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The Heart Of Marketing

Despite all the latest digital marketing technology, the fundamentals of good marketing haven’t changed a whole lot. At its core, we still need a solid strategy. And we still need to make human connections. That is The Heart of Marketing. Join hosts Jayme Soulati and John Gregory Olson for an informative and entertaining romp through the digital marketing world today. You get an insider view of a variety of topics to help you win customers and grow sales. Some of the topics we’ll cover include: online publishing, public relations, content marketing, social media, mobile, branding, message mapping, marketing integration, and lots more. All delivered with the wit and wisdom of two accomplished marketing pros. Meet your hosts ... JAYME SOULATI is president of Soulati Media, Inc. and is a message mapping master. She hails from Chicago's public relations firms and delivers strategically blended marketing based on core PR with content, social and digital. She is an award-winning blogger since 2010 and brings perspective in business since 1984. Jayme is a past president of the Publicity Club of Chicago. Find her at Soulati.com. JOHN GREGORY OLSON has more than 25 years of B2B marketing experience in both agencies and corporations spanning manufacturing, legal publishing, imaging supplies, healthcare, and nonprofit. John has designed and executed marketing strategies that have generated in excess of $300 million in revenue for 3M, Thomson Reuters and other global businesses. John is a past president of the Midwest Direct Marketing Association. In 2014, John was ranked #52 on Onalytica's list of the top 200 content marketing influencers in the world. John specializes in helping midsized business organizations grow customers and sales with integrated digital marketing strategies. Find John at JGODigital.com.
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Now displaying: Category: Social Media Marketing
May 16, 2017

If you're merely sharing on social media and not clueing into social listening, then it's likely your brand isn't powered up on social channels. There are way too many users on each social media channel and it's impossible to listen in on all the conversations without some help.

As John Gregory Olson and Jayme Soulati suggest in this episode of The Heart of Marketing, it's also important to know your objectives when you use social media. It's also important to better understand your customer so you can offer the right goods and services your customer is demanding right there on Twitter.

Every brand is suffering from negative customer sentiment; well, we only hear about the negative stories that impact a brand, right? The airline industry is one such vertical market truly suffering from poor customer service, irate customers and mission statements that fail to reach the frontline.

If you enact social listening with tools, your brand can get ahead of the negativity with some basics.

In this episode, we review a few tools to help you select social listening tools that are right for your objectives and budget.

Take a look at this PC Magazine article with a plethora of options.

Then, look into Sprout Social, one of the paid favorites, followed by Hootsuite, Clicky and Buffer.

The tools available are numerous, too numerous to count. Ultimately, it's going to depend on the size of your brand or agency, the number of clients/companies you're listening for, the budget you have to spend on these expenses, and the demands by the client in a reporting mechanism.

Apr 3, 2017

Heading to a social media conference this year? How about a conference in marketing, public relations, SEO, content, email, or whatever your vertical is?

Conferences are indeed best practice for in-real-life branding. You show up and immediately someone recognizes your face because of your avatar on Twitter or a Facebook post. (It's the coolest thing.)

So, you show up, you network, you make a connection and you hit the social media sphere and share what you're learning.

We got the idea for this episode from a reporter in the Wall Street Journal who wrote a jazzy piece about her attendance at social media conferences and how she used the experience to share business cards, network, grab some free books, and also be a presenter and thought leader.

There are so many reasons why you need to attend a conference, and I don't want to give it all away in writing. It's a quick episode and full of energy! Take a listen!

Shout Outs to:

Rosemary O'Neill
Mark Schaefer
Adam Toporek
John Gregory Olson (always gets a shout out)

This is The Heart of Marketing.

Feb 7, 2017

There’s something about Pinterest …

It is different from other social media platforms out there on ‘The Webz’.

If you are thinking about marketing your business, your brand or your service on Pinterest, good for you! A unique marketing opportunity awaits.

But to succeed, you need to understand the different mindset of Pinterest users. And you need to understand the different kind of culture and interaction out there.

