soulati.com

Digital Marketing Strategy, PR and Messaging

Soulati-'TUDE!

We’re Drowning In Marketing

By

It’s daunting being a marketer these days. The lexicon in how we market has widened into an array of confusing methods to attract better brand positioning, growth, ROI, influencer authority, social this and that, and consumer loyalty.

The latest favorite is influencer marketing. Last week on this blog, we took an angular look at Google+, Google Authorship and Influence Marketing.

Buy Influencer Marketing Books

Several books written by peers in my own social circles are must reads to keep us thinking strategically and visionary.

You may pre-order Influence Marketing: How to Create, Manage and Measure Brand Influencers in Social Media Marketing (Que Biz-Tech) written by Danny Brown and Sam Fiorella.

Influence-Marketing-BookThey have been writing it up with a large amount of content on blogs, Google+ Communities, and in comments all over. It promises to be a must-buy and read.

 

 

Meanwhile, a dear colleague of mine, Mark W. Schaefer, has written a quick read,Return on Influence, The Revolutionary Power of Klout, Social Scoring, and Influence Marketing, his second book that has hit the corporate world (IBM recently bought 500 copies) and the social media sector by storm.

Mark-Schaefer-BookBecause I know all three of these peeps and vouch for their own cred and influence, you ought to consider purchasing these books for your reading pleasure.

Now, back to the topic at hand…If some marketers think they’re drowning, how does a company cope with that?

Does every marketing team need to know every aspect of marketing, or can they learn in a steady trickle?

The good news is, everyone is in the same boat absorbing knowledge and learning new tactics at the same time. How marketers execute on these evolving techniques is how one differentiates.

Here are my thoughts on how companies should stay the course with these basics and never mind the marketing buzz until prepared to address them head on:

Five Marketing Basics

1. Set up a solid team of people with the right mix of marketing for various types of organizations, someone in PR, another knows email and inbound marketing, a copywriter, a social media enthusiast, and someone familiar with advertising for all media.

2. Assess and solidify brand and dust off that mission statement! It’s critical to revisit this to ensure the company is growing in alignment with founders’ goals and vision.

3. Hire Jayme Soulati (shameless, I know) to do your message mapping exercise. No matter if your company is established or just starting, message mapping charts your company’s communication course.

4. Build a responsive website. I’m not talking about a website that looks good on a mobile device; I’m talking about a scalable site that conforms to smart devices and positions calls to action and contact information on the top of the screen followed by all the rest of the goodies. When your company keeps a website that requires visitors to slide windows back and forth, then the message you’re sending is pretty much, “We just don’t care.”

5. Pay attention to social media and engage already. You have to; you just do. In this post-social media adoption era, there are still companies without the basics in place. Companies owe it to consumers to connect via social media channels. If all we get is a direct mail coupon with no other channel, that is grounds for negative online reputation.

Confused about any of the above? Please ask me, I’m right here.

By Jayme Soulati

SUBSCRIBE AND NEVER MISS A POST!

 

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Google+ Meet Influence Marketing

By

Screen Shot 2013-02-25 at 8.56.06 AMBy Jayme Soulati

In developing my piece on Google Authorship, and another one this week on niche networks, I needed a link for the words, “brand evangelist.” What happened in the next three minutes shocked me into writing this piece and made me extremely nervous that Google+ is going to influence influence marketing whether we want it to or not.

The steps that occurred are spelled out here carefully so you can follow along. See what you glean from what I did; do you come to the same conclusion, or not?

  1. My search for “brand evangelist” was returned by Google. I saw a series of Google Plussers who had written a post or piece published on Google+ featuring these key words.
  2. Each of the folks listed were mentioned with their Google Authorship profile. There was a photo as well as the number of people this person had in circles and the number of circles this person was in.
  3. I scrolled down page one of my search on Google to see if I recognized anyone.
  4. Way at bottom, I saw Mack Collier’s name although his Google Authorship information was not included because his post was pre-Google+.
  5. Because I didn’t recognize an author or publication (there were few), I looked more closely at each person’s Google+ profile seeking anything that would help me discern influence.
  6. I saw the quantity of circles each person was in; wouldn’t that mean something? The peep with the highest number of circles would supposedly be more influential, right? And knew what they were talking about? (Remember, this was happening over a minute to find one hyperlink.)
  7. I set out to select the link for the person with the most circles.

