Need Help With Your Social Media?
Today I am not writing a regular blog, but rather an “advertisement” for my business. At this time, I am looking to add a few more clients… specifically ones that are looking to drive more traffic to their websites through “social media”. I am also available for other services, but I realize how important it is for a business to have a social media plan and I LOVE helping clients make this plan successful. Sure, you can do your own social media, but wouldn’t you rather spend your time on other priority tasks that need to be done for your business? Well, I can help you do that!! If you would like to learn more and need help in this area, please contact me to see if we are a match! I want to help you with your online presence to make your business successful and I’m sure you would appreciate that, too :).
Do You Use Social Networking Websites to Promote Your Blog?
Have you ever asked yourself what the main purpose of a social networking website is? If you are an avid internet user like me, you likely have and already know the answer. Social networking websites are online communities that make it easier for internet users to meet and communicate with each other. But what does that have to do with an online blog? Do you have a blog? If you do, do you know that using your social networking website is one of the best ways to promote your blog?
Promote your blog? Why would you want to do that? Honestly, if you have to ask yourself that question you probably shouldn’t even have one. The whole purpose of a blog is to document your thoughts, views, and opinions on a particular topic, issue, or subject. What good will your blog do if no one reads it? In addition to sharing your thoughts with the rest of the world, did you know that you could also make money from your blog? You can signup for affiliate programs or other programs like Google Adsense. If you are using your blog to make money then you will definitely want to promote it.
When it comes to promoting blogs, there are many blog owners who decide to let the search engine do the work for them. Search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN use special techniques that reads the content on your website. That content is then used to rank your website with particular keywords. This means that you run a blog on Virtual Assistants, there is a good chance that your blog will appear in searches done on Virtual Assistants. Although many blogs are successfully ranked in search engines, not all are. That is why you are advised against relying solely on search engines, when it comes to promoting your blog.
If you love meeting with or talking to people online, there is a good chance that you belong to a social networking website or community. The individuals that you talk to and that are in your community are likely the individuals that you wish to target (your target market). Since most social networking websites work to connect internet users who have the same goals and common interests, there is a good chance that your online friends will enjoy reading your blog. But, before they can read your blog, you have to let them know that it exists.
When it comes to promoting your blog on social networking websites, you have a number of different options. Your first option is to include a link to your blog in your community profile or profile page. This will allow other community members to checkout your blog, only if they wish to do so. The other way is to inform your online friends and/or groups of your blog through private messages. Once you join a social networking website and create or join a network of friends/groups, you should easily be able to communicate with those friends/groups. Sending each of your friends/groups a private message with information and a link to your blog tends to be more effective than just placing a link in your profile or on your profile page.
Although there is a good chance that you are already a member of a popular social networking website, you may not be. If you are not already a member, but would like to become one, you will need to find a social networking website to join. This can easily be done with a standard internet search. In your search, you will likely find a number of popular network sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn (my favorite) and many others. Before becoming a community member at one of these networking sites, you may want to first examine the website to ensure that it is everything that you want it to be. Make sure the members have something in common with you and would be interested in what you have to say.
As you can easily see, there are a number of different ways that you can go about promoting your blog on online social networking websites. In addition to promoting your blog, you may also make new friends along the way. I have met so many “online” friends through my social networking websites and also have found some wonderful clients! 
If you have promoted your blog through social networkinig websites, I’d love to hear your success stories!!
Guest Blog: How to Successfully Work Remotely With Your Clients
I came across this article today and thought I would share it. As some of my prior blogs have mentioned, sometimes clients are very leary about hiring Virtual Assistants because they are concerned how the relationship would work via online.
I am not sure if other Virtual Assistants are like me, but I am definitely more productive working in my virtual office than I was when I worked in the corporate world for many, many years. As Linda Hunt’s article explains, as long as there is a plan put into place between a remote worker and their clients and that plan includes exceptional communication, working remotely with each other will be successful.
I admit that I communicate better in writing, so I like to use email alot, so the clients I work with would need to prefer this way of communication, also. Even if they do prefer telephone calls, I always warn the client ahead of time that I am not a big “talker,” so that they understand that ahead of time and do not take that against me when we do speak on the phone. They normally understand as long as I keep up the lines of communication open and keep them up to date on my virtual assistant services I am providing them.
So if you have any potential clients that have a fear of working with you remotely (or you are a potential client that has been debating on hiring someone that works remotely), this article has some great advice!
How to Successfully Work Remotely With Your Clients
By Linda A. Hunt
When I started my freelance accounting practice over ten years ago working virtually was not as widely accepted as it is today. At that time my client base was split evenly down the middle – providing services 50% onsite at the client location and 50% offsite at my office. Over the years I was able to migrate my onsite clients into becoming “virtual” clients by showing them how working remotely was really no different than working onsite and eliminating their fears.
A client will usually object to working remotely because they don’t understand or cannot visualize how working remotely works. Their fears take over and believe me they can imagine all kinds of problems that will keep you working onsite at their location! It is your job to show them just how easy working remotely can be BUT you must remember two things:
□ People don’t like change, and;
□ You must have a process on how you will work remotely with your clients.
So the first step to successfully working remotely with your clients involves you answering these four very important questions:
□ How will your client(s) get their accounting information to you?
□ How will you return original documents to your client?
□ Where will the accounting file (data) reside?
□ How will the accounting file be protected?
It is up to you to define the structure of how you and your company will work remotely with clients. Here are some things for you to think about as your answer those questions from above and define your remote working structure.
□ Structure, Structure, Structure – whether you work remotely or at the client location, creating a consistent structure of when and how work is to be completed are essential. For example:
o You work on the client account the same day of the week, every week
o You provide your client with a list of information that is needed on a regular basis and also a list of items that are missing.
o You take the responsibility to follow up on those missing items.
The less your client has to think about and the more consistency you can provide to them more likely your client will be to cooperate.
□ Having the Right Tools – if you want to work remotely then you need to use the tools that will make working remotely easy. This includes using a remote hosting service that allows you and your client access to their accounting file from where ever they are. Remote hosting services also offer a daily offsite back-up of all data files. This feature becomes a benefit to your client whose current back-up routine may not be as good as it should be.
Another tool you will want to consider is a scanner. As I moved to being a 100% virtual office, I incorporated the cost of a scanner into my client’s set-up fee. This way, my clients can easily scan their documents and email or fax them to my office without incurring the cost of a delivery service.
□ Keeping the Lines of Communication Open – when you work remotely it is very important to be in contact with your clients on a regular basis. The worst thing you could do is disappear into your remote office and forget about the personal aspect of your client relationship.
In my office, we have created a process that is followed to ensure that we speak with our clients at least once a week. Our communication process also includes the scheduling of several face-to-face meetings throughout the year.
Another tool you may want to consider is Grasshopper. In my office, we use this service because it provides my company with one phone number for the client to call. They simply enter the extension of the person they are trying to reach and they are then forwarded directly to their cell phone. If the staff person cannot answer, Grasshopper takes a message and emails it to you.
It does take a little trial and error to work out all of the kinks and once your clients have begun to work remotely with you, they will begin to wonder who else they can work with remotely!
© 2010 Linda A. Hunt and SUMSOLUTIONS LLC. Reprint rights granted to all online venues so long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the “about the author” info at the end). Send a courtesy copy of the reprint to support@lahenterprises.com.
Linda A. Hunt is a money expert who understands the spiritual power and soul behind money and its effects on the business and the person running that business. She is a true “money healer” and the creator of solutions that create stability helping business owners to grow their business and earn more money. For more FREE articles like these, visit her at http://www.sumsolutions.com
An Author’s Plan for Social Media Efforts — Use Virtual Assistant Services
Recently I was contacted by a potential client that is an author, so I have been doing a lot of research to come up with a social media plan for him and his soon to be released book(s). From what I have read, it appears the strategy I use as part of my virtual assistant services for my current clients, business coaches, would fit perfectly with an author’s needs.
I came across the following article from Chris Brogan and thought I would post this as my guest blog this week. If you are an author of a book and/or someone like me that provides blog promotion services to your clients, you may want to read the following to get some great tips on marketing for authors. Of course, there are many items listed that the author would need to do themselves, but hiring a virtual assistant to take care of the online work would definitely give an author more free time to work on the other important aspects of promoting their book(s).
“Here’s a freebie: if I were an author looking to get the most out of the social web (and I am), I’d do something along the lines of what I’m about to share. Your mileage may vary, but here’s a decent approximation of the things I’d do.” Chris Brogan, An Author’s Plan for Social Media Efforts.
An Author’s Plan for Social Media
- Set up a URL for the book, and/or maybe one for your name. Need help finding a URL? I use Ajaxwhois.com for simple effort in searching.
- Set up a blog. If you want it free and super fast, WordPress or Tumblr. I’d recommend getting hosting like Bloghost.me.
- On the blog, write about interesting things that pertain to the book, but don’t just promote the book over and over again. In fact, blow people away by promoting their blogs and their books, if they’re related a bit.
- Start an email newsletter. It’s amazing how much MORE responsive email lists are than any other online medium.