Don’t let that intimidate you, though.

Because in this episode, we’ve brought in a Pinterest marketing expert to point you in the right direction.

Get the inside scoop from our guest Alisa Meredith. She shares tips, strategies and examples for how companies are driving amazing amounts of traffic to their websites from Pinterest.

Episode highlights:

  • How Pinterest users use Pinterest and interact on the network
  • The ‘long game’ benefits of Pinterest marketing
  • Which businesses are best suited to generate leads from Pinterest
  • Real world examples of Pinterest marketing success stories
  • The anatomy of creating highly ‘pinnable’ images for Pinterest


More on Alisa Meredith

Got a question for Alisa Meredith about Pinterest?

You can find her in many places IRL and on the Interwebz, too:

She has recently written a book on Pinterest Promoted Pins, which has established her as a Pinterest marketing authority.

She has been a featured blogger for HubSpot, Tailwind, Social Media Examiner, and of course her own blog at alisameredith.com.

She is also an in-demand speaker. She has presented at the Agents of Change Conference, Social Media Examiner’s Success Summit, and will appear at the upcoming Social Media Marketing World conference in San Diego this year.

Jan 17, 2017

You may have already been introduced to none other than Mr. Jason Falls, the Louisville-based guru of anything and everything digital marketing; however, in today's episode of The Heart of Marketing, we snare Jason unplugged.

He's with Jayme Soulati (and John Gregory Olson), who leads Jason through a litany of topics on:

  • The future of social media
  • Can small companies compete with big brands on social
  • The top 5 things you need to be present
  • What is conversation research
  • AND...what the heck is Holy Smokes Marketing?!

Jason is an international speaker, influencer, and A-lister (because that's what everyone in the lead is called, apparently) who is an authority for you to know and hear.

He has recommitted to small businesses to educate them about everything they're missing and everything they need to know to continue immersion in learning.

Don't miss this episode as it is certain to be informative and current.

Meet Jason Falls

His blog is full of teaching tips.

Book him to speak at your next gig.

Get small business insight on lead nurturing.

Dec 13, 2016

Today's very special guest is ringleader Ms. Lorraine Ball, an 'old-school marketer' with Round Peg in Indianapolis.

To get the very most from Lorraine's expertise, Jayme Soulati segmented the interview into three distinct sections:

1) What is consumer-driven content?

2) Website design and some tips for businesses

3) Future of social media -- any ideas?

Lorraine has lots to say on each, and she provides excellent tips on ensuring the customer, web visitor and peruser of the Interwebz have a lot of content with which to interact, share, like, and basically help nudge to the top of the news feed.

She gives perspective and concepts about specialty campaigns and how to think differently about each -- you know there's always a contest, submit your photo, or other way to interact to promote consumer-driving content, right?

You'll get some good insight here, and we do encourage you to take a look at Lorraine's website because it's extremely well done.

http://roundpeg.biz

You're listening to The Heart of Marketing.

 

Jul 26, 2016

It is our great pleasure to welcome Director of Marketing Daniel Hebert of Post Beyond to the show today on The Heart of Marketing. Jayme Soulati and Daniel cover an amazing length of ground today, and you will not be disappointed with many of the following:

1. How Post Beyond helps clients target employees to spread the brand beyond the confines of the company
2. Whether it's a good thing to worry about the competition over customers
3. If disruption is creating a forward-thinking clarity or confusion?
4. Breaking silos to effectualize better sales enablement
5. My favorite question, "Is blogging dead?"

This and more are what Daniel and I wax about while John Gregory Olson jumps in with his attempted funnies.

There are a ton of tips here, too, and my favorite part of the interview is the very end!

Thank you, Daniel Hebert of Post Beyond!

Apr 19, 2016

I am a self-professed Twitterholic -- that's someone who is addicted to Twitter. Truth be told, the changes on the channel have me keeping an eye on things from afar; yet, this remains my very favorite social media channel, and it should be yours, too.

