Public Relations Archives - Page 4 of 13

What’s Happening With @Soulati?

04/02/2014 By Jayme Soulati

Has anyone missed @Soulati? I know a few have and thanks for the well wishes. But, guess what? I’ve not been sick; thank my fortunate stars.

Where I have been is under a rock in the dark trying to muddle through an intense time at my blogging house and for my brand. It’s what every company must experience. You can call it transformation, and it’s a journey that takes awhile…a long while, with lots of introspection and grappling with the demons of the past that form you into today’s persona.

As a result of this experience, my blog has been basically dark since prior to January. I can’t say I’ve missed worrying about what to write on a near-daily basis, but I’m feeling the absence of expressing myself and communing with you, too.

Today, I can honestly say, I see the light. It’s just around the bend, but
having brand new digs is making the light waves brighter.

I need to give my second child (to be born in my next life) to one astonishing businessman, friend, colleague, and partner by name of Dr. Jon Buscall of Jontus Media. Jon is the consummate digital marketer, a brutal editor, and a whiz at website design. His team, anchored by an adorable man named Juanjo, made my new website and me simply gorgeous.

Hire Jon Buscall of Jontus Media

Please hire Jon Buscall for ALL your digital marketing needs and to assess your future journey with digital. Better yet, hit this landing page and schedule a free Marketing Intensive with him!

Essentially, long story short, the lights are back on.

I have a #RockHot new brand — the Message Mapping Master. You can download my FREE e-book with that link!

I have a new website — it’s all mobile, responsive and built for conversions.

I am doing digital marketing the right way because I hired Jon Buscall.

I have a project manager on my team who is also the consummate writer and knows my fears and challenges about failure in Jenn Whinnem. Tweet Jenn @TheJenn, but don’t hire her, she’s mine.

I give a mega shout out to Cathy Tetrick for spending a Saturday as my photographer.

I have a new auto-responder series I wrote all by myself, and you can sign up for it via my blog page right here in the sidebar. (That was an astonishing feat, mind you!)

I am building my email list because the experts said I have to; so, if you don’t mind, sign up and see how it’s done!

I’m so happy in my new house that just launched not even 24 hours ago!!

Find any kinks? Please do share. It’s always great to have fresh eyes on a labor of love. And speaking of love, I have missed you and love you to pieces.

In gratitude…

The Dark Side of Blogging

03/13/2014 By Jayme Soulati

Back in my Chicago agency days, public relations was the dark side. When journalists crossed over, they took a big ribbing.

Bloggers have a dark side, too.

It’s oriented to the lightness of writing tone and levity. If there isn’t any, then a blog post can turn into a complete whine with negativity rampant.

Other times, life happens. Some people choose to push through the negativity and write like normal. Others, like me, can’t find the inspiration to be light and informative because personal emotion gets the best of that.

Another reason there may be a dark side is due to transition. Did you know I’m in digital marketing hell? Getting a crash course in the world of auto-responders and email campaigns. Not too fun for me, as it’s a completely different way of life than what I’m used to. I’d rather hire the experts!

So, there are a few reasons why I’ve put aside the pen awhile, but I didn’t want to leave you hanging not knowing why.

See you sooner than soon.

The Solopreneur And The Hive

02/05/2014 By Jayme Soulati

I’ve been saying for years there’s no more going it alone as a solo entrepreneur; times up for individual practices of one.

Why?

From first-hand experience, I offer you this:

There is too much kerfuddle about what’s new online that requires competency and back-end smarts to make the online business go. What about that social media stuff? Who’s interpreting the big data, and who, for goodness sake, is installing all the plug-ins, widgets, badges and pages plus security on your site and landing pages, not to mention the calls to action and ohmygosh that list?

Beyond competency in all things online, brand and digital marketing plus the writing and strategy of it all, there’s also accounting, legal (more oriented to contracts) or other skill sets needed for teams’ success.

Get the picture?

If you’re still not tracking and nodding the head along with me, here’s solid proof my theory is justified. In the Feb. 3, 2014 Wall Street Journal Small Business Report, “Freelancing Alone—But Together,” the executive dean of St. Joseph’s College in New York writes a solid piece about consultants who find payload working together in a hive.

What Is A Hive

We’re not talking bees here, but do consider the queen and the workers building a colony. There’s a systematic method to that buzzing madness, right? And, now consider this hive mentality with a grouping of freelancers coming together with conjoined forces, competencies, experience, and services to represent clients.

