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Soulati-'TUDE!

12 Most Do Now Online Reputation Punch List Items

01/07/2014 By Jayme Soulati

When you sell, buy or build a home, there is a punch list of items on the to-do list to close or complete the deal. Bet you didn’t know social media had one, too? When you engage on social channels, you are building online reputation. You want it to remain pristine. That’s why these punch list items to uphold your personal brand are so important. You should take care of your online self just as you do your vehicle (5,000-mile oil change), your HVAC unit (annual inspection), teeth cleaning every six to nine months, or annual doctor visit.

Every six months or so, consider these online reputation punch list items for your social media presence:

1. Your Avatar Had A Birthday. The little picture you post in all your profiles is called an avatar. If you never change it, you stay forever young. That feels really good as you gaze at a gorgeous you, but what happens when you meet someone IRL (in real life) and they say, “My, you look nothing like your avatar!” What they’re really saying is, “You’re so much older!”

2. Delete Old Photos. While nothing is ever gone from the Internet, you should try to control which personal image you want captured on websites. When you update profile images, ensure the image you’re deleting is nowhere in use on other social media channels. Basically, you’re trying to limit the number of online photos people get to use.

3. Consider Using Gravatar. When you sign up with , a WordPress.com tool, you upload a photo and brief bio. This photo and personal info populate automatically across the Interwebz (all the online social channels). If someone needs your photo for a blog post or other marketing, they can grab it from Gravatar.

4. Update Your Bio. As you grow professionally, you accomplish more and the list of achievements grows. Every single bio sketch you have ever written must be updated on a consistent basis. If you’re at all like me, I update my bio sketch every few months. This means when you update it in one place you have to keep going and update it everywhere.

5. Delete The Year Of Your Birth. Facebook recently informed me a friend was having a 62nd birthday the next day. Shocked, I posted in my news feed that Facebook was infringing on privacy! No, actually, when you set up your Facebook profile you can elect not to include the year of your birth. That means people can wish you a happy birthday, but they won’t know how young you’re getting! Go to your Facebook settings and delete the year of your birth.

6. Check Privacy Settings. On every social media channel with which you engage, click on settings and carefully review the boxes you’ve checked for privacy. Do you want only “friends” to see your profile and share with you? Do you want to receive third-party junk mail (spam)? Do you want to block the ex-husband or stalker girlfriend from your stream? Be very aware of privacy settings although we all know sharing/living online is nowhere near private (right?).

7. Check Third-Party Apps. When you sign in to a new app or online tool using Twitter or Facebook, you’ve essentially given permission for that app to crawl personal information, friends’ lists and liking behavior. Click the settings buttons on Facebook and Twitter until you find third-party apps or permissions settings. Delete the apps you’re no longer using or engaging with. This is important to pay attention to, and few do.

8. Google Yourself. Everyone should Google themselves! When was the last time you did? You need to see what’s popping up under your name and whether you need to kick into high gear and fix anything negative. If your name is the same as a serial killers, well, that’s going to be a problematic for your online reputation. There are things to do to ensure your reputation remains stellar, and the steps what to do require an entirely new blog post!

9. Update Your Website. Never forget to update your “About” page on your website. You can be a maker of artisanal jewelry or the CMO of a mid-tier company. The information about you is critical, and it cascades across all social media profiles beginning with LinkedIn.

10. Add Personal Info To Comment Systems. When you blog, you get to use a comment system like CommentLuv, Disqus or Livefyre. For each of these, you also can add an avatar (typically automatically taken from an existing photo on Twitter or Gravatar) as well as a tagline describing what you do. Here’s my example to help clarify. I use Livefyre as my blog’s comment system, and I used to have “B2B Social Media Marketing with PR” as my descriptor. It appeared next to my name and avatar. Because I recently updated my professional tagline, this now says “Hybrid PR” with my name and avatar. Do take advantage of things like this; it helps you build your professional brand.

