however, if you’re going to use the “sex sells” mantra, do be tasteful about it. Do a test on occasion — add a racier word than you’re used to and see if traffic boosts.
7. K.I.S.S. — Keep it simple! When a headline carries on for three lines, readers’ eyes completely gloss over. It’s so critical to keep a headline short, sweet, simple and to the point! Not satisfied with yours? Ask someone for help; people do like to help others.
8. Keep key words for SEO to a minimum. Never overdo key word littering in a headline. That’s one thing every reader picks up on and every reader then expects the content to be oriented to SEO juicing, too. All bloggers want to boost SERP, but it needs to be done in a minimalistic way.
9. Use action voice. Write a headline that is a “How To” or includes an action verb. Here’s an example, “How To Refinish a Spindle Chair In Half The Time.” Not only does that title tell me I’m going to learn how to do something, it also tells me I can do it more efficiently. (Anyone who has refinished spindle legs knows how challenging it is!)
10. Ignore first-person pronouns. Use of the word, “I” is verboten… that’s German for “forbidden.” Who’s making that rule? Moi, the author of this post. There are no hard or fast rules to blog headline writing, but this one should be set in stone.
11. No selling! Cannot stress enough how horrific it is to read a headline in which the author is sharing coupons, deals on products or dentistry (yes, I saw a woman doing that on Google+ and kindly told her this is not how Google+ is used with a suggestion on how to do it and then deleted her from my stream). There’s no easier way to alienate readers by putting such things in a headline.
12. Know your audience! Who is in your community? Do you have “mommy bloggers” who might like to know which brand of children’s clothing stands up to 10 washings? Are you an author trying to showcase your latest book? Do you write professionally for small businesses? No matter… when you write a post with your community in mind, the headline needs to orient to them and their takeaways.

Overwhelmed with these tips on how to perfect a blog headline? Please don’t be! Review the patterns in your own writing and note a few areas you might consider improving. Then, take a few of the aforementioned tips and change up your style a bit.

What do you think? Is anything missing?

 

This post originally appeared on 12Most.com January 1, 2013 by Jayme Soulati.

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