According to Elance in the story in the Wall Street Journal, in 2013, there were 1.21 million jobs posted on its freelance site with 1.15 million freelancers available; do the math – a bit of a deficiency for professionals, eh?

Which suggests to me that the freelancer solopreneur has a bit of opportunity to make it rich; but hold on…as companies shed their full-timers, they’re not shedding the need for skills. This means that a hive has the opportunity to roll in and become the outsourced team, acting as if they are full-time. Do you have a hive success story of your own?

Hive Success

Imagine if you’re part of a hive with all the moving parts to make it buzz. Throughout my 30 years in public relations, I have put together virtual teams and bid together on RFPs. Back in the day, however, companies weren’t ready for that type of structure; perhaps they thought there wasn’t structure.

What I can share as the most critical point of working in a hive or virtual team is this – someone needs to lead. Sadly, organizational dynamics requires a leader; flat teams may work well in theory, but clients need a leading point person they turn to for issues, discussions and strategy.

Here are several factors that contribute to hive success:
1. Leadership – appoint your primary point person to represent the hive to clients.
2. Skill Set – get a variety of competencies on the team that are not competitive with one another.
3. Money – address the discomfort of money and pay up front; everyone carries the load and contributes to expenses while getting a fee commensurate with the budgets attracted and hours recorded
4. Unified Front – this becomes more esoteric; however, if a client is calling another hive member for help with an issue, that person has to inform the rest of the hive. The team must function as a unit and not as individual members especially when clients regard the hive as one company.

Hire Soulati Media

There’s beauty being a solo practice. I can morph into arrangements faster than a chameleon changes colors. I can slot into a marketing team and be an assistant product marketer or join a public relations team and put my media relations skills to work, or work with another solo marketer trying to get a blog up and running or take a larger role as a business strategist for a startup.

Why this is easier for me is due to my career as a generalist in agency public relations. I took on a plethora of roles and adopted skill sets to empower competency as the Internet era unfolded.

Soulati Media is seeking clients right now. Let’s begin with a message map and follow that up with some strategic marketing programs and execution. The team is here and standing by; better yet, Jayme Soulati is the leader with decades of competency to offer.

Be Part of My Hive

Honestly, my hive has been alive and well for a number of years. I draw upon the skill sets that are deficient in my purview and gladly so. It’s been a tough road for me because I am a DIY’er. I love to do it myself but when I do it poorly, it’s time to step aside and let the experts in.
There’s safety in numbers to an extent. What I have found is that people are happy to join a hive as long as they don’t have to lead, and that’s what I do best.

Care to join my hive?

I Married My Blog

01/22/2014 By Jayme Soulati

This is a true story. I finally found my soul mate, and it wasn’t the opposite sex or even the same sex for that matter. It is my blog; hands down.

This blog, named ever so rightly as Soulati-‘TUDE!, is approaching a birthday in March. It is turning the big 4, not the big 4-0, but the big 4. I’d hasten a guess that four years of straight blogging as a professional is akin to the big 4-0. You know, something like cats have nine lives or dog years are longer than one human year.

My blog has become:

My obsession (it tells me to write without even speaking)
My OCD (I have to write or else I succumb to the next bullet)
My guilt
My happiness (I’m thrilled when I know I’ve written a winner)
My sadness (I’m gloomy when I need a break and then force myself to write)
My investment (Uhmm, yeah, time is money)
My professionalism (It defines my read next bullet and competency)
My brand marketing (Indeed)
My influence building (Writing gives me influence, right?)
My authority (The content I write builds authority, authenticity and thus creates influence)
My emotion (Agony, pride, laughter, happiness as above)
My daily activity and neglect (It’s a totally consuming)
My love (Right?)

I am totally immersed eye-deep in this blog after 650+ posts, 10,000+ comments and four years of lessons to navigate the complexity and rewards of professional blogging. Add all the guest posting I’ve done and NOT captured here, and that post tally is likely up to 700 now.

Is It Time For A Divorce?

Do you think all marriages end in divorce? There’s a great piece of data somewhere that supports something like that, I’m sure. For a blogger to divest herself from blogging, the outcome would be much like a divorce – extreme sadness, too much time on hands, where to write and about what, how to keep the brand front and center and alive, and how to share with a community that’s invisible yet not.