11.Add Your To Social Sharing.Add Your Twitter ID To Social Sharing. For bloggers who use social sharing buttons from AddThis, AddToAny, Shareaholic and others, you are able to customize the retweet content of that blog post share. Let’s say someone wants to share your blog post and they click on the Twitter sharing icon. When it pops up, they see 1) @Wordpress.com 2) @AddToAny or @Shareaholic 3) no personal branding at all. What you want instead is your Twitter ID on every retweet so you can see who’s retweeting your content at various levels of sharing. You’re not owning your content without this type of personal customization; you’re allowing the share bar vendors to capitalize on your content marketing.

12.Use This is the most fun and easiest way to develop an online reputation. See Number 8! If my name was the same as a serial killer’s name, I would run to this website and immediately engage. You add positive links about yourself, your bio, your avatar, and this site tells you how to boost each link for maximum search engine exposure. If you lead a highly professional online life, like me, then privacy is out and working daily to keep a positive online reputation is in.

July 17, 2013 (and it’s still relevant!).

Filed Under: Branding Tagged With: 12Most.com, Avatar, brandyourself.com, Facebook, gravatar, online reputation, personal branding, privacy settings, social marketing, Social Media, Twitter

Social Marketing Man Of The Year @Mark_Harai

12/18/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Mark-Harai.jpgIf you’re not familiar with Mark Harai, you better dash on over to every social media channel to easily find him. Better yet, head directly to Blogger Beat, do not pass go, do not go to jail…just run already.

I began the privilege of getting to know Mark just prior to his hiatus from social media and blogging. He disappeared for some five months or so until we all encouraged him to return to blogging. Mark has one of those genuine writing gifts that open the flood gates and make you take a moment to ponder with feeling. Usually his comments on blogs are blog posts in their own right…well, back in the day, anyway.

I have become quite close to Mark spending time on Skype practically every day, and when he wants something he’ll track you down, corner you and relentlessly tell you why you have to do this or do that all in the name of growth and profit.

Mark is a formidable business man. He can generate leads like white on rice; I’ve never seen anything like it. He has built million-dollar companies over and over only to blow them up and start anew. Apparently, it’s a pattern we all have – entrepreneurs eventually blowing up their businesses (I know this as fact).

Why Mark Harai as Social Marketing Man of the Year

  • From little known ex-pat blogger to a visionary and internet influencer and entrepreneur
  • An aggressiveness second to none to get the job done and find ways around the obstacles
  • The intense ability to overcome the obstacles about what’s new and not in his wheelhouse in order to develop the win
  • Salesmanship with nurturing and relationship building extraordinaire
  • Development of Blogger Beat from a seedling that blossomed into a magnificent vision. BloggerBeat is a community of professional bloggers writing and selling in a marketplace of content, goods and services. Mark inherently knew the little guy was no longer going to make it without being surrounded by a team. I encourage you to reach out to Mark and get in on the groundfloor of his baby; no doubt about it, the best is yet to come.
  • The reblogger king. When Triberr launched its reblogging feature, Mark took to it like a kid to candy. He became the reblogging king (with pros and cons, IMHO). His traffic soared as a result of posting others’ excellent content with attribution on his blog, and the light bulb paved the way to his development of Blogger Beat.
  • A heart is a heart is a heart. Mark consistently wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s a man with passion second to none, and he will bend over backwards to share his generosity so authentically with you.
    Don’t get me wrong, if Mark has a goal and you’re part of it, he’s relentless until he gets what he wants. This guy is a force to be reckoned with, and everything upstairs? TRUTH!

Mark, I thank you for your intense personality, a passion that buoys you through thick and thin, a relentless drive to climb the tallest tree, and many virtual hugs you share with anyone who needs them. Your zest for life knows no bounds; when you fall, you get up, and when you’re up you bring everyone around you on the ride.

Can’t wait to see what 2014 brings; thank you for you.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: BloggerBeat, Mark Harai, social marketing, Social Media, Triberr

Brand Gamification Is Hot Trend in Social Marketing

04/15/2013 By Jayme Soulati

enterprise-gamification-chart

Credit: ZDNet.com

Whether the term gamification connotes negativity or it’s just a word taken direct from the video game industry to entice, the trend is pulsing through social customer service, location-based marketing, and social marketing.

