Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

I realized the other day after finishing a consultation with a new client, that my business has grown almost 40% since completing a certification course this past April.  It was kind of a wake up call on how important training is to growing your business.

Of course training is always beneficial in that you gain new knowledge and skills. As small business owners,  we sometimes forget that it is these very items that make us more valuable to our clients.

Bringing in new ideas and abilities helps clients, and in my line of business the primary goal with any client is to help them get their work done, no matter the task and doing so in a way that saves them time and money.  For most the goal of having a virtual assistant is to free up time to devote to generating more revenue or in some cases to having more time for family and life.

What training did I complete? A Certification course for Social Media Marketing. The course from VAclassroom gave me deeper insight into this type of work. Social Media Marketing is quickly turning into my niche, or niche, as some people say (…sorry, I couldn’t help that, so many people pronounce that word differently!)

This training taught me how to focus on my clients, their targets and goals; creating a strategic plan for them.  It helped me clarify and define a process and system with my work in social media. I discovered how to be as efficient as possible for my clients and to be always thinking of new ways to use social media in order to help my clients grow their business.

Will I stop at this course? No way, as more opportunities to learn arise, I will sign on! This past year I have taken a bookkeeping course, have taken weekly seminars at VAnetworking and joined in many other courses that saw me making improvements in how I  manage my own business or work for my clients.  I’m even going to lead a class myself on July 16th as part of a Summer Speaker Series. I will be teaching others – exciting and scary at the same time!

There is always more to learn to improve yourself, your work and your business – and by doing so you will  grow and prosper your business.

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If you’d like to partake of 28 Seminars for $27 this summer, please check out the VAvirtuosos site. The topics are varied and very applicable to many types of businesses.

If you are interested in taking VAclassroom’s Social Marketing Training, it is a self study and open to anyone. If you use the coupon code SUMMER09, you can save $100 off the course.

Technorati Tags: efficient business, Small business, Social Media, social networking, virtual assistant

This weekend there was a flurry of activity and messages and collaboration between strangers all over as businesses tried to gain enough fans on their Facebook Page to create a vanity url for it.
Facebook changed the rules last minute and upped the ante from 25 fans to 100.  Sunday night was a busy night online for many… but if you have yet to reach your goal and are looking for a short url to use for this same purpose, why not add the Memorable Web Address to your Facebook Page?

It’s there,  it’s available to everyone and it can be customized as you wish. Ours is http://companies.to/timeontaskva.

Simply sign in to Facebook, click browse applications on the bottom left menu bar and look for Memorable Web address. You can assign one to your personal profile as well. For people with a more common name, it may be an option if you missed out on your facebook username a few weeks ago.

Once you add this to your Page, go to the page and hit edit, under your page profile picture.  It is in this area that you will scroll down the list of applications on your page. Once you find Memorable Web address, click edit and it is in here you can assign the address to your page.

Great thing about the Web 2.0 world, someone is always using their brains and talent to create applciations that help out others.

Any questions using this, feel free to leave a comment and I will help you out as best I can!

Technorati Tags: facebook, Social Media, social networking, virtual assistant

It’s a comment I hear a lot lately, people are getting ‘grouped out’ on Facebook.  Personally, I don’t see the issue and there is a simple solution.

Let’s look at the problem first.  What happens when you join a group or page?

Well.. for starters, you are now connected to many more people through the group.  hmmm… that was kind of the point in ‘working’ Facebook for your business wasn’t it?

Then you start to receive updates or invites to events.  Let’s see… if you respond, your update goes out to all the members… again, your name in front of many.

Now, when someone posts a note, wall post or link, on any of the groups or pages; their post will show on your wall.  Which also means, if you make a comment on another group’s wall or page, your comment will be seen by all the group members or fans. Wow, so many people you are talking to.

The issue everyone seems to have is when they start to RECEIVE all these notes, invites, links and more on your Facebook homepage…that’s when most people become overwhelmed and stop joining anything.

Well… if you are like me, and have more than 100 friends on Facebook, you probably have lots of stuff already being posted on your wall from actual friends – not to mention the flower gardens, butterflies, IQ challenge tests, TV quizzes etc, etc, etc.  Do you read all those?  Probably not… that’s why everyone skim-reads now.  Way too much to take in. You skim and only look further into items that catch your eye.

So… long before you joined any groups you had trouble brewing already.  How do you deal with it and still remain connected to all the groups and pages? Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: facebook, Social Media, social networking, Time Management

… but I don’t want to mix my personal Facebook with business.

This is one of the most common statements I hear when clients are talking about expanding into Facebook for their business.

You should know however,  when Facebook made their upgrades and changes in February, they did some great things with their Business Pages.

They now run as a separate page from your own personal page. There is no longer a crossover and you do not see your name on the Business Page activity. Your personal page can remain very separate from your business.

To make it work well, you should try to move your ‘business friends’ over to your Fan Page by sending them a note and an invite to join you there.

The Pages have so many benefits for businesses; no limit to the numbers of fans who can join you, the ability to import your blogs, post events, send updates to all fans, have discussions, post videos, links to your YouTube account, badges and links for your Linked In or Twitter profiles and the list goes on…

Some businesses work with Facebook more than they do their website…and for some people that works well. It’s all dependant upon your business, your marketing plan and your ability to take some time and join in social networking.

If you need help setting up a proper Business Page, please get in touch with us and arrange a no fee and no obligation consultation.

Technorati Tags: facebook, promote business, Small business, Social Media, virtual assistant

As many of you know I have been doing some additional training in order to become “certified” as a Social Media Specialist – my kids actually refer to the word “certified” in a  much different manner. “Oh there’s Mom, on that Twitter thing” … anyhow, the point of my post today is that many people are jumping into Social Media, even if only to try it out, as truly it may not work for all types of business and people.

If you are looking to do this type of work and want to learn more or even get into social media for yourself , then you may want to try out VAclassroom’s Social Media course .

The course takes you through 8 modules and covers Strategy and Planning, Profile Management, Marketing on Twitter, Facebook, Video and other Social Media channels.  Reporting and Online Reputation management is also covered in the course. Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: facebook, Marketing, Small business, Social Media, social networking, training, twitter, virtual assistant