For a global event, the Nuclear Industry Summit, ECI Communications was hired to promote the event with a website from scratch, a Twitter stream from scratch, public and media relations, and video production. It was a huge event with three months to pull it off. I was the Twitter peep behind the scenes for the entire event.

Twitter Nuclear Energy Story

This episode of The Heart of Marketing is a story about live tweeting for an event and what happens prior and beyond. It consists of my tips (I am Jayme Soulati, BTW) on how to use Twitter with best practice to realize the goals for the event.

There was strategy, a thoughtful approach to tweets, a very thoughtful approach to engagement, and a need to bone up on the subject matter quickly to be smart when tweeting. I can honestly share that Twitter was responsible for 90% of the traffic to the nascent website prior to the first multi-media news release being published.

Learn from this episode and please do consider Twitter as one of the best media for your event and even daily content marketing.

You Might Like

A Nuclear Energy Case Study

Mar 8, 2016

We're delighted to bring you an Instagram expert in Jenn Herman, one of the top 'dogs' in Instagram marketing for newbies and established businesses. This episode on The Heart of Marketing has us (John Gregory Olson and Jayme Soulati) so excited.

Jenn Herman shares some basic tips that you can incorporate immediately into your Instagram channel, and here are some to whet your whistle:

1. You get 30 hashtags to use in each post; should you use them ALL? Listen to what Jenn has to say!

2. There's only one clickable link allowed in an Instagram profile/bio; did you know this? So what should you do if you want to promote a podcast episode or blog post? Jenn knows!

3. How frequent should your images be uploaded to Instagram? If you do 65 in one hour watch what happens to your followers! Jenn had that client experience and what does she recommend?

4. How much fun can you have with Instagram? Listen to what Jenn has to say about your bio and personality...can you be quirky or stodgy?

5. What if you're a service business? Is it possible to be successful with this unique channel?

6. OMgosh...those memes! Ever feel overwhelmed with peoples' quotes and memes? Jenn sets the record straight with the Instagram rules you should follow!

You're going to want to listen to this episode twice, no doubt. Jenn's talks rapidly and everything she says is a pro tip for Instagram power!

Resources

The Heart of Marketing

JennsTrendsBlog.com

Instagram: Jenns_Trends

Twitter: http://twitter.com/Jenns_Trends

Jayme Soulati

John Gregory Olson

Dec 15, 2015

Our subject matter expert for today’s show is John Nemo, author of five books and former Associated Press reporter who has written for 150 publications throughout his esteemed career. John is an expert on LinkedIn, and in this show, he acts like he’s at a hootenanny raising the barn and kicking it up. You’ll like what you hear and laugh with John’s sense of humor, too.

John Gregory Olson, co-host of The Heart of Marketing, asks some direct and good questions (according to the other John), and what you hear is John’s (the other John) expertise about using LinkedIn for connections, business development and earning the sale.

We are not going to give away the store here, because you’ll need to listen. What we will tell you is this, though – no one should expect that they have the right to intrude on LinkedIn until they earn it. LinkedIn is similar to any of the social channels – you need to build the relationship and share something of value.

If you want to publish on LinkedIn, you can and should, but ensure it bears weight and isn’t just bragging. LinkedIn is growing daily with 400 million members from nearly every country in the world. With its purchase of Lynda.com, the platform is seeking to be the number-one resource for companies and those seeking to use it for how-to, business development, networking, recruiting, and more.

We love John Nemo, and we appreciate him coming to our show; thanks, John!

 

Nov 30, 2015

How do brands survive today to reach customers and prospects? Think about your own brand and how consistently it engages on social media channels. Are you established in business long enough to remember the days of yore when traditional marketing and media were the recipe for success?

It may very well be that social media is already waning. Look at all the daily changes on YouTube with its new subscriber offering, Facebook (all the time), Twitter trying to be profitable, and G+ (on its way out the door).

When you listen to the classic Ted talk by Simon Sinek in 2009, you are reminded that 'people buy why.' Brands are brands because people are curious, they want to be at the front of the pack, they want a relationship, and they want to be loyal. That's human behavior.

If social media died, well, you're going to need to listen to The Heart Of The Matter at the end of the show to see what you might do when it dies, as we knew it.

And, Jayme summarizes it neatly -- it's not what if, it's when. Join us, John Gregory Olson and Jayme on another episode of The Heart Of Marketing.

Shout Out
Shakirah Dawud, Deliberate Ink
Simon Sinek, Start With Why

Nov 17, 2015

In this episode of The Heart Of Marketing, John Gregory Olson and Jayme Soulati do the volley dance and share tips back and forth about social media marketing. It’s their attempt to rescue marketers’ image from Episode 045 ‘Did Marketers Kill Social Media?’

Hat tip to Jayson deMers who writes on Forbes who is the king of listicles and is crushing it with his content. We were both inspired by a blog post he wrote on 100 Social Media Marketing Tips, although we didn't copy or steal; we just got ideas…OK, Jason?

Here’s a bit about what you will hear in this episode:

  • Why social media goals are still important
  • Frequency of posts and quality of followers
  • How you can influence your brand
  • Who are you on social media and how can you improve presentation
  • What happens if you burn out?
  • More so, what happens if Twitter disappears?

    Resources

    Mark W. Schaefer’ blog with guest author Kerry Gorgone speaking about legal implications with hashtags
    Shonali Burke, who is the consummate PR maven, checking opt-in tools for  The Social PR Launchpad
Nov 10, 2015

Episode 046 of The Heart of Marketing is a ton of fun at the top, and you'll see how when Jayme Soulati chastises John Gregory Olson for knowing absolutely nothing about The Bachelor series. (Well, why would he when he's a happily married guy?)

That said, The Bachelor is banging it up in social media and leveraging its brand for its 20th season. We take you down the road of reality shows where we (embarrassingly) cannot recall the names of the most popular.

While we kick it up and share how and why the social media experience matters to The Bachelor, we'll take you back to full circle and why this story has implications for your business, too.

This episode may seem frivolous at the onset, but listen to the end, and you'll get some solid tips for your own social media experience with customers.

Takeaways of Episode 046

  • How much should your audience help you create future strategy?
  • Are reality shows really smarter than they appear?
  • Using Twitter to influence marketing
Nov 3, 2015

Marketers can't leave well enough alone, can they? We consumers (ahem, disclaimer, John and Jayme are marketers) used to have an uninterrupted experience on Facebook until all those ads and cookies put junk in our stream.

Then Twitter decided to go IPO and attempt to monetize and create an easier user experience with changes to character limits and more. There's a buy button on Pinterest, and Google+ is wondering just how to keep that channel alive and well.

Maybe we should agree it's the social media channels themselves that killed the social media user experience, eh? Maybe not. Marketers at each social media channel are sitting in planning sessions trying to determine how to make a buck.

What does all this have to do with the social media user experience? And, how does that affect the mid-tier company? How about the service business?

Takeaways from Episode 045

  • Social media is not a push exercise, Marketer!
  • Should your company marketing strategy rely on social media?
  • Marketers lost control of the social media experience; what they're doing to regain the upper hand.

P.S. Episode21 is our most popular and we don't know why. Pros and Cons of Specialist v Generalist.

Books We Recommend
'Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World' by Gary Vaynerchuk

Sep 8, 2015

News of Facebook’s new patent for using friends' credit ratings and other personal data for scoring your credit opens a discussion of the good and bad about collecting social data.

For this episode on The Heart Of Marketing with John Gregory Olson and Jayme Soulati, we went back and forth about where to point the fault finger about credit scoring, Facebook, and online data collection.

Facebook is now as formidable as ever with its new patent on social data relationships to credit scoring. Turns out, Facebook isn't even the first mover in this realm. Other companies like Kabbage, Kreditech, and Lenddo are leaps and bounds ahead.

Did you know you may be denied a small business loan if you rub shoulders with friends who have poor credit ratings? The practice is transparent in Europe, but in the U.S. credit scoring as it relates to your friends' circles may be more front and center with Facebook.

We dive in pretty deeply about the pros and cons and how you can use this to your advantage as a Facebook marketer using target audiences for your campaigns.

Resources

Jon Loomer is an advanced Facebook marketer. Take a look at his #RockHot material.
Mark W. Schaefer wrote a blog post about the shifting sands of Facebook marketing.
CNN Money shares a story about Facebook friends and credit scoring with a variety of the players already in the landscape.

Jun 23, 2015

Once LinkedIn bought SlideShare several years ago, the social sharing channel became a bit forgotten. LinkedIn doesn’t do much with it beyond allowing the embedding of decks into LinkedIn posts; yet, SlideShare offers high-end versatility as one of the most versatile social media sharing platforms around.

In this episode of the Heart Of Marketing podcast, John Gregory Olson and Jayme Soulati share their experience with SlideShare.

Download and listen in for many of the following tips:

  1. ‘Deck-ize’ anything you want and post it to SlideShare.
  2. Use a call to action at the back of your deck a a lead generation tool
  3. Sleuth on the competition and see what’s being shared and what topics are current with companies in your industry and network.
  4. Hear about where and when to embed decks for larger opportunities with branding and SEO.
  5. Get energized to expand your social network using SlideShare and become an authority and influencer.

You can follow influencers on SlideShare and learn from what each is delivering, and you can power up the brand and SEO at the same time.

Resources

Jayme Soulati Slideshare example:

Savvier Social Media Across The Marketing Blend

SlideShare: The Quiet Giant, Forbes

About The Hosts

John Gregory Olson is a digital marketer and direct marketing professional who rescues companies from poor marketing. As a professional blogger, he offers counsel to brands as they navigate the disrupted technology space. Jayme Soulati is president of Soulati Media, Inc., a virtual blended PR firm offering strategy and messaging to amplify voice. Each has been in their respective positions for more than 30 years.

 

 

Jun 17, 2015

Twitter and Google are getting married. Now that there is more integration for your tweets in Google search, it’s time to get serious about Twitter basics as a business and remind your company and corporation that Twitter is more critical as a social channel than ever.

In this episode 025 (we have arrived, thanks for listening), John Gregory Olson of JGO Digital and Jayme Soulati, president of Soulati Media, Inc. address many, many Twitter basics and tips for corporate Twitter accounts.

Jayme and John explore live tweeting via TweetChat.com, and Jayme shares her story about tweeting for a ‘20/20’ broadcast on behalf of clients Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies and ECI Communications. She also references the solid Twitter team of U.S. Pharmacopeia which tweets internationally.

John and Jayme provide about 50 different tips and reminders for teams about Twitter. Some of these are include how to pin tweets, list building, tweet sharing, use of avatars, links in profiles, click to tweet apps, and so many more tips.

Join the two ‘newly established’ co-hosts, now with 25 episodes published and more to come, as they share expertise about Jayme’s favorite social media channel.

And, ask questions over at http://jgodigital.com and use the live audio app for a question on our podcast!

Resources

http://www.safeonlinerx

http://www.uspharmacopeia.com

http://www.ecicommunications.com

http://www.soulati.com

http://www.jgodigital.com

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 21, 2015

In this Episode 18 of the Heart Of Marketing podcast, I wax poetic about being a Twitterholic as my co-host, John Gregory Olson of JGO Digital, gamely assists and tosses me a few questions to further enhance my six-year-old Twitter knowledge.

Seriously though, this episode is a reminder how to work the gears of Twitter to inject a dormant stream with followers, energy, authoritative content, and more.

My name is Jayme Soulati, and as a solopreneur at Soulati Media with a virtual team, Twitter has been my fave social media channel. Yet, much has changed since the days of banter in early 2009 when everyone suffered from the recession.

It’s now a constant effort to get attention from a stream that feels dead. And, without that attention, it is dead.

