by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Sep 30, 2015 | Blogging, Content Marketing, Delegation
What is the simplest tool to help you grow your business?
Besides a Virtual Assistant of course?
It’s your blog.
As a direct communication outlet, your blog helps you to reach your target audience and engage on their level, on their terms. It is THE most valuable piece of company real estate you own so you need to make the most of every post beyond a simple one click, social share.
Leveraging the power of social media platforms is the shortest route to your prospects. It’s not enough just to write rich and relevant content that solves pain points and answers the most sought after questions. You must take the extra steps to reach your target audience by promoting and sharing your blog on a variety of social platforms.
Social media continues to play a very active role in most brand’s marketing strategy due to the expansive reach and opportunities for engagement. This being the case, your content marketing is paramount to driving your online success and revenue. In fact, it generates 3 times as many leads as traditional marketing at cost of 62% less. Blogging retains its space as a key component in your marketing blueprint as the centralized community to keep your audience informed, educated and wanting more. Your content and blogs help to showcase how your products and services solve challenges, answer questions and make life a little less complicated.
- Blogs give websites on average 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links. (Inbound Write)
- Brands that create 15 blog posts per month average 1,200 new leads per month. (HubSpot).
- B2B companies that blog only 1-2x/month generate 70% more leads than those who don’t blog. (HubSpot)
Smart Insights found that 33% of marketers gave social media a medium to high rating as being a cost effective marketing channel, versus 19% for display advertising.
Social media is still by far the most universal approach to connect and distribute information. [Tweet “93% of bloggers share their content on social networks. Orbit Media”]
We’re living in a saturated marketplace of digital overload with millions of data bytes flowing down stream so if you want a little playtime on the raft, let me toss you a lifeline, direct from Mike Allton at The Social Media Hat.
Strategic content distribution is the spider web to disseminate information and capture attention and further drive higher conversion rates. There’s no roll of the dice, passing Go or collecting $200.00 without some time, effort and creative work.
Mike’s post “Blog Promotionology, The Art & Science of Blog Promotion” is a comprehensive checklist of the best (IMHO) blog promotion tools and tactics. Yes, as Mike states, it is a science but the return on investment pays off with:
- Increased traffic
- Readers
- Wider exposure
- List building
- Online authority
- Relationship building
- Credibility
- Connections
- Lead generation
- Revenue
Make it easy for your target audience to search and find you online. Remember, at this very instant, people are searching Google for answers and you may be the solution BUT if you aren’t effectively promoting your content, you won’t be able to connect and serve.
Mike’s secret sauce of Blog Promotionology ensures greater success in reaching your target audience not simply because you are adding your post to networks but with each link, you are impacting your SEO to bring your site higher in search rankings and algorithms. Something we all strive for.
Don’t be your own best audience any longer. Grab the wheel and take the necessary steps to drive your posts into the hands OR tech devices of your intended market. They want to hear from you.
Download Mike’s Blog Promotion Checklist and once you’ve digested the essentials and scratched your head about where to start or how much time it make take away from your business, get in touch with your Ace and let us help take your blog promotion to the next level.
Don’t leave it to Chance.
What you do after you create your content is what truly counts. Gary Vaynerchuk
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Sep 10, 2015 | Delegation, Virtual Assistant
Whether you are a budding entrepreneur or an established business, you can’t do it all yourself. Who can possibly wear all of the hats required to operate a successful viable business? Not many that I know of. It takes a cohesive team to manage each division of your business. You may already work with an attorney, a CPA, or even a graphic designer, but what about the balance of your everyday business operations? The daily administrative and backend details that keep you flowing, productive, and focused on your core genius?
A virtual assistant can change your life, giving you back your day so you can work on the tasks that will take your business to incredible new places. Brandon Turner
Partnering with a Virtual Assistant is a low cost, high payoff solution to enable you to work ON your business rather than IN it. This is such a cliche, but it holds true. If you are buried in the everyday, mundane activities then you don’t have the time or energy to focus real efforts on business development, client retention, troubleshooting or building relationships. And, as you know, your online presence depends on developing a human, touchable brand.
What can a Virtual Assistant do for you?