You need to begin now to view gamification as something that inspires, incents and motivates customers, employees, prospects, and others who engage with your brand in a variety of ways, on mobile platforms, in-person, via phone, or other.

At the core of gamification is a study in human behavior.

There is a burgeoning and nascent industry around the psychology of human connectivity which also stems from how we’re wired to compete.

About Klout

Several years ago, Klout hit the social stage, and many pioneer users were up because the platform was assigning scores on “influencers” based on the number of tweets and +K awarded on a variety of irrelevant topics and levels of engagement. Was that really influence or was it selective tallying of whose on Twitter longer than most?

Flash forward. After many closed their Klout accounts in public protest, I just received last week my first Klout Perk — a free Sony Walkman. My Klout hovers around 60, and I can influence that score by three points sitting at Social Slam and tweeting and Facebooking and Instagramming all day in conference. Is a Klout perk bribery or good marketing? It’s probably good old gamification — incentivizing Klout users to tout, share, post, feel good, and compete, while sharing the good news in a blog post that a free Sony Walkman just arrived. (Yes, I felt compelled to write about that; it’s a high-quality product and I paid nada.)

About Foursquare

Meanwhile, earning badges and becoming the mayor on Foursquare drives my competitive streak. While recently on spring break driving 2,500 miles, I was the leading scorer among my Foursquare friends until someone in the UK racked up 1,000 points literally overnight. My 11-year-old kidlet and I were not happy; so I tried to unfriend that guy to no avail. We knew he gamed the system and cheated while I diligently checked in at each Hilton hotel to earn 50 points in the Hilton Honors program.

With these two examples from one person, multiply that by Pi. I’m not even a gamer; I’m in a much older demographic, and I hardly engage with the platforms that would allow me to compete at a furious pace.

What Gamification Means To Marketers

Website magazine’s May 2013 issue has a short piece by Evan Hamilton, head of community for UserVoice, on this topic. He references Zappos, Wired magazine, and Gartner’s prediction that 50% of brands will gamify by 2015 and 70% of the largest organizations will have at least one gamification app.

What he also writes is of interest:

“Gamification is not about creating motivation, it’s about reminding people of their inspiration.”

Think about that a moment…

Hamilton says…”If you’re trying to get your users more engaged, take a deep look into what inspires them. Then try building in gamification that evokes that inspiration and reminds them of why they’re doing what they’re doing.”

Social customer service is an area ripe for gamification. The frontline ambassadors need to realize that their motivation is not about earning a badge for the most calls completed; rather, motivation needs to be satisfied customers.

I find the psychology of human behavior behind gamification fascinating. As marketers, we need to delve into the crux of customers’ competitive nature and their need to be acknowledged. Blend that core element into product marketing, customer service, and mobility programs and platforms to motivate response via winning beyond just earning a badge or free dessert.

By Jayme Soulati

Related articles
  • Can Gamification Boost Engagement? Customer Actions Are Saying Yes
  • What is gamification and how will it affect enterprise apps?
  • Billions of online user actions say gamification increases site engagement 29%
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Filed Under: Customer Service, Marketing Tagged With: customer service, Evan Hamilton, Facebook, Gamification, Klout, marketing, social marketing, Sony Walkman, Twitter, UserVoice

Viral Music Video Boosts Brand And Social Marketing Appeal

02/04/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Chicago-Music-Exchange-guitars

Image credit: Chicago Music Exchange on Google+

Knowing how much this community loves music, a story courtesy of Crain’s Chicago Business, shares how some businesses are benefitting from viral video to boost social marketing engagement.

In the January 28, 2013 issue of Crain’s, there’s a section Focus: Social Marketing and a story, “Chicago’s Social Marketing Standouts.” The Chicago Music Exchange owner challenged its staff to create a viral video. Alex Chadwick, a guitarist and salesman, made 100 Riffs (A Brief History of Rock N’ Roll).