Inadvertently, I had just discerned that I would select a hyperlink using someone’s Google+ post content in my blog post based on the quantity of circles associated with that unknown person.

I am agog. I believe strongly that it’s never about quantity; it’s about quality!

I did the exact thing that people complain about Klout for; I associated influence scoring of my own creation and subconscious to determining strength of content and influence.

I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, if I had automatically begun to select someone from a Google search with the highest number of circles, then every other company would be doing the same without a shred of second thought.

What does this mean for how influencers are screened?

Anyone who understands what’s written above understands what I’m getting at…we can hide behind a Klout score because it’s not well-known as an influence metric.

When someone in business plugs in a key word or phrase and watches those with Google Authorship turned on scroll by, then the ones with the most circles wins, right? (Based on what I just experienced first hand, to my utter chagrin.)

One can only hope I’m wrong. Danny Brown, Sam Fiorella, Neal Schaffer? Can you weigh in on this, perhaps?

Related articles

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

About Google Authorship

By

English: Google+ wordmark (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By

By now your byline for any blog post, guest post, or other online published piece should be linked directly with a Google+ profile via Google Authorship. There is so much being written and shared about this topic, and it will not be a rehash here. What you will see are some very smart people sharing insights about Google Authorship that are too good to just let die in my Google+ stream. I’m going to share some thoughts for you in a random way from around the channels. I’d like your call to action to be to establish Google Authorship ASAP for your byline throughout the Interwebz.

About Google Authorship

Establish Google Authorship to claim brand, original content and rank.

This is to attempt to avoid what happened to of when his blog post was scraped. Because he had added a hyperlink to an archived post, he got a pingback from the culprit’s blog.

Having Google Authorship allows the original author to claim dibs on original content; however, according tothe acclaimed Google+ guru (he really is), there is nothing in place with Google + right now that protects any writer from content scraping.

“We need to be careful about overstating the claims of Authorship. In the introductory video Google’s Othar Hansson said that they could use authorship to determine the true author of content, not that they are (yet).

In any case, it doesn’t prevent someone from copying your content, just wouldn’t allow them to outrank you for it. I suspect we will have to wait for implementation of Author Rank for that to be fully in effect,” said Mark in a Google+ thread with Neal, , and me.

Frank Strong, who writes , is credited with alerting me to what’s been happening with recently on the topic.

Back to Neal’s story…when he got a ping back, he rang the alarm bells in his community, and due to the ruckus raised, the offender removed the post (bet they won’t do that again, eh, Neal?)

said in a recent G+ thread, ” I still recommend every blogger to at least include one internal link in each of their blog posts so that if their content does get copied, and it’s often copied as part of blogs automatically importing content through RSS feed manipulation, that at least you get a back link.”

What Google Authorship also does is help rank that author in search for original content all over the Interwebz. Can you say guest posting anyone? How about blogging communities? (Just so you know, is accepting new bloggers; it’s a blogging community I established in 2010 that is ebbing out of dormancy.)

How To Set Up Google Authorship on WordPress Blogs

If you need help setting up Google Authorship, please go directly to After examining four different blog posts sharing perspective on how to synch your WordPress-powered blog with Google Authorship, this one on Tizish by Josh Galvan was the easiest to understand in plain English. It also did not omit any steps like the others did (in re the back-end coding which is explained very well). My pal will attest to the ease with which this tutorial takes you through the steps.

Thanks for indulging my ping-pong sharing on this topic. When I learn so much in one Google+ stream, it’s too rich to toss by the wayside, and I wanted you to learn as I do, too.

 

Related articles

Take Social Media Higher With Niche Networks

By


English: Infographic on how Social Media are b...

English: Infographic on how Social Media are being used, and how everything is changed by them. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Keeping up with the Joness is none too rewarding for companies, especially when it comes to social media adoption.

