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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

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

Facebook versus Twitter

By Heike

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009

I have to admit that I’ve only recently started subscribing to Twitip.com, but I really love it! For every Twitter user there is lots of relevant information and discussion.

Today they discuss which one of the two giants in the social media world are the best and will be the most significant eventually after the first hype goes off: Twitter or Facebook.

I use both and as the Twitip blog says, they are very different. For me Facebook is a great tool to connect with people I actually don’t really know, like business connections. I have only a few real life friends on Facebook because not many of them actually use it. This is probably due to the fact that I’m from New Zealand and it looks like the Internet is yet not dominated by New Zealand websurfers. Consequently, I use my Facebook profile as a business and networking tool.

What fascinates me is the way you “get to know” someone on Facebook. Although I don’t know most of my connections/friends on Facebook, I feel I know them, especially the active ones. You see their family photos, they discussions, you read their words of encouragement, their feelings when things are a bit harder, etc. It’s amazing to be able to learn so much about strangers and feel connected to them.

Wwhat I value about Facebook: the connectedness and the kind of conversations you can lead with others. You are able to see parts of their work, their interests and networks, so you are actually able to connect better, which in return may lead to strategic alliances at some stage. I bet Facebook helped a lot of businesses to connect and I’m sure that many people bought business packages, like coaching and training, from some of their Facebook networks, so for these providers Facebook will be quite a lucrative option.

The Facebook business pages are a great idea, but many business pages seem to be deserted. Someone set them up at some stage, but then never bothered again to update them. This is very counterproductive, of course, so why bother even setting up a page if you don’t ever care to update them?

Twitter is more anonymous than Facebook at first glance. You can just sit there and watch. And you can actually stay in this position for hours without needing to do anything. You have a larger number of contacts and only a few are very familiar. Due to the nature of the tool, you often get either trivial posts, like “off to bed now” or links to other sites. This is good and bad. You see the “human” side of the industry leaders you follow and admire, and still you never really seem to get connected as no longer conversation can take place on Twitter.

You can learn a lot from reading a few posts of some of the well known social media celebrities (including famous bloggers) and you feel part of their life because you read some snippets of what they are doing right that minute you read their tweet. But often you experience being left out of the conversation because there are so many people you don’t know and don’t recognise. And they all seem to be in conversations with each other – and you really never know what’s going on. Sometimes you don’t even want to interrupt them, so for newbies it will be hard to get to know people on Twitter.

Is Twitter good for business? I think it may be for people who tweet regularly and who tweet valuable information. Thoughtleaders will benefit greatly. It takes effort, though, but the well known bloggers, for example, are used to putting effort in. I believe Twitter will take a bit longer and more effort to gain any monetary value from it. But if you are authentic, bring good information to the table and make an effort to be present several times per day, you will eventually gain at least a good amount of trust from many potential customers. And then this “I know, like and trust you” will probably lead to some business as well.

Another thing that is great about Twitter: if you ever feel lonely and you sit all by yourself in your office, log in to Twitter and you won’t be lonely anymore.

Categories : Social Media, Web2.0

Tags : networking, social+media, Twitter, virtual assistant

Launch of my New Zealand specific website

By Heike

Tuesday, January 6th, 2009

imgp0945 Hello again,

I have just launched my new WordPress website specifically designed for my local, New Zealand, market. I feel it’s important to keep in mind that there are some slight differences in the local market to, for example, the US market.

Our economy is a bit different, our business landscape features mainly small businesses and hardly any large corporates and we are the country of Kiwi ingenuity (which means, we do a lot ourselves). So, thinking of this I believe that Kiwis want to read some different things than international visitors. Please correct me if you feel that I’m wrong.

One major difference is, for example, that there are not many Virtual Assistants in New Zealand. If you do a search, you will probably find a handfull of women who call themselves Virtual Assistants, but they usually run their business under the secretarial services or secretarial support header.

But not all Virtual Assistants are secretaries who just work out of a home office, many international Virtual Assistants add online marketing, ecommerce and social media marketing to their repertoire. This is a whole new field that New Zealand based Secretarial Services can bite their teeth into.

Marketing services is usually more brick and mortar driven here. Many local marketing consultants will focus on the offline activities while online marketing falls into the hand of webdesigners. Unfortunately, the webdesigners are often not skilled in online marketing (the psychological bits). They are amazing when it comes to the design of stunning websites, but the whole area of persuasion, customer involvement and content effectiveness seems to be something that needs some updating.

Another thing is that many Kiwis haven’t really made use of the idea of blogging yet. Many NZ websites with blogs I’ve visited so far hardly ever update their blogs. There’s usually one post made in May, another one in September and maybe one to say Merry Christmas or Happy New Year.

What is missing is the understanding that blogs can be immensely powerful. Looking at the 6 and 7 figure earning international bloggers (check out some of these blogs on my links page) the tool of blogging is highly undervalued. Ok, I understand that most of us will never earn that sort of money with our blog posts, but how about reputation management and customer relations?

Aren’t we all still stuck in the olden times when a business or service would look down on us, the little customer, and don’t ask how we like the service or products. The thing is only that people have changed. We are not that “quiet” anymore and we don’t believe in the authority of businesses anymore. And it’s not only Enron’s fault.It’s that we woke up and found our voices. We want to have a say and if we can’t have that, we just stop buying from these businesses. Easy. And the businesses don’t know why. Hmmm.

Maybe a blog could help to listen to the customer and finding out what they think or what they need. It’s well worth trying. I definitely will.

Categories : Blog

Tags : customer_involvement, Ecommerce, New Zealand, Online+Marketing, Secretarial+Services, social+media, virtual assistant

The transition period from employed to freelancer

By Heike

Sunday, January 4th, 2009

I’m sure there are many people who would love to change the way they work, escape the corporate cubicle or tiny office without even a window in order to swap it for their own homeoffice with a view. Additionally, they’d be able to be at home with the children, which is the reason for the majority of virtual assistants’ decision to quit the corporate life, for example.

In past years it was readily accepted that mums would go back to work as soon as they found a good childcare service and the baby reached toddler stage, but nowadays people question this former trend and it’s probably a good thing. Looking at the rate of kids nowadays getting into trouble as they don’t have any parent around, it can only be beneficial to have more time available for your children.

Other people decide to switch into a home office because of the way they like to work. Some want to work a different set of hours than the usual 9-5 as they might be nightowls and most productive in the evenings. Others want to be able to be more creative in their profession, which is often not possible in mainstream jobs in big offices. There are lots of reasons why people are starting to realise that they could work differently than they used to work, but before you take the plunge, check out this article by the Freelance Switch blogger: http://freelanceswitch.com/start/kick-starting-a-freelance-business-when-you-cant-afford-to-fail/

Categories : Freelancing

Tags : freelance, homeoffice, virtual assistant

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Archive for virtual assistant

Why Small Business Can Use Social Media?

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

PA Excellence is building a team of virtual assistants

Facebook versus Twitter

Launch of my New Zealand specific website

The transition period from employed to freelancer

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