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The Blending Of PR With Marketing Is Its Death

05/23/2013 By Jayme Soulati

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

Why Social Media May Not Earn SEO Benefit

03/19/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Whoever thought that social media is the sole solution for a failing SEO campaign is bound to face more disappointments. Although social media is highly recommended and lauded by SEOs and marketing experts, it is not an SEO tool that will immediately function with just one click, producing concrete results a few seconds later. The benefits that some websites have indeed experienced did not appear overnight.

Although the majority will still say that social media is useful for SEO, and for sure you yourself believe it to be true, it is important to recognize and acknowledge the flaws of social media so that you and your SEO company can do something to circumvent them.

Flaws in Twitter

Social marketing experts favor Twitter because it seems to be the most effective in influencing the SERPs and getting a newly published page indexed by Google. This is true to, as proven in so many experiments. However, there is a clincher: In most of the experiments conducted to test Twitter’s influence in Google SERPs (including one conducted by the SEO giant SEOMOZ) the tester requested people to retweet a link for an experiment. People complied and within hours, the links have been retweeted hundreds of times. Within hours as well, the links were later found on the first or second spot in the SERPs.

This tells us two things: one, Twitter can do your website a lot of good, and two, you need to have the cooperation of your Twitter contacts and the public in general.

There’s actually a third lesson here too: Twitter activity is only significant if Google uses its direct, real-time data. When Google turned off the Twitter Firehose in 2011, the massive amount of activities that went on there went largely unnoticed by the search engine.

So, how do you deal with this flaw? The first thing obviously is to use Twitter more as an engagement tool than an SEO one. Second, when you compose a tweet, leave enough space for Re-tweeting.

Flaws in Facebook

Considering that Facebook has the most number of members, you’d think that it will have a wealth of information sitting in its archives waiting for users to have access to them. It’s actually false on the first, and a “we’ll see” on the second.

The content posted in Facebook is very limited; you’d be hard-pressed to find valuable information from its users. Actually, at present it’s quite impossible to search for valuable content in Facebook. The search bar on top will only conduct search matches for user accounts, not content posted on timelines and shared among users.

Besides, active users socialize in this website. That includes companies, websites, and blogs that have Facebook accounts. If ever they do post significant content, they can only do so by posting links to articles and web pages outside of Facebook. The site is also riddled with privacy settings, and they can meddle with your search queries.

The most you can benefit from Facebook search is if the search is an exact match with your account name or your About page.

Facebook intends to level-up its search feature and is set to introduce its Graph Search (which is powered by its partner, Bing). The Graph Search will not function like a regular search engine like Google. Rather, it will consider social signals in generating search results.

It will only post results that are popular within your community and the groups that you belong to. Many recognize this as similar to what Google+ was first meant to do: incorporate social signals into your search results by virtue of the +1 function.

The Graph Search is yet to be launched though, and while that may be an improvement for an SEO-minded Facebook user, the totality of its benefits are yet to be seen.

Flaws in Google+

As mentioned above, Google+ is the social arm of the search engine. It is supposed to be the provider of social signals so that Google will be able to present users with more personalized results. There are two problems here though:

First, there are too few Google+ users compared to the numbers present in Facebook and Twitter. It needs to grow more in order to be a reliable measure for social signals for websites vying to rank first in the SERPs.

Second, the social integration of search results will only work if the user has a Google account, and if he/she is currently logged in to it when he conducts his search. While there are advantages in getting personalized searches, many users still prefer to see actual, organic search results.

Having said that, with Google giving weight to authorship by displaying pictures of authors next to their post (if they have set up rel=author), and talk about author rank becoming a crucial ranking factor in 2013, it looks like Google+ may become more powerful as an SEO tool.

So, if you have a blog on the web, it will be a prudent move to set up your authorship profile to make the most of Google+.

About The Author

Emma-Julie Fox writes for Pitstop Media Inc, a Vancouver company that provides SEO services to businesses across North America.

The Basics Of Corporate Blogging

02/21/2013 By Jayme Soulati

English: This icon, known as the “feed icon” or the “RSS icon”, was introduced in Mozilla Firefox in order to indicate a web feed was present on a particular web page that could be used in conjunction with the Live bookmarks function. Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera and some other browsers have adopted the icon in order to promote a de facto standard. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There are many many reference sources on how corporate blogs become successful. At the end of the day, companies need to realize that behind every blog is a person.

People write blogs, and people read blogs.

When a company is writing a blog, there are basic elements to consider. These stand true for a brand new blog in planning and strategy phases or an existing blog with six months under the belt.

Tips for Successful Corporate Blogging

Team and Tone. When blogging for the company, ensure the team is solid. Typically, there are three good writers to assist with the company blog and one good editor to establish tone. It becomes apparent when someone writes drastically differently than peers on the company blog. Try to ensure there’s a solid thread between each writer so tone isn’t a swinging pendulum.

Topics. Company blogging runs the risk of being inside-out only. If a goal is to build a community of those who comment and follow, then be sure topics are engaging and invite others to connect and participate. If a corporate blog posts three times weekly, make sure 1/3 of the content is about external factors shaping the industry.

Goals. Like any new program, there needs to be clearly defined goals. Without that distinct purpose and consistent reference back to the goals, a corporate blog can go astray. Do not take goal setting lightly! This exercise drives success, growth, authority, and brand positioning.

Analytics. Behind every successful blog is a person and also good tracking! Without knowledge of how many people are visiting a company blog, there is no proof it’s working. Typically, companies cannot gauge success of a blog on comments alone; people lurk and refuse to add thoughts on a corporation’s blog. This means analytics are critical and someone to interpret them even more.

Bells and Whistles. There are basic elements every blog needs regardless of whether it’s a personal or business blog. Set up a decent commenting system with Livefyre or Disqus. Use Shareaholic, the best social media sharing tool on the channels. Add a way to organize archives via categories and chronology via widgets in the sidebar. Consider Zemanta which helps put other like-topics at the blogger’s fingertips to share beneath a post. Use images owned by the company. There are so many issues now with copyrights; companies need to develop their own image library for use online everywhere.

RSS and Social Media Follows. Regardless of how small a company blog is when it starts, having an RSS feed (Feedblitz is reliable) as well as social media follow buttons are critical. Every company has a LinkedIn page and ought to have a Google+ page, too. Start there and the rest will follow.

Subscribe Button. Capturing emails is the name of the game, but what will you offer in return? If people know they’ll get some decent content either on the blog or via a newsletter or other marketing collateral, they will give up their email address. Company blogs need to have this option readily available from the start. Little bit late to the party? No worries…add it and write!

SEO Pack. Blogs need to ensure articles are depicted appropriately and headlines aren’t too long. Using SEO Pack or Yoast are simple plugins to help streamline this without too much thought.

Which basic elements does your company blog have? Please share!

About Jayme Soulati

Jayme Soulati is author of Soulati-‘TUDE! which is a professional blog oriented to social media, marketing, PR, business strategy, and more. She is president of Soulati Media, Inc. and is an award-winning blogger and public relations practitioner. She is a past president of the Publicity Club of Chicago.

Then We All Flocked To Google+ Communities

12/12/2012 By Jayme Soulati

Google ?????Google Refrigerator? (Photo credit: Aray Chen)

It’s been a fantabulous 10 hours since I launched my first Google+ Community, Bloggers Unite! in about five minutes yesterday (with 46 members as of 11 p.m. last night). Didn’t check on a name or worry about what it was going to be for or about…just did it…you know Nike made me do it.

I had to jump in right quick as my peers were inviting me to their communities like crazy, and I saw one already had 150 members…so, there I was not to be left empty handed and voila…another social network, just like all the other holes in my head.

But, it was an exciting engagement sort of day – Google+ was hopping, and Facebook and Twitter were tres dead! Bloggers were posting articles about the new Communities all day, and everyone was joining (after I mistakenly sent an invite to an entire circle and didn’t know it)!

So, what is a Google+ Community?

It’s another place to post and engage and banter or be serious (I’m tired of being serious). Actually, no one really knows. The rules will get made as we go and grow; I’m no longer worried about it. People can ask the serious questions or pose the banter sillies I’m seeing a lot of, too.

I’m loving the feel of these pages much more than Facebook; in fact, it’s cleaner and more fresh. Someone asked me on Twitter which community I thought looked good to join, and I said, “hang 10.” No one really knows what they’re doing yet and everyone is joining one another’s communities, so the jury is out until the content rolls in. My advice to most is to sit back, watch, listen and enjoy the fun. You can decide in about a week who’s on first.

Is it just another engagement platform?

Perhaps, but I want to see for those moderating a community how much link love and SEO juice they may get being all over the Community with responses and posts. There’s got to be some benefit with all that activity. My sense is that every morning someone can come post their blog link first thing in the community and then get more shares.

A few other folks said they wouldn’t accept my invite because they were feeling overwhelmed and didn’t want to do anything they couldn’t do well. Don’t be too worried about being serious about this until you have to get serious. I’m thinking some good stuff is going to come out of this, and you know why?

Google+ has not been peeps’ first channel of adoption. It’s cleaner without all the cousins, nieces, family members, ex boy friends and childhood voyeurs clogging up the stream. It’s about business, and it’s still new. Google did an amazing job creating this hub-bub, and people fell for it hook, line and sinker.

Still on the fence? Don’t be…flock to Google+ just like we all did within the last 48 hours. See you at Bloggers Unite! Ask me for an invite; you’re already in!

A Simple SEO Audit For Your Website

11/28/2012 By Jayme Soulati

This infographic is an SEO Audit for your website. The bloggers over at Search Enabler were more than happy to share the code to embed this right here, for all of you. This is a simple presentation for website owners and bloggers who need steps to better SEO.

by SearchEnabler – SEO software platform