Most companies look at their peer group to identify what the nearest competitor is up to and then everyone is eventually following suit buoyed by the earliest adopters.

Many of the businesses that jumped in whole hog bright and early earned the most attention from consumers who wanted to engage with smart brands. Companies slower to adopt are finding it more of a challenge to tally likes, RTs, plusses, or followers.

But, all is not lost for the smartest and savviest social media adopters.

In 2012, users on the Interwebz grew 19.2 percent over 2011, according to eMarketer. There were 1.43 billion users on social networks, and we all know that Facebook boasts the first billion.

As adoption levels taper off, users are going to branch out into smaller networks that are more manageable. Inc. magazine shares a story about the pending 2013 backlash in social media adoption and the “emergence of smaller-scale, niche networks.”

Here are ways your company can benefit from the expected 2013 trend:

1. Shore up the big four or five channels and determine which few are the most beneficial relating to the strongest return on investment of money, time, team, and sales.

2. Stay the course with these, and begin to look around for smaller channels that are ripe for brands to engage with.

3. Understand your customers’ behavior and how they use social media. What do you know about consumer behavior patterns?

4. Study up on online behavior; there is a burgeoning field addressing human interactions online. Companies can benefit from this knowledge.

5. Develop programs that reward customers for their loyalty. Imagine a loyalty program on steroids. How many ways can customers be rewarded with simple recognition that ultimately costs the company pennies?

With loyal brand evangelists, companies can reward with a badge for a Facebook page or other profile page. Simple? Loyalty costs only as much as the creativity around implementing the program.

In the Inc. story, several mentions about smaller, niche apps becoming popular showcase where users are heading to get out from the clutter of 1 billion Facebook users:

Path
App.net
NextDoor
Yammer
MindMixer (I like this site on first impression!)

Also in the story, companies were advised to watch, listen and participate with a non-sales approach. The goal for companies is to jump to the next phase of relationship marketing and reap the benefits of the ever-changing online community.

 

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

10 Reasons Why Google+ Rocks For Companies

By

Screen Shot 2013-02-25 at 8.56.06 AMThere has been so much bogus “Google+ is Dead” banter on the Interwebz, and I’m here to tell every savvy social media adopter that Google+ is the place to be.

Here are reasons why:

1. Google doesn’t have to find ways to monetize. Unlike Facebook, the struggling, always creating new monetization paths public company, Google already has a steady, proven method of making money.
2. Google+ is only the tip of the iceberg for companies’ ability to engage with truly innovative tools, storage, file sending, calendaring, free email and much, much, much more.
3. Let’s not forget the number-one reason — search. Yep, Facebook now has Facebook Graph Search that is supposed to change the course more positively for Facebook, but it’s in its infancy. Google has long established itself as the King of Search.
4. So this doesn’t become a Google vs. Facebook post, here’s one — Google+ communities are the game changer (oops, I guess there have been Facebook groups for a very long time that are successful, too). For brands seeking business audiences, Google+ has raised the bar high.
5. Google+ is not the place where high school buddies and families congregate; it’s where business peeps interact with others sharing solid material.
6. Google+ is not competing with a billion users. The early skeptics are MIA or just adopting. What that means for brands is the ability to get serious Plussers who seek savvy companies with a page built for Google+ engagement.
7. Google+ is seriously a happening channel, at the risk of Twitter. As Twitter sometimes feels like a graveyard (I know this for a fact), Google+ has activity all day long — high energy activity with real human engagement and not just a +1 or forward share.
8. Google+ Communities are now available for company pages. Because a person starts a page, that person should join a Community first to see what it’s all about. Then, with that comfort, launch a G+ Community oriented to the company brand, products, services, or subject matter. No better way to uild loyal prospects and customers.
9. Influencers bare engaging on Google+ all day. When was the last time you saw Chris Brogran on Twitter? Enough said.
10. Google+ is not just a passing fad. Just like early adopters to social media, companies getting on board will pave the way for higher levels of engagement. Please don’t miss the boat!

By Jayme Soulati

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta