soulati.com

Digital Marketing Strategy, PR and Messaging

Soulati-'TUDE!

How To Message Map E-Book Debut

By

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.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Old PR Plus New PR Equals Hybrid PR

By

 PR HatYou know those hybrid cars that are more expensive because they run on electricity and fuel? Think about public relations…our profession is like a hybrid car, too. We run on different platforms to deliver mileage for a campaign. We blend a variety of marketing disciplines, just like fuel and electricity to produce.

 On Spin Sucks June 3, Gini Dietrich wrote about the PR firm of the future. She’s seeking hybrid PR professionals to work with her team, and here are the criteria she’d like to see in that person:

  •  Media and blogger relations
  • Content development
  •  Content marketing
  •  Workflow development and email marketing
  • On-page search engine optimization
  • Issues management
  • Client service
  • WordPress coding (bonus)

Old PR

 Recently, I wrote a post right here about the blending of PR being its demise. In that post, which turned a few heads, I had a list of traditional PR and it looked like this:

  • Media Relations
  • Spokesperson Training
  • Message Mapping
  • Thought Leadership
  • Blogger Relations
  • Writing
  • Industry Analyst Relations
  •  Investor Relations/Stakeholder Communications
  •  Corporate Communications
  •  Internal/Employee Communications
  •  Events Planning/Execution
  •  Community Outreach

 

Hybrid PR

 Like Gini says, public relations folks need to be a bit of this and a bit of that to succeed in the new and blended frontier. We have to adopt more than just adeptness on the social channels. We have to jump into new and uncomfortable areas to ensure we’re innovating all the time.

 You know what the problem is with public relations professionals? Too many of them want to stay pure and not change.

 Here’s the rub – WE GET TO CHANGE! We’re in a profession that provides us with the gifts to re-invent, adopt new methods and offer a powerful combination of skills, expertise, and knowledge from content marketing, media relations, digital marketing, social media marketing, thought leadership, message mapping, industry analyst relations, investor relations, employee communications, special events, and so very much more.

I appreciate the word hybrid to describe what I offer. No wonder I’ve had such a challenge sharing succinctly about my services.

 Jayme Soulati offers a breadth of public relations services featuring content, social and digital marketing.

 Would that begin to describe what hybrid public relations looks like from your vantage point?

Customers At The Core

Regardless of what you offer, it’s really the customer who dictates what you pull out of the hat. If you’re not familiar yet with The ArcCompany, the Canadian upstart making inroads into huge insight, then you need to read this blog post or go find the truly provoking comments of Amy Tobin especially in her Sunday social justice post.

As you’re thinking of your customers, just for the fun of it, I’m going to end with another Gini list that helps define PR and the tactics that ought to be in use today. This is a list from Arment Dietrich; it’s “Some of the things we do” taken directly from this post, and if that’s not hybrid PR, nothing is!

  • Develop integrated offline and online marketing plans
  • Content development (white papers, videos, podcasts, blogs, eBooks, webinars)
  • Marketing that content we develop
  • Email marketing
  • On-page search engine optimization
  • Social media
  • Google+ authorship and authority
  • Online reputation management
  • Crisis communications planning and management
  • Employee communications
  • Social media policies
  • Media relations
  • Blogger relations
  • Monitor online conversations
  • Develop online audits
  • Community development and growth
  • Influencer relations
  • Word-of-mouth campaigns
  • Analyze data and web analytics

 

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

The Blending Of PR With Marketing Is Its Death

By

The with every aspect of social marketing, search, digital marketing, and plain old marketing has provided new opportunities for older, seasoned professionals to reinvent to keep up with the changes. I know this to be true, as I am one.

Sadly, this very blend may be the demise of PR as we know it.

In a recent conversation with a table of marketers IRL originating from the disciplines of search engine optimization turned digital; PR newbies turning digital; PR veterans turning digital/social marketing; and, old-hat marketers, the chatter surrounded the old vs. new of public relations.

The old teachings of the 4Ps stemming from advertising were unknown amongst the newest professionals. Those with search engine optimization  competency likened public relations to search marketing. In fact, they said “PR is SEM.” Another had no idea that media relations and publicity are just not the entire discipline.

