Are you ready to move your PR strategy online? When Deborah Collins and Jacqueline Voci founded Soya Marketing in early 2008, it was because they saw a huge market shift was about to happen. Both founders had spent well over a decade helping companies around Vancouver build their brands, working with agencies like National PR and J. Walter Thompson, and for brands like Intrawest and Pivotal. Now, with the fast decline of traditional media and the trend toward online news, information and entertainment, Deborah and Jacqueline saw that companies needed a new kind of marketing agency to help them navigate the online landscape. For anyone out there who’s wondering what YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Google mean for their business – Soya Marketing can help you figure that out. Social media isn’t just for kids and technologists anymore. It’s going mainstream fast. In its first year in business Soya created a back-to-school campaign for Park Royal Shopping Centre, and designed a Facebook strategy for Opus Hotels that included the launch of its new restaurant and bar at Opus Montreal. Deborah advices, “The great thing about this new PR is that you’re no longer dependent on reporters to tell your story for you. The key to being successful online is to become a storyteller…to share what you know, to share what you do.” Soya defines its target market as mid-sized and large companies that want to decrease their dependency on old-school marketing tactics like media relations, print advertising and direct mail. “We love to work with people who are excited to innovate. This is a changing time in so many ways, and we believe that being part of that change is vital.”

*This article appeared in the Spring 2009 issue of the Forum For Women Entrepreneurs Magazine

Check it out. Page A26. It’s called, Use Soya to Launch your Brand into Cyberspace. The article tells the story of how Soya came to be.

Word to the wise: it’s tough competing with Google.

The good folks at Yahoo are laying off 1500 people. That’s 10% of their workforce. Despite an array of supposed search enhancements, Yahoo just can’t seem to catch up.

It’s got to hurt when the lay-off story on CNNMoney says, “Meanwhile, Google announced last week that its profits jumped a better-than-expected 26% in the third quarter.”

Yikes, Yahoo. That’s when you know you’re losing the search engine game.

Check it out. Soya is featured as a social media marketing leader in the October 14-20 issue of Business in Vancouver magazine. Here’s the story.