- Have a blog post that’s a list of all the places one might buy your book. I did this for both Trust Agents and Social Media 101.
- Make any really important links trackable with a URL shortener. I know exactly how many people click my links.
- Start listening for your name, your book’s name. ( Covered in this post about building blocks.)
- Consider recording a video trailer for your book. Here’s one from Scott Sigler (YouTube), for his horror thriller, Contagious. And here’s one from Dallas Clayton for his Awesome Book. (Thanks Naomi for pointing this out).
- Build a Facebook fan page for the book or for bonus points, build one around the topic the book covers, and only lightly promote the book via the page.
- Join Twitter under your name, not your book’s name, and use Twitter Search to find people who talk about the subjects your book covers.
- When people talk about your book, good or bad, thank them with a reply. Connect to people frequently. It’s amazing how many authors I rave about on Twitter and how few actually respond. Mind you, the BIGGEST authors always respond (paradox?)
- Use Google Blogsearch and Alltop to find the people who’d likely write about the subject matter your book covers. Get commenting on their blog posts but NOT mentioning your book. Get to know them. Leave USEFUL comments, with no blatant URL back to your book.
- Work with your publisher for a blogger outreach project. See if you can do a giveaway project with a few bloggers (here’s a book giveaway project I did for Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years book).
- Offer to write guest posts on blogs that make sense as places where potential buyers might be. Do everything you can to make the post match the content of the person’s site and not your goals. But do link to your book.
- Ask around for radio or TV contacts via the social web and LinkedIn. You never know.
- Come up with interesting reasons to get people to buy bulk orders. If you’re a speaker, waive your fee (or part of it) in exchange for sales of hundreds of books. (And spread those purchases around to more than one bookselling company.) In those giveaways, do something to promote links back to your site and/or your post. Giveaways are one time: Google Juice is much longer lasting.
- Whenever someone writes a review on their blog, thank them with a comment, and maybe 1 tweet, but don’t drown them in tweets pointing people to the review. It just never comes off as useful.
- Ask gently for Amazon and other distribution site reviews. They certainly do help the buying process. And don’t ask often.
- Do everything you can to be gracious and thankful to your readers. Your audience is so much more important than you in this equation, as there are more of them than there are of you.
- Start showing up at face to face events, where it makes sense, including tweetups. If there’s not a local tweetup, start one.
- And with all things, treat people like you’d want them to treat your parents (provided you had a great relationship with at least one of them).
This sounds like a lot of steps. It is. But this is how people are finding success. Should this be the publicist’s job? Not even a little bit. The publicist has his or her own methodology. The author will always be the best advocate for his or her own work. Never put your marketing success in the hands of someone else. Always bring your best efforts into the mix and you’ll find your best reward on your time and effort.
You might have found other ways to be successful with various online and social media tools. By all means, please share with us here. What’s your experience been with promoting your work using the social web?
Chris Brogan is the New York Times bestselling author of the NEW book, Social Media 101. He is president of New Marketing Labs, LLC, and blogs at [chrisbrogan.com].
What Can a Virtual Assistant Do To Help You With Your Social Media Plan?
I have to admit that I am very lucky that I love working on the Internet. I am addicted. I do not play games or look up sites I should not be looking at (lol), but I love to research, socialize and help my clients bring as much traffic as I can to their websites. I never thought I would have a career that I felt so much passion for. I have always loved MySpace, Facebook, etc., but it was more on a personal basis. Once I began helping clients with their social networking, I discovered that was my purpose in live… to help others better themselves. In this case, with online businesses wanting to succeed! I know there are many business people out there that are a little skeptical about having a VA help them with their social media plan, but why not take that chance with the VA’s such as myself that love doing it for ourselves as much as we do for the clients?
If I have a client that is able to write their own blogs and/or articles, I can take those and distribute them to the world! I have learned many different ways of promoting blogs for my clients and am still learning new ways every day. There are so many means out there to get the word out about your business. Even if a clients does not particularly like to write blogs and/or articles, there are ways to bring traffic to their website by having “guest blogs” on their website, such as I do. A client also could make a video of themselves and those can be distributed on video sharing sites with a link back to their website. There are so many avenues clients could take to give themselves the exposure they deserve.
I am sure some wonder, “Well, why can’t I just do this myself as a business owner?” Well, you can. However, please remember it is time consuming and there are probably many more important things in your business that you could be spending your time on while you let someone who loves to do the job help you. I realize this may sound like a self-promotion article, but it’s not. Honestly. I just have read so many articles and comments from online business owners about how they are leery about letting Virtual Assistants help them with their businesses, so I thought I’d explain why letting us help them with their social media plan (and many other duties) could be so beneficial. Saving time means saving money, don’t you agree?
