by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Nov 19, 2013 | Marketing, Small Business, Social Media
Image credit: Inthenet Marketing
In the last post, Social Media and Your Brand Image, we discussed the significance of creating a cohesive message across all of your social media channels. It isn’t just enough to create your profiles; you must ensure they all clearly communicate your brand image, mission and values without any errors, broken links or poor content.
Your social media marketing efforts are the architectural structure, the blueprint toward creating communities, a positive customer experience, brand image, a following, online reputation and a strong digital footprint for a return on investment. It goes far beyond simply a few posts on various channels; it is a two-way conversation. Interaction. Collaboration. Education. Communication. Community.
“Social Media only serves to amplify the consumer experience.” Jeffrey Summers
Some clients have inquired about different bits and pieces of marketing components without taking into consideration their current online presence or lack thereof. Whether it is an email campaign, YouTube videos, e-books or teleseminars, without an audience, it won’t matter how much time and energy we invest to create these programs, because no one will be listening.
Without the proper foundation and building blocks, other marketing efforts are not nearly as successful because there may not be an audience, credibility, interest or social proof. This is the premise for building your network, being consistent, posting and most importantly, engaging. The engagement and building relationships is what will establish a following and authority.
In the compelling article by Fast Company, 10 Surprising Social Media Statistics That Will Make You Rethink Your Social Strategy they list some valuable stats that should help you to understand why you should plan before you simply “throw stuff” at the wall and expect it to stick. The numbers paint a picture! The data is intriguing but just because you have a widget to sell and some passion to back it up, it doesn’t translate to the digital world jumping on your bandwagon IF they don’t know you’re alive. Consider how many people are online, searching for products and services every single day. You need to think about how YOU will be found amongst the sea of herrings.
- Social media has taken over porn as the No. 1 activity on the web
- The fastest growing demographic on Twitter is the 55–64 year age bracket
- 93% of marketers use social media for business
- 189 million of Facebook’s users are “mobile only
Building and maintaining your online relationships will eventually turn into revenue, but it does take time and effort.
You are able to develop not only your brand image and following but also a level of trust and loyalty. People buy from people and when they can see and follow you online, the relationship building begins and eventually converts to business.
It is paramount that your digital footprint, in each platform remain consistent and representative of your goals and mission. Even your content must clearly define and support your company and brand. Everything in life has plan, an outline with action steps.
- Choose your social channel (s) and have a solid strategy, a blueprint of your goals and desired outcomes.
- Participate on a regular basis. Frequency is key
- Maintain a positive image
- Ensure that your platforms are up to date and mirror your bios
- Nurture your relationships
- Organically grow your audience
- Create supporting content
- Share content of others
- Limit self-promotional posts
- Understand that your efforts are an INVESTMENT
- Build synergistically from the ground up
You can’t expect to construct a fortress by tossing a girders on the ground. Build your foundation first.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Nov 13, 2013 | Social Media
When was the last time you performed a real social media audit on yourself and your business? Hopefully you maintain a spreadsheet or some sort of document outlining your social channels and online strategy to support and update your marketing efforts. If not, you may not be unaware of any broken links or possible inconsistencies whether in your email signature, online bios, website or the vast array of social media tools you employ.
When people search for you, what will they find and see about your brand?
Remember, your consumers, clients, colleagues and prospects are searching for you and clicking on your links. Your digital presence needs to be current and sending a uniform message. If there are errors or inconsistencies, consider the message you are sending to your audience.
Here is a recent example from a social media audit: broken links in the email signature and website, some of the navigation buttons returned an error page, the social bios did not match any of the social media posts, the most recent post was 1.5 months ago, there was no indication of the business or industry in anything that was shared, and there was little to no engagement on social channels. This is only the shortlist. I did not understand what the company truly did for their consumers. I was clueless.
“Your brand is the sum total of perceptions about your product in the heads of your relevant audience.” Mahesh Murthy
Every online platform should mirror your brand image, voice and mission. Take the time to review your email signature, bios, channels, content marketing; anything you share should resonate with your industry and your company. The last thing you want to do is trigger any confusion as to what you do or who you serve. There should be no question.
Deliver credibility!
Project a consistent brand image and you will make your brand more identifiable, giving your potential customers a sharper indication of your company’s identity, goals and culture. You will create the know, like, trust factor enabling you to convert your audience into customers and brand ambassadors.
A strong standardized brand image will help you establish your online reputation as a solid professional and reliable company. People will look to you as a valued resource and partner.
Be a thought leader.
Be a connector.
Be a giver.
If you are sending mixed messages, have broken information, or lack frequency and consistency, you won’t have an audience.
Without an audience, you can’t sell anything.
We live in a trust society. And people learn about you from your platforms. All of these things need to be in play if you want to hit a homerun.
Look at the statistics below: If all of these people below are online, don’t you want them to have a clear, concise idea of who you are, what you do, and who you serve?
- Facebook has over 1.15 billion active users.
- Google+ has 343 million active monthly users.
- Twitter has over 288 million monthly active users.
- LinkedIn has now reached 238 million users.
- YouTube has over 1 billion unique visitors every month.
- Instagram has now reached 130 million users.
- Pinterest has 70 Million users.
What’s your message? If you are interested in another pair of eyes to review your channels and marketing efforts, please send us a message.
Let’s clean up your digital footprint so it is more than a shadow in the dark!!
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Nov 12, 2013 | Entrepreneur, Virtual Assistant
When you are looking for a vested partner, your goal should be someone with an entrepreneurial mindset who understands what it takes to not only get up and running, but who knows how to thrive in business. While you can certainly choose an offshore call center to help manage day to day tasks, you will be missing out on the bigger part of your business success, a trusted like-minded entrepreneur.
“Which do you think will build a stronger company over time? A technically competent team of people who share no collective set of motivations, styles or goals – or – a technically competent team of people who are united by a clearly articulated set of values and expectations the CEO has both described to them and tested for during the interview process? It’s not a trick question.” Hunter Walk
Finding the right fit goes beyond technical skills or a likeable personality. It takes a certain kind of individual to start and operate a company. A degree or a previous title doesn’t make you an entrepreneur. It also isn’t about someone who wants to turn a hobby into a 9-5 job or someone who only wants to cut a paycheck. There is more to it than that.
Owning and operating your own business requires a commitment to 24/7/365 days a year. It isn’t something you just dabble in “willy nilly.” In the beginning you may be wearing all of the hats, living and breathing every facet of the business, even in your sleep. There is no rest. No downtime.
The Entrepreneur:
- Methodical
- Courageous
- Strong time management and planning
- Organized
- Productive
- Strategic
- Critical thinker
- Insightful
- Intuitive
- Communicator
- Enthusiastic
- Problem solver
- Overly committed
- Driven
- Innovative
- Ability to pivot
- Open to change
- Ready for failure
- Readiness to begin again
These are innate qualities that you will never learn in business school.
It is what is in your head. What lives in your heart. How you survive and thrive in life.
Dan Schawbel, founder of Millennial Branding says: “To be perfectly blunt, people with hard skills are a dime a dozen. A high-school kid can probably learn most of the hard skills that would be required to do just about any job, but it’s doubtful that he or she would have the emotional maturity and people skills to make it in a Fortune 200 company.”
In the search for your virtual assistant, think about the match that is most important to you. What do you value most?
You are secure on who YOU are as well as the value and expertise you bring to your clients and the marketplace. Don’t you want and need the same type of support from your team? Someone who fully understands your needs, culture and business?
“Formal education will make you a living, self-education will make you a fortune.” Jim Rohn
Who is the best fit for your company? When interviewing your prospective virtual assistants, due diligence is a necessity. Not just a quick SKYPE interaction.
- Learn about them. Why did they get into the business? Here’s my story.
- What struggles have they faced and how did they overcome them.
- What are their goals?
- Speak with their past and current clients.
- Read their online testimonials.
- Google them: what social media platforms do they use? Is their branding consistent? What types of posts do they write? Is their blog up to date?
- What personality traits present most strongly in their online communications?
- Do you feel that they are transparent and open?
Find the real treasure, the driven entrepreneurial virtual assistant who is truly devoted to your dreams of success.
Look for a partner, not an automated task doer.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Nov 7, 2013 | Small Business, Social Media
Image credit: http://www.mikemccready.ca
Your social media efforts have probably gone through several evolutions since you first began developing your online presence. At the onset, you may have jumped in with both feet while discovering the ins and outs and proper social media etiquette. It was and still is a learning process. The rules change, people maintain different ideas and policies but all the while the main premise still remains, it is about nurturing and growing relationships. It isn’t all that much of a mystery. Unmask your potential, share remarkable content, be authentic and build your brand.
“Tweet valuable content and don’t get caught up in numbers…get caught up in building great relationships!” Lisa Malcom, The Social Suite
In the midst of all of this, is the quest to be on top, showcasing your talents, your knowledge, and business acumen. We all want to be heard, seen and have a voice. What I have noticed over the years is the tremendous increase in the amount of noise and sometimes an unfortunate decrease in engagement. Building your relationships, instilling loyalty and trust within your community is at times forgotten with the push of content and URLs or the blind retweets only because you trust the source.
Proving you’re a reliable thought leader is significant, however willy nilly digital diarrhea can be overkill. Info excess is crushing – our brains are on overdrive attempting to filter all of the data thrown at us and we miss out on personal relationships during the digestion process.
“Activate your fans, don’t just collect them like baseball cards.” Jay Baer
- Mix up your content
- Don’t just post links
- Share posts of your followers and networks
- Add in some inspirational quotes
- Use dynamic images
- Spark the conversation
- Listen, truly listen
- Visit the profiles and websites of your network
- Take a REAL interest because you care
- Learn about your followers and fans
- Give credit where credit is do
- Share more than you promote
BEFORE you retweet, actually read the article.
If you care enough to share it, you should know what you are sharing with your trusting audience. Yes, it’s kind and generous to give back, but blindly posting for the sheer sake of it is almost meaningless. Does the content resonate with you? Spark any thoughts? Do you agree or disagree? What was the catalyst for sharing??
Invest the time and energy to know what you are reposting. Wouldn’t you like it if people actually read your content before they did the same? Speaking from personal experience, after having thanked someone for an RT, I have also asked a question about the post. Some respond and others don’t. Those that don’t could fit into one of 2 categories, they aren’t all that social in social media or they didn’t read the post and didn’t care to go back to it when I posed the question. Of course, there is always the chance that didn’t see my inquisitive tweet??
“You can never go wrong by investing in communities and the human beings within them.” Pam Moore
Take an active role WITH your online universe, getting to know and engage with your followers. You never know who you will meet or where the road may lead. It is a fascinating world when you invest the time and passion to mindfully participate.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Nov 5, 2013 | Entrepreneur, Productivity, Time Management
image credit: spokesman.com
Time management is always a hot topic as we seem to think we have so little time to effectively manage our days and have some semblance of work life balance. You too want to get more things accomplished while the clock keeps ticking and more tasks seem to pile up.
What can you do? Get a handle on your time, your interruptions and your distractions. Thanks to technology and the digital world, we are always connected