Me? I merely shook my head in awe at the implications for my profession within this conversation. I walked away from that discussion with a sinking feeling for tomorrow. What will PR look like in 20 years? Based on what I heard, methinks the traditional public relations profession’s demise starts now.

The blending of the disciplines is removing every single barrier and silo from core competencies and making everyone look alike. Do young professionals and our sisters in marketing and brothers in SEO understand the value public relations professionals bring to the marketing mix?  Apparently not, and who’s at fault for that?

Off the top of my head, this list below is not inclusive by any stretch, but it’s meant to provide a look at what pure public relations professionals deliver in a traditional sense:

  • Spokesperson Training
  • Thought Leadership
  • Blogger Relations
  • Industry Analyst Relations
  •  Investor Relations/Stakeholder Communications
  •  Corporate Communications
  •  Internal/Employee Communications
  •  Events Planning/Execution
  •  Community Outreach

What shook me up from my in-the-flesh conversation was the correlation people made with PR and search engine marketing. That bridge is so far from the truth, and it made my heart stop to hear it.

I’m wondering if folks believe PR peeps are only good for stuffing key words into content to game traffic and organic search?

I am all for reinventing oneself in order to earn more revenue-making opportunities. What I’m not happy about is the future of public relations when those who lack traditional hindsight are teaching new professionals that public relations is search engine optimization is digital marketing.

By Jayme Soulati

Related articles

Anatomy Of Feel-Good PR Stories

By

desert-tortoise.jpg

advocacy.britannica.com

The single-best place to find the single-best headlines in addition to feel-good PR stories is the bottom feature story on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

Within these pieces are sensational and zany stories about topics you can’t imagine. Today’s story is one of the best feel-good features I’ve seen there in awhile as it melds the rough and tough U.S. Marine Corps with the desert tortoise.

Yes, our nation’s military dual as conservationists. Hard to believe, eh?

The Story

On a training exercise in the deserts of California, in Twentynine Palms to be exact, the troops were charging a hill and shooting at targets until one of the softer-hearted screamed “tortoise alert!” (Those last four words are speculation.)

The exercise ceased and the turtle doctor was called to the scene; he’s part of “a little-known army of biologists and other scientists who manage the Mojave desert tortoise and about 420 other threatened and endangered species on about 28 million acres of federally managed military land.”

When the tortoises are scared, they pee themselves. I’m only telling you that so I can use this word I’ve never seen from the story…”an unplanned micturition can cause dehydration and even death.” (The best explanation for that is the turtle wets the bed, and BTW? My spell check did not like that word.)

So, the biologist shows the Marines how to soak the reptiles in water until they drink enough to carry on. Apparently, these desert dwellers don’t need a drink for about two years, and when they dribble from fear, their supply of water is exhausted.

Elements of a Good PR Story

Let’s look at why this story works for national news:

  • Endangered species protected on federal reserves
  • A team of biologists functioning within the military under a bit of secret cover
  • The Marine Corps doing drills in the Mojave desert
  • The Marine Corp as conservationists; ceasing all ops until the tortoise families are safely moved to distances away from training sites.
  • Background about the reptile and its habits (the water factoids)

And, that really good headline tops it off, “The Few, the Proud, the Tortoises: Marines Protect Endangered Species; An Army of Biologists Are on Nature Patrol at Military Bases; ‘Walking Ravioli’

Your Good PR Story

Considering trying for national news with a good media relations professional? Here are some elements you can’t be without:

  • Hard news with a soft news twist
  • Current events angle; news that ties in with world affairs
  • Data: could be new research, patterns of behavior
  • Third-party Spokesperson: academic, scientist or other expert to vouch for the data
  • Consumer: Person who receives the service, uses the product with a good story
  • Company executive: Someone with the Message Map in hand who can present the company in proper light

The final item on your list is to have a professional pitch this to national media. It will be a huge challenge if you try to do it yourself.

By Jayme Soulati

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Streamlining Blogger Outreach With Inkybee

By

inkybeeIt’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?

 

 

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta