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Why Small Business Can Use Social Media?

By Heike

Monday, February 15th, 2010

This article is by our team member, Eleanor Marks Prior:

No business man would stop thinking about great innovations for their business. Whether you are in a small business or a big one, you are looking for advice on how to make more profits, or you’ve never stopped researching how other successful businesses are taking advantage of their success. We could never deny that the new online marketing techniques have a great role. There has been a lot of craze and hype in the media recently about the impact of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. While some of it is overstated much of what is going on could be called a revolution in the way people do business around the world.

Many people are jumping on the Twitter bandwagon, for example, and are opening up accounts, but few have any real idea of what to do once they get into the Twitter world–and the same with Facebook. Especially when it comes to business many business owners simply get an online presence and hope for the best. Even fewer take any real advantage of YouTube as a free advertising vehicle, or even know about what article marketing is.

All these social media sites can help you drive masses of traffic to your website. This is much like people coming in off the street in a busy business district to browse in your store. Once they are in the door the chances that they will buy something are pretty good. The same thing can be done to attract people to your small business online. You just have to learn the ways of the social media and social networking world.

Many small business owners think social media is only useful for large brands, like Dell or Southwest Airlines. The truth is any small business that effectively invests time in social media marketing can improve customer loyalty and increase the best kind of marketing there is: word of mouth.

Social media makes businesses more accessible and personable to customers and potential customers. It enables small businesses to maintain long term relationships and connections, increase referrals and increase trust. Used correctly, social media is extremely powerful for establishing and growing an online reputation.

Categories : Social Media, Web2.0, virtual assistant

Tags : online marketing, Social Media, social+marketing, social+media, virtual assistant

What a Social Media Marketing Specialists can do for your business ?

By Heike

Friday, January 29th, 2010

A guest post from our Social Media and WordPress guru, Eleanor Marks Prior:

We usually ask ourselves “how do we make our company, product or services more popular”? Without the right exposure, nothing will come out of a potential business opportunity since we could reach our right audience. There are many ways to market your product but only few ways to make a name, one of the easiest ways do this is through the help of social media marketing strategies. A social media marketing strategy will always be easier to Social Media Marketing Specialists. So most people prefer them to do the work in finding the strategies.

See the advantages of Having a Social Media Specialist:

A Social Media Specialist will help you find the right strategies on the basis of your goals and objectives. (Since they know what to focus on, their focus will be to the appropriate social sites to reach your business objectives. No irrelevant work will be done)
They will make sure that the social marketing sites they have set up for your company are all connected, this will help brand awareness.
Provide reports showing Return On Influence and Return On Investment showing you the results of your social media efforts.
Give you assurance that goals will be achieved since they’re aware of your primary objectives.
Allow you to have more time to improve on the other aspects of your business since someone does your work
Gives great source to divert loads of traffic to your website which will make it popular and your services will be recognized easily. This can be controlled through strategic planning which will be easier if you’ll work hand and hand with a specialist.
It is cost and time effective . It is known to be one of the most low cost methods of promoting your business.

As Internet usage continues to grow in other parts of the world and social networks, there will be no reason why you should be hesitant in doing what’s best for your company. Any business owner will think what’s more efficient and what’s best for their company to be reached by their target clients. Moreover, every business needs a successful and effective social media marketing strategy.

A social marketing specialist may help you in understanding the subject and find available tools, organize a well thought-out plan, and their experience in driving traffic through the use of the content. If all of these are achieved, your business is bound to succeed.

Eleanor is a Social Media expert, WordPress guru and is currently getting ready to attend the Traffic Geyser Summit in San Diego next month. After finishing her training in supporting clients with their Traffic Geyser video and social media tools, she is set to meet the Traffic Geyser team and fellow Traffic Geyser Virtual Assistants.

Categories : Social Media, virtual assistant

Tags : customer service, Online Business Manager, online marketing, social media marketing, Traffic Geyser, Traffic Geyser Virtual Assistant

Are Enlisting the Services of an Enthusiastic Virtual Assistant Important For Your Business?

By Heike

Saturday, November 21st, 2009

Today a post written by Jackie Finch, owner of Virtual Excellence and also one of our valued team members here at PA Excellence about working with a virtual assistant:

Here Are Ten Reasons That Will Have You Shouting “YES!” To An Enthusiastic VA

1. “YOU” and Your Business!

Your enthusiastic virtual assistant will always make you feel as if you and your business are their number one priority, no matter how many clients they have or how much they have on their plate, that they are totally committed to your success and that they are prepared to provide you with nothing but exemplary service at all times. They are consistently, consummate professionals in their authentic interactions with you and your contacts, and will deliver on their promises.

2. Professional Development

Virtual assistants typically provide business and entrepreneurial support online, which means there is a constant demand for new applications and communication tools geared toward helping virtual assistants do their best work for you. Your virtual assistant will be training continually in order to provide you with the most efficient and cost effective means of eliminating your administrative chaos and supporting your online endeavors. Your virtual assistant will happily take on this responsibility and be excited about learning new skills to apply to your next project!

3. Innovative Technology

The latest virtual technology should always be utilized by your virtual assistant in order to perform tasks, complete projects, and streamline processes for you. Your VA loves learning, growing and sharing that latest technology with you! This, in turn, saves you time and money!

4. Finding Solutions

In researching and applying solutions for your business needs, a virtual assistant’s goal is to be the “expert” in their specialized or niche field, so it imperative that they think outside the box by knowing the answers to your questions, or in knowing where to find them. Virtual assistants are results driven, possess exemplary organizational skills and always maintain a problem/solution mindset.

5. Learning Everything About Your Business

When your VA has the opportunity to immerse themselves into the heart of your business by becoming more familiar with your company’s mission, product line, goals, concerns, etc., then they are better equipped to strategize and brainstorm with you on the best tools & techniques to boost your unique business.

6. The Concept of Giving

Your virtual assistant will give freely of themselves in tips, suggestions, and tools. They love their industry, are grateful for all the support it provides and give back to their industry in as many ways as possible. They will take on the role of “Virtual Assistant Industry Ambassador”, because when one is successful, all are successful, which means you ultimately reap the benefits of a having an entire “team” of support experts behind you!

7. “Over The Top” Work Ethics and Business Practices

An enthusiastic VA will provide exemplary client service, will never be satisfied with the status quo and will constantly raise the bar with regards to their skill sets, productivity and meeting your expectations. They are life-long learners as well as mentors. They provide flawless & constant communication with their clients and are active members in their industry associations in order to stay abreast of new business methodologies, initiatives, etc. They constantly strive to be better than the best!

8. Positive Energy

Whatever methods a virtual assistant chooses to use, whether it be forums, support groups, etc., to bring positive energy, thoughts and positive work habits into their lives, everyone benefits! There is nothing more enjoyable than collaborating with a VA with an upbeat, can-do attitude – it can be very contagious!

9. Work/Life Balance

An enthusiastic virtual assistant will have made a commitment to stay focused, energized and at the top of their game by recognizing the need to balance work & play, and by doing whatever it takes to make that happen. Moreover, the best news derived from those great positive actions, you consistently receive their best efforts on all your projects!

10. A Virtual Assistant’s Business & Credentials

Remember, your VA is a business owner also, not an employee. They have experienced the ups & downs that come with operating a business. They passionately want to prove themselves as trustworthy, ethical and credible, and as the experts in their field by proactively seeking virtual professional certifications, training certifications, etc. Those designations will be easy to find on their website, blog and marketing material, as they will proudly display those badges.

Conclusion:

Finding your ideal virtual assistant is more than just searching for one with the best skill sets. You also need someone who is a good fit, someone easy to work with, experienced working in the trenches and someone who has learned to roll with the punches; someone flexible, upbeat, positive and passionate about their work and the work they do for others.

You want the very best service and support available to you – this is an extremely important decision when you’re looking to establish a successful, long-term working relationship with your virtual assistant.

Wouldn’t it also make sense to find someone that is “enthusiastically” unique? My guess is, a resounding YES!

You can find this article on Ezinearticles.com: http://ezinearticles.com/?id=3282509

Categories : virtual assistant

Tags : professional development for virtual assistants, technology, virtual assistant, working with a VA

Affiliate Marketing

By Heike

Friday, September 18th, 2009

Friends Affiliate marketing is like ‘word of mouth’. If you like a product or service you tell your friends about it. Affiliate programs were invented to give people an incentive to tell other people about their positive experience with a product or services. Affiliates receive a portion or percentage of the sales price of an item as a reward.

It is recommended to only recommend products or services that you either personally use or you know the person well who offers the product and you know they always offer a good service. You need to be familiar with what you promote and happily endorse it. If you promote lower level products, your own reputation will suffer and people won’t easily believe your recommendations anymore.

I consider affiliate programs as essential online, especially when the affiliates are familiar with the product. One excellent example of a well functioning program is that of www.vaclassroom.com. Craig Cannings, the co founder, has created a large following with his quality training programs for virtual assistants and other online professionals. Craig’s customers happily spread the word about the training and earn a reward when someone signs up through their affiliate link. I would go as far as saying that VA Classroom wouldn’t be what it is today if there wasn’t an affiliate program and so many happy customers.

When you have a great program, service or product, why not ask your satisfied clients to spread the word for you? As any promotion always costs an effort, a little (or bigger) reward can work wonders in the willingness of people to refer you. Setting up an affiliate program needs some thought and shouldn’t be taken lightly, otherwise you might as well do nothing.

First of all, you need to be sure that there are happy customers who love your product or service. If you get lots of complaints you better forget it! Finetune your offerings and find happy customers first.

Once you get positive feedback, you can set up an affiliate program in a system such as 1shoppingcart. This process can be a bit difficult, so it might be advised to ask a skilled virtual assistant to help you with the set up as there is also some work on the website required. You need to create ‘thank you’ pages and affiliate centers with information for your new affiliates. Many people sign up for an affiliate program, but don’t know how to promote your services, where to promote them and how to go about it. Then they simply give up and don’t promote you.

A dedicated affiliate center will help them with these initial worries. You can give your affiliates advice on where to promote you, to which target market, which medium to use and even supply them with copy for their Twitter tweets and blog posts. Additionally, you may wish to create attractive banners that your affiliates can use in their email signature and on their blog.

Often affiliates start strong and promote a service and then forget all about it. They are just as busy just as you are. It helps when you regularly contact your affiliates, encourage them and help them with any queries. Different promotions can also reactivate the interest of your affiliates. Craig Cannings, for example, frequently runs special promotions and offers additional prizes for his best affiliates. It works a charm and people get a renewed motivation to get the word out.

Managing the contact to your affiliates doesn’t need to be hard. You can set up autoresponders in the shoppingcart program so that your affiliates receive regular updates and reminders without you actually doing anything. All you need to do is have it all set up well right from the start.

Affiliates are valuable when you are launching bigger programs. Many entrepreneurs wouldn’t be able to fill their training classes without affiliates. When you start planning a bigger launch, make sure you set up the affiliate program early on and recruit a little army of likeminded people who mix and mingle with your target market. Social Media is a great realm to recruit affiliates because people like to sign up for programs from people they know, like and trust. Don’t forget your existing clients: send out a broadcast and ask them to sign up for your affiliate program.

Don’t be shy when it comes to affiliate programs. If you have services or products that are of good quality, ask your happy customers to help you spread the word. Many people love helping out and earn a bit of pocket money while doing it.

If you are interested about affiliate programs, talk to us. We are able to help you setting it up.

Categories : Internet Marketing, virtual assistant

Tags : affiliate marketing, affiliate reward, affiliates, Craig Cannings, shopping cart, VA Classroom

Seth Godin says: “Pay for stuff”

By Heike

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

seth-godin Seth Godin, marketing genius and famous blogger, says in his recent blog post:

“As a bootstrapping entrepreneur, my instinct has always been to work before spend. If there was a way to spread the word virally instead of buying ads, I would. If there was a way to change the project so I could do it myself, I would. If I could trade or whittle my way into getting an asset on the come, I would. That’s the mantra of the bootstrapper.

It turns out that paying for stuff works too.

Ads that pay for themselves are worth buying. Employees and freelancers that produce more than they cost are worth hiring. Office rents that generate productivity, foot traffic or revenue are probably worth paying.

In the free media world in which we’re living now, it’s so easy to get stuck on not investing, on avoiding outlays at all cost. Frugal is an admirable trait, but being a miser is dumb.”

I fully agree with Seth. We all try to do things ourselves if possible because first of all, it’s fun and secondly, we like to feel we do the right thing and save us money.

The trouble is the tasks we often do ourselves are not expensive to outsource and cost us actually quite a lot: our time. The time of a coach or consultant is often well over $150 per hour, yet the same person sits faithfully in front of their computer trying to set up the shoppingcart while they could be serving a paying client who pays way more than it would cost to outsource this task to a virtual assistant.