Future Blogs On My Miss Assist
Hello Everyone. As you know, I am not much of a writer and have not posted many blogs for My Miss Assist site. I am still in process of constructing my site, but as you can see, I have at least came up with a new header and I think it looks pretty nice for me making it by myself and especially learning how to change it in the theme I use in WordPress!
Anyway, what I have decided to do for awhile is post guest blogs of professionals I know and believe have interesting information. This is not very personal, but until I can come up with some blogging ideas to write about myself, I’d love to share their information with you. I will, of course, always list their information and website.
If anyone has any ideas of what I can eventually write my blogs about, any feedback would be appreciated. For some reason, I am just hitting a road block and having problems being creative. Very unusual for a Pisces, I know :). I am hoping that changes soon for me and My Miss Assist. But until then, please enjoy the guest blogs!!
Guest Blog — Marketing VA’s: How They Help Entrepreneurs Grow Their Business
One of the best ways to grow your business and increase your income is to specialize in a specific type of virtual assistance. One option is to offer marketing support services. There is an ever growing need for marketing virtual assistants, particularly those who specialize in Internet marketing.
The two things EVERY business owner wants are 1) to make more mo.ney in their business and 2) to have more time to enjoy being self-employed. A VA who specializes in marketing and is directly connected to creating more profits and increased productivity will make herself invaluable to her clients. This type of virtual assistance is not just about supporting the entrepreneur to run their business effectively or waiting for the client to ask for help. It’s about taking initiative and being proactive about completing tasks and projects that create more opportunities for exposure and revenue in the client’s business.
- Blogging – Setup, maintenance and promotion
- Email marketing – Email blasts, ezines, setting up autoresponders and more
- Research, secure and prepare for speaking engagements
- Research and coordinate joint venture partnerships
- Social media marketing – Research networking opportunities, increase exposure, maintain/update profiles and more
- Create and help to launch information products
- Manage the client’s affiliate program and relationships
- and so much more!
If you want more information about how to tap into this popular and lucrative market, you can learn more by investing in some professional training courses. The popular and comprehensive courses offered by SharonBroughtonAcademy.com
Sydni Craig-Hart, The VA Success Coach™, is Founder of Executive Assistant to Virtual Assistant!, a company dedicated to providing Administrative Professionals with the support, tools and resources they need to create a highly successful, profitable Virtual Assistant business. Visit www.VASuccessSecrets.com to listen to Sydni’s FREE audio class “How to Start and Grow A Profitable Virtual Assistant Business …In Less Than Six Months”.
Working On Website
When I began my VA business, I started a website through GoDaddy and used it for about a year. My hosting subscription then expired, but I continued to keep my domain, so I have been without a website for about a year now. I kept telling myself I needed to work on this and just put it off. Why you ask? I’m not sure myself, but I finally am taking the time and effort to accomplish this.
Recently, I started taking a Word Press class from a couple of fellow Virtual Assistants (VA’s) and decided to finally build a site that I am proud of and not some “template” site. I am in the process of doing this and am learning things to add to the site each class I attend.
As my website progresses, I will start promoting my business more and hopefully be able to add website design to my services. I wish I had learned to do this years ago as #1, I personally believe this is the number one online services a VA should provide to their clients and #2, I have realized how much I love doing this type of work.
I am still learning how to “write” a blog, but I’m hoping that just comes natural. For now, I will be just posting anything and everything to get the experience I need to have a successful website (blog site). Any advice and/or feedback from any of my readers would be appreciated :).
Thanks to the Average Joe University (http://averagejoeuniversity.com/) and the great instructors I have (Diane Potter and Cassandra Morgan, the fellow VA’s :), I believe I am finally on my way to success and want to thank them all VERY MUCH!!!
How Successful have you been with networking on LinkedIn?
I have had a LinkedIn account for probably as long as I have had my Virtual Assistant business, which is going on two years. I never kept up with my account and a few months ago, I read somewhere that LinkedIn was a great place to network with prospective clients and other Virtual Assistants. When I read about this, I thought I would give it another try and began reading all of the wonderful articles and discussions and learned so much and have already found a few new clients that I have loved working for more than anyone I have worked with since I’ve been in business. How successful has LinkedIn been for you?
Virgin Blogger
I have been working with Diane Potter at The Virtual Difference for a couple of months now and help post and promote her clients’ blog posts. I am now working on updating my website and once that is completed, my goal is to work on writing, posting and promoting my own blogs.