Views of this video on YouTube are nearing 4.6 million (at the time of the print story, there were 4.31 million views on YouTube). Total views for the Chicago Music Exchange’s 223 other videos only amount to 6 million.

Elements of Viral Video

What made this video go viral? According to all the experts quoted in the story, the guitarist shows off his technical and musical prowess while taking the viewers through the history of music with 100 recognizable tunes. The video fits right in with the mission of the music equipment retailer, which doesn’t necessarily contribute to its viral nature, but it feels so right.

I absolutely enjoyed that! It’s worth all 12 minutes!

Related articles
  • How to Make A Video Go Viral (Or At Least Increase the Chances)
  • Viral Video Recap: Funniest Memes of the Week
  • Top 10 Brand Viral Videos 2012 (Video)
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Filed Under: Social Media Strategy, Word of Mouth Tagged With: 100 Riffs, Chicago Music Exchange, Rock N' Roll, social marketing, Social Media, viral video, YouTube

Analytics Make Social Marketing Complex

04/18/2012 By Jayme Soulati

I just read John Obrecht’s opinion column in BtoB April 9, 2012 on Thriving in the Age of Complexity. He shares how marketers’ bane is the complexity of social media marketing; trying to teach everyone and give them the tools to dive in while mastering the complexity of all the channels, not to mention the ROI of it all.

Indeed. And, he got me thinking; always dangerous.

There are all those lovely back-end numbers hidden from view that people call analytics. They comprise those data-driven reports that many   people salivate over. Analytics make Google rich, and they make me suspect. Are those numbers real or skewed? Did you really get that many people to your webinar? How many qualified sales leads downloaded that white paper off that new landing page you just developed and published?

How about if I go to Clicky and see that 10 people from Canada and 80 from The Netherlands (because I was writing about Dutch tulips) read a post I wrote and stayed on my page three minutes. What can I do with that information? Should I keep on writing about flower bulbs from Holland which is not my primary expertise or service offering to satisfy higher analytics? Or, should I come back to center and write about   which everyone seems to want to know more about (based on analytics reports I see on occasion).

I was talking this week to a colleague being asked to drum up numbers from a few years ago to justify the success of various marketing campaigns. Why? I’m thinking the people at the quarterly meeting don’t care much about what happened in the past; they’d likely prefer to know which marketing campaign is planned for the future with how many built-in touches and success metrics.

The need for proof points, data, numbers that say W00t! and other analyses that contribute to complex interpretation with nary a consensus makes me cringe.

My PR measurement peers will smack me around when I say that, so let me clarify. I like to prove my program worked; I love to have solid and measurable results that support my strategy and help me earn my keep. But, there are many unnecessary layers of analytics blanketing a creative campaign that most practitioners can’t deep dive into for lack of where to start and how to skin the cat.

Just read John Obrecht’s column. He references a bunch of marketers at Digital Edge Live, an industry show, who “are charged up about their work,” despite massive upheaval and the generation of “big data.”  Obrecht’s conclusion, though, calms nerves; “Despite all the complexity, this does indeed seem the best of times to be a marketer. It’s that simple.”

What do you think? When was the last time you used an analytics report or data to prove your campaign or support a new approach? Was it a one-off situation or do you frequently abide by analyses to win consensus? Is your company or website generating mass amounts of data you can’t begin to decipher?

Here’s my conclusion… Do embrace the analytics to an extent, but keep your distance. Too many numbers is like having too many cooks in the kitchen. I’m impressed with numbers, and I’m even more impressed with someone who can work them. We all know that a good analyst can make numbers work for just about anything, but, a one-time analysis that proved a campaign was successful last year doesn’t help me tomorrow.

This post today? Everyone can argue I’m dead wrong; there are so many others saying and publishing the opposite who live and die by analytics – SEM anyone?

 

 

 

Filed Under: Marketing, Thinking Tagged With: Analytics, data, social marketing

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