This is the simple shortlist of what you should delegate to a virtual assistant. There are literally hundreds of tasks and projects that you do within your business that aren’t the key drivers to generate income and don’t represent the best value of your time. If you’d like to see where your time is spent (not invested), keep a daily log of what you do, how much time you spend on tasks, and what is accomplished. You may be surprised at the end of the week to realize that you are more “busy” than productive.
“As all entrepreneurs know, you live and die by your ability to prioritize. You must focus on the most important, mission-critical tasks each day and night, and then share, delegate, delay or skip the rest.” Jessica Jackley
Take back your time to scale your business with a Virtual Assistant partnership.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Aug 25, 2015 | Delegation, Entrepreneur, Virtual Assistant
With the various new forms of technology, there have never been more ways to enrich your life as an entrepreneur, reach your target audience and grow your business. The only problem is, how can you manage everything? Software, apps and other tools might help, but the overwhelming list of tasks can be excessively time consuming if you are a solopreneur.
A solution that is exceptionally effective is to outsource your administrative and back end tasks. Some business owners balk at the idea, wondering if they will have enough resources and comfort level to make it feasible. However, statistics compiled over the last decade have revealed a growing trend, with over 43% of companies now using outsourcing to help successfully manage their business operations. It makes perfect sense, since the more power we have behind us; the more work we are capable of doing. You can achieve more by doing less.
If you are new to the outsourcing concept, these 5 high level steps can help you streamline this process and get the ball rolling to free up your time and your mind.
- DETERMINE WHAT YOU CAN OUTSOURCE
Typically, at Ace Concierge, LLC we assess the type of tasks associated with your business functions and daily management. They might fall under two categories: highly repetitive tasks, such as data entry, social media management and blogging; or more specialized knowledge, such as accounts payable or web design. You may also have your own list according to your industry and niche in addition to the day to day necessities of processes and procedures. Once we have determined a list of tasks you’d like to outsource, we can determine the skill level needed and begin to narrow down your options.
- WEIGH THE COST VS BENEFITS OF OUTSOURCING
Begin with determining your own time value and where you should prioritize your efforts. If you tend to bury yourself in the daily minutia, for example, social media, editing, proofing, or curating content, it is here you need to ask yourself if this is the best value of your time? Is this your expertise, why you started your business? More often than not, it doesn’t represent your core genius, won’t provide an immediate return and isn’t a fundamental function of your company. While these tasks and activities represent daily necessities of an online presence, they don’t embody the crux of your knowledge and capabilities.
As an entrepreneur, your time needs to be protected, leveraged and highly valued. Outsourcing maintains these properties keeping you highly effective and focused on your business, growth, development and other primary structures of operations. Delegating allows you to forgo other things you would pay an actual employee, such as insurance, training, extra office space, supplies, and benefits. Instead, you are only paying for the project time which is a tremendous cost savings.
- DECIDING WHO TO OUTSOURCE TO
One of the most popular questions we get asked is, “Who should we use? How do we know they’ll do a good job?” As the old saying goes, “You get what you pay for.” There are many opportunities to find cheap labor from developing countries, but the difference in hours, language barriers and skills can sometimes pose a problem. These are options you must consider, especially if you are presenting their work to your own clients.
Consider partnering with another entrepreneurial like-minded individual as they will understand what it takes to own and operate a successful, viable company. If you only choose someone based upon price, a “one-off task master” then that is all you will receive. Point A to Point B with nothing in between. Think in terms of a virtual business partner who has your best interests at heart. Someone who invests in you, your time and your company to help you achieve your goals.
- CREATE A PLAN AND EXPECTATIONS
One mistake we frequently hear from business owners is frustration when a project is delivered and it’s not what was expected, it wasn’t on time, or it was not successfully executed. Clearly plan and outline for accountability and outcomes, keeping all lines of communication open. We try to stress the importance of a strategy that all agree upon to ensure that all needs and requirements are met or exceeded. It is difficult enough to give up what you have always done so it’s vital to create a solid foundation with dialog, expectations and feedback.
- RELINQUISH CONTROL
The hardest step business owners tend to have is relinquishing control and letting the person or business you’ve hired do their job. Remember, you’re outsourcing for a reason. You need to focus your time and energy on other more important, high payoff activities relative to your business. It doesn’t make sense to outsource a project or task and manage it from afar. If that’s the case, you should save your money and do it yourself!