After four years of blogging, I’ve learned this:

• I have mastered the content strategy – my content is my craft, and it’s NOT an echo chamber at all, ever.
• Data and analytics continue to plague me because I’m a creative, presenting creations via words for everyone to see.
• Digital marketing is more challenging than one thinks, and I’m unhappy having to make it happen.
• I write my best work for others and love guest posting for the ability to showcase talent in another’s house or use a different voice than how I pen for me.

Rocky Start to 2014

I’ve not been posting much; first time ever, and can’t say the guilt has consumed me…yet. This break was unplanned and it was necessary. As I continue to ponder what it means to be married to my blog, I came to the understanding that MY BLOG OWNS ME. It is in charge, top dog, drives the ship, dictates decisions and eats my money. But, with every unbalanced marriage where one partner holds the upper hand, there is some balance of give and take and partnership, too.

In this partnership of four years that is truly 10, I married my blog and continue to work through the kinks and experience every growing pain and emotion, whether happy or sad. One day soon, we will make money together (we’re already making music) and add more variations of bread for the table loaf by loaf. As blog and blogger continue to evolve, inspiration comes from bread crumbs and eventually loaves are baked until it becomes a bakery.

You know, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie.

National Business Media, PR And Newtonian Theory

01/08/2014 By Jayme Soulati

If you’ve kept abreast of news about national business media of late, you’d know a few are on the auction block while others are undergoing close scrutiny about revenue and future performance. Still more venerable brands are splitting partnerships.

What does this have to do with media relations, the arm of the public relations discipline oriented to earned media – getting stories to appear in news outlets based on the strength of clients’ news?
It is turning the entire media chain on its head; let’s take a closer look:

National media need owners with deep pockets.

Business leaders in the executive suite are leaving in droves.

Journalists writing for the publication know their necks are on the chopping block, too.

Editors are trying for business as usual, while crooking the head over the shoulder to see what’s coming.

Media relations experts who have built strong relationships with these business reporters now find these relationships drying up with uncertainty and the inability to say “maybe” to a national news story.

Clients who shell out oodles of retainer fees to agencies that promise results by way of earned media now may be seeing less positive confirmed responses about media relations projects.

I bet you didn’t know that Newtonian theory applied to national business media and PR did you?

So, what’s a guy to do? I’m just going to come clean and say, “Run, and take cover!”

Forbes is for sale. Fortune is splitting from CNNMoney.com due to a Time Warner divestiture, and Bloomberg Businessweek is under review in spite of its new found success being owned by Bloomberg Media. Time, Inc. is seeking new ways to improve its bottom line while Money magazine is also part of the split from CNNMoney.

Why The Shift in National Business Magazines?

The reason is quite simple; digital. Advertisers are truly hungry for more reach for the dollar, and the way to make this happen is by making websites work on higher digital scale than in the past.
Everyone knows how critical advertising revenue has been for journalism. It’s the elephant in the room. With now playing strong, business media executives are becoming hot commodities for this expertise so magazines can strengthen revenue.

Online publications designed for smart devices create opportunities for media to build new ad streams, too. If these, sometimes archaically thinking executives don’t get on board with digital and online publishing, then opportunities are weak to maintain a healthy bottom line.
I subscribe to about 25 different news outlets and other magazines monthly. The majority come via hard copy to my door because the deals I get are too good to pass up; something like $10 for the year with a gift subscription. Sadly, I’ve seen the ‘zines I rely on get thinner and thinner and then consolidate with sister publications. So, this shift in media is not just happening with the national business press; it’s happening in the verticals, too.

Media Relations Professionals

What this means for we who pitch media is the need to absolutely be on the money with stories reporters can’t refuse. Have you ever seen HARO lists of the queries reporters are seeking to write stories? They’re so bizarre and unconventional I’ve nearly stopped scanning for pitching opportunities.

It’s no wonder journalists are complaining every more forcefully about we who pitch stories. If you’re being paid by a client to pitch a story regardless of whether there’s news value, then please push back on the client and take a look at other ways to get that story some air time.

It will save your reputation; trust me. Meanwhile, media relations and public relations professionals need to and identify outlets, content marketing strategies, and other communication vehicles to share client news.

Because we come from a creative profession, this shouldn’t be too hard to do. I would look to content marketing and digital marketing as an opportunity to get some creative legs on client stories; it’s the next big thing in PR.