Why do we do that? Why do we value our time so little? Many entrepreneurs get caughed up in feeling they need to do everything on their own to be a real success. That’s what they feel an entrepreneur is all about. The lone rider image comes up, he or she did it all by him or herself. We think about our online marketing heroes and want to be like them. But if you talk to them, did they actually do it all by themselves? Most will tell you they started outsourcing early on because they realized it’s wasting them valuable time to work out how to set up an ezine in Aweber.

Most entrepreneurs have become entrepreneurs because they are visionary and have the ability to think big. They feel caged in when they can’t come up with some idea or creative business approach. That’s what distinguishes the entrepreneur from the typical employee, yet the entrepreneur feels he or she needs to do all the tasks an employee would do PLUS the tasks an entrepreneur does.

Reality is that no entrepreneur who wants to grow the business big enough to live from the profit can do it all by him or herself. It’s simply not possible because the entrepreneurs spends highly valuable time on tasks that cost about $40 an hour while he or she could be earning three or four times as much offering coaching or consulting services.

This is not clever saving, this is stalling your business growth. If you want to stay where you are, continue doing it all by yourself. If you want major growth, then ask for help.

Virtual Assistant services help you save money by giving you time to spend on money making activities, like coming up with new programs, writing a book, holding teleseminars or webinars, talking to your clients, building joint ventures, etc. Virtual Assistants do the nitty gritty work and they can even help you with ideas on how to implement your big ideas.

Categories : virtual assistant

New E Commerce course for Virtual Assistants starting soon

By Heike

Friday, September 4th, 2009

Any of you who is a bit unsure about the shoppingcart and its uses can learn the ropes with this upcoming class from the Hotskills team, Cindy Greenway and Tina Forsyth.

The goal of this course is to help you set up the shopping cart and using it to be able to sell products, keep in touch with clients with autoresponders and send out broadcasts and reports.

This course is designed for Virtual Assistants, but if you are an entrepreneur and really want to master the shoppingcart all by yourself, this might be a good option for you, too.

Check it out, I’ve done it and recommend it. Great teachers and lovely community: click here to find out more.

Categories : virtual assistant

Tags : 1shoppingcart, affiliates, autoresponders, Cindy Greenway, Ecommerce, Hotskills VA Training, shoppingcart, Tina Forsyth

Social Media Marketing Certification

By Heike

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

I have something to celebrate! After attending the Social Media Marketing programme with VA Classroom, I’ve gained certification as a Social Media Marketing Consultant.

I decided to study Social Media Marketing more closely as I believe that for a large amount of small businesses social media marketing is a vital tool to get free exposure to virtually millions of potential customers.

With Social Media you are able to dominate your niche without spending a fortune on marketing, all it costs is time and your knowledge (or the time of the VA you may hire to help you out with the Social Media tasks if you are too busy).

Social Media Marketing is also exciting because you can prequalify your customers. You build a relationship before any services or products are exchanged and this relationship often turn into longterm business relationships and further sales. The customers get to know you, like you and trust you. This is important to be able to move your customers through your marketing funnel. Without trust people are often to shy to take up on your offers.

Social Media can take this shyness away because your potential customers already value your opinions, your knowledge and your ability to solve their problems. By participating in Social Media you are able to post little gems of your knowledge and advice on certain topics without giving it all away for free. Your participation makes potential customers realise that they NEED your advice and your products.

The seven modules of the programme covered:

Social Media and Strategy and Action Planning
Social Network Profile Set-up and Management
Twitter Marketing
LinkedIn
Facebook Marketing
Online Video Marketing
Online Reputation Management
Social Media Content Marketing

If you are keen to learn about these exciting topics yourself, you can enrol in this interactive programme yourself.

The course is self-directed and can be done from home and you can decide when you choose to study and for how long. It is taught by video with detailed resource guides and extensive links and information. Additionally, you become a member of a very active Social Media Club Forum that can be used by all members to exchange ideas, post questions and get further advice.

This course is particularly interesting for:

Virtual Assistants who want to offer these services to their clients,
Public Relations and Marketing professionals who haven’t been exposed to Social Media yet, but know they need it for their career
Entrepreneurs who want to be able to create their own successful social media campaigns by themselves and need more in-depth training.

I’ll go and celebrate now! You’ll hear again from me soon!

Cheers,

Heike

Categories : Social Media, Web2.0, virtual assistant

Tags : social media certification, VA Classroom

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The seven modules of the programme covered:

If you are keen to learn about these exciting topics yourself, you can enrol in this interactive programme yourself.

This course is particularly interesting for:

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