Assigning the control to someone else can be nerve racking, especially if you’ve been involved in every aspect of the business from the start. As Ace Concierge, LLC has continued to practice outsourcing ourselves, as well as accomplishing administrative tasks and business management operations on behalf of our own clients, we’ve seen an increase both in productivity and the efficiency with which we can grow our businesses.
Leveraging time, expertise and a team is a growth mentality. It’s worked for us, and we’d love to show you how it can work for you!
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Jun 9, 2015 | LinkedIn, Small Business, Social Media
LinkedIn isn’t simply a platform for job hunters and recruiters, but also multi-dimensional social media channel to build your circle of influence and network with other professionals.
The stats alone will convince you that LinkedIn is a marketing tool you just can’t ignore.
- There are more than 460 million users on LinkedIn — in 200 countries and territories. That’s quite the global reach.
- 133 million users in the US
- 1 in 3 professionals have a LinkedIn account
- Over 49% of key decision makers are on LinkedIn
- 35% of users access LinkedIn everyday
- Reachforce found that 44% of B2B marketers have generated leads via LinkedIn.
- There are over 1 billion LinkedIn endorsements
- Over 25 million LinkedIn profiles are viewed each day
Your LinkedIn profile will act as your laser-focused billboard, presenting you as the subject matter expert in your field. Writing it may seem like a daunting task, but simply set aside some time, maybe a weekend to brainstorm what you want to share. Gather your information in outline form and dive in. If you aren’t confident with your skills, hire out the creative writing aspect but keep in mind, you’ll have to do some of the heavy lifting as well.
Headline
By default, LinkedIn will populate this field with your current company and job title. You are not obligated to retain this. Mix it up and get creative using robust keywords and phrases. List your expertise and other credentials as well, but don’t overwhelm the header with details. It can be overkill. Try to keep it to about 10-15 words. Less is more.
Summary
Design your killer profile to gain traction with a strong summary, industry keywords and in the first person tense, using “I.” Example: “I facilitated a team of 18 people to drive sales 24% above the previous quarter.” List 4-5 of your principal achievements. It’s important to note that you are writing to your target market, so make sure you are hitting some of the crucial points that would make the most sense to them.
Photo
If you don’t have a professional headshot, make time for a photo shoot. Wear something businesslike, no flash or bling. AND smile. It portrays you as someone who is real, reachable, open and personable. People are influenced by visual images, so keep in mind that you have just a few seconds to make an impression. Make it a good one.
Content
Fill in the blanks: awards, recognition, special achievements, education, associations, volunteer work and so forth. It helps to clearly demonstrate your well-roundedness, diversity in projects and skills as well as making you appear more versatile.
Endorsements/Recommendations
It never hurts to ask. Reach out to people you know, past and present clients, or even colleagues. People are always delighted to share a few kudos. Give it a try. Here’s a small tip for you, reciprocate the kindness.
Claim Your Custom Profile URL
LinkedIn’s default profile URL is not only hard to remember and share but it doesn’t showcase your name or your brand, making it more difficult for Google to display your profile page in the search results. Personalize your custom URL with your name or company name that is consistent with your other social media platforms. Click here to update your profile URL settings.
Status Updates
Everything you share is a direct reflection of yourself, your brand and your company. Your content is the cornerstone of building your digital footprint and circle of influence. It’s how you communicate your expertise with your target audience. It helps establish you as a credible source by nurturing the relationships with real content that drives conversation, educates, and encourages that coveted SHARE. With each post, consider what your audience wants and needs. Don’t get too comfortable on the soapbox because if that’s where you’re shouting your message from – trust me, no one is listening. Always remember that good content solves your customers’ problems. This is what drives your own personal influence. There’s no need to shout how awesome you are. Your content will speak for itself.
Consistency and frequency are key to authenticating your online reputation. It isn’t good enough to share a post on LinkedIn once a week. You won’t be able to develop a watchful audience unless you maintain a visible presence. Sharing content that matters – and doing it often – is the only way to build your personal brand.