In this episode, John and I share expertise on how to take an extremely dead Twitter strategy into a robust, results-producing social media channel. It takes a plan with objectives, time to research, engagement, authoritative content, and a drive to the finish. Then you rinse and repeat.

Twitter Basics For An Event Strategy

In this particular episode, what I share are tips to prepare for a Tweet Chat during a national media broadcast. The strategy that unfolds is a phased approach from research to engagement to the invite and the live event.

Be sure to listen and ask questions of John and I. We bring extensive background and experience in Twitter – the organic Twitter, not advertising on Twitter.

Ask The Heart Of Marketing

A new feature you can find right here on John's website at JGO Digital is audio-recorded questions. John installed Speak Pipe, an app that lets listeners record a question for the podcast. We're pretty jazzed about it, so please do head over there and pose a question? We'll cover it in a future episode!

About The CoHosts

John Gregory Olson is a digital marketer extraordinaire. He is a consultant who brings expertise from the corporate and agency worlds. He is also a detailed strategic planner who methodically covers every aspect of campaign creation. John rescues organizations from marketing failure.

Jayme Soulati is president of Soulati Media, Inc. Since 2002, she's been with her own firm (for the third time), and prior she was with Chicago's esteemed PR firms including Ketchum, Corporate Technology Communications, PCI Communications, and Manning, Selvage & Lee.

Want to pose a question right here? Email jayme@soulati.com. Thanks for listening!

Apr 7, 2015

Episode 15 of The Heart Of Marketing podcastwith Jayme Soulati and John Gregory Olson is chock full of current news about Facebook advertising, it's new Topic Data feature as well as YouTube's new content ID and Google's news about responsive websites by April 21, 2015.

Facebook is now a pay-to-play platform. To get more page likes, you need to buy them. To get attention to a post, you need to throw cash and boost it. What is the best option for your company as it tries to grow its Facebook presence?

YouTube has a new Content ID program in beta. Ensure all of your created video is copyrighted with your ownership and there is no stealing of others' works. It's now easier to make a claim against a plagiaristic company.

Google is set to penalize websites April 21, 2015 for not being responsive. Ensure your site is mobile friendly. You can learn more from hands-on experience in this episode.

About The Hosts

John Gregory Olson is a digital marketing professional who rescues organizations from poor or failed marketing. He brings corporate and agency experience to how he engages on The Heart Of Marketing podcast. John is a blogger and available on Twitter at @digitaljgo.

Jayme Soulati is president of Soulati Media, Inc. She blends core public relations with marketing and integrates content, social, and digital into campaign strategy.

Feb 24, 2015

Summary

In this minicast on The Heart of Marketing Jayme Soulati and John Gregory Olson look at the implications of Facebook legacy contacts and the need for succession planning to manage your business social accounts and digital assets through staff transitions.

About This Minicast

On Feb. 13, 2015, a story appeared in the Wall Street Journal about Facebook allowing appointment of new legacy contact managers. People and businesses concerned about the digital afterlife for their shared social media content can now assign a legacy contact. Google+ has an inactive account manager for such an event.

Choose carefully as Facebook will not allow continuous selection and change of the appointee!

Jayme is convinced this is important news while John suggests that planning is more critical than appointing a legacy contact. See what you think and add comments, too!

About The CoHosts

Jayme Soulati is president of Soulati Media, Inc. and a message mapping master. She is an award-winning blogger since 2010, and she delivers strategically blended marketing programs with core public relations, content, social marketing, and digital marketing.

John Gregory Olson is a B2B marketer and one of the top 52 content marketing influencers according to Onalytica in 2014. John specializes in a breadth of industries delivering highly strategic digital marketing campaigns that connect with customers to create sales. He is a consultant of more than 25 years and brings expertise from 3M, Thomson Reuters, and others. Find John at JGODigital.com.

Resources

10 Tips Why To Appoint A Social Media Executor

Facebook Legacy Contact Lets You Decide

Contact:

Jayme@Soulati.com

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