To keep yourself in check, outline the topics or themes you’d like to share in support of your keywords and phrases. Write your own posts as a LinkedIn Publisher, in addition to searching for quality content from others to share as status updates. Authoring your posts in the Publisher format allows:
- People to follow you
- You to write long form posts
- Google to index your posts
- Your posts to reach a larger public audience
- Showcase your expertise
You’ve got your posts all lined up but what’s next? When to post? According to HubSpot research, the best times to share content on LinkedIn are on Tuesday’s 10-11 am (via AddThis) while Fannit stated the best times are 7-8 am and 5-6 pm. My suggestion is also to test different days and times to see what produces the best results with your personal audience. Science and social metrics can be a struggle, but pay attention to your engagement, comments, likes and shares. Everyone is different as are their goals and tactics. Find what works best for you.
Start with this as a recipe for posting
- Post 2-3 times per day, 7 days a week
- Mix up your posts with URLs, images, or even quotes
- Comment on other people’s content
- Share in various target groups
- Write long-form posts as “LinkedIn Publisher”
- Search for our keywords and phrases in the “posts” section
Growing your network
The next rung toward your success is to join a few industry groups with like-minded peers, target audience and influencers. Participating in LinkedIn Groups affords you the opportunity to further develop your own thought leadership with professionals in your field. They function as a “private” space to interact with other members that share common interests, skills and industries, further widening your network and affiliations. While you are permitted to join up to 50 groups, it is advisable that you maintain a level of sanity and be a little choosy with the number of groups you join. It can be overwhelming to try and keep up with the discussions as well as share relevant content. Don’t overextend yourself.
Creating your profile, posting and joining groups is the foundation to your LinkedIn success but as with any SOCIAL network, it requires the human touch and by that I mean engagement with your community. Set aside time each day to fully engage in conversations and comment on posts that resonate with you. It is the nurturing of relationships that builds trust in you and your brand. People buy from people. That will never change.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Feb 25, 2015 | Entrepreneur, Productivity, Small Business, Social Media
No, not a financial burden imposed by the state, but the tax social media can have on an entrepreneur can feel like a huge time-sucker.
Dictionary.com presents 5 ways to define the word tax, the best fit for this article is:
Too Many Hats
An entrepreneur has a lot to do in a bootstrapped business. They are the person performing the customer service or generating the product they deliver to a client AND they are also every other department such as marketing, creative design, accounting, sales, talent management, and more. Their passion is clear and focused on the service and product, but it can begin to dwindle with the burden of necessary duties to support that business.
Social Media Visibility
Add to this, there is an expectation that all entrepreneurs are online at all times providing continual content to build a loyal audience and that content must live on Social Media platforms. After 6 months to a year of generating content, responding, being conversational to build relationships, and doing everything they can to rise above the noise and be noticed, they grow weary of it all. I heard one woman entrepreneur state that because of social media, she needs a wife, an assistant, and a design team because the weight of her business does not fit into the 24 hours she is given. Some days it feels like a heavy tax and burden on an entrepreneur’s day.
The Anchor
The message seems to be, if you are not on social media, you don’t exist. Yet many feel that being tied to the responsibility of social media keeps them from living, much less working on their business. They want to be there interacting with the people who need their business, but it doesn’t always feel like they are reaching an audience when using social media. It is a tough balance, entrepreneurship, and all it entails. However, there is a strategy that can be implemented to ease the load on a business owner’s time.
Delegation. Plain and simple.
Delegating is the simple act of entrusting authority to another person. While you can’t or shouldn’t delegate every task or responsibility in your business, you should move some of the non-essentials off of your plate. The ones that are the most time consuming, don’t generate revenue and take you away from the core of your business.
According to VerticalResponse, 23 percent of CEOs and business owners spend between six to 10 valuable hours each week on social media.
In a Constant Contact market survey, they found that:
- Small business owners spend at least 20 hours per week on marketing
- 82% market their business using many different platforms, including email, e-newsletters, social media
Wow! That is a big chunk of time to give up. I bet this doesn’t even include those hidden hours when you are sucked into the black hole of searching and link clinking. Before you know it, the day is over.
Who nurtured your business and your clients?
Yes! Your social media efforts represent the architectural structure that leads to brand recognition, credibility, a positive customer experience, brand advocates, increased web traffic, search rankings, and word-of-mouth marketing. There is absolutely NO question that you do need an online presence. It is vital in today’s super socially connected world. Everyone does business online; searching brands and companies, reviews, social proof, connections, tips, tools, apps, and addresses. It is only going to continue to expand.
BUT…..
What about the commitment to your business beyond social engagement?
Are you ready to apply for your social media tax rebate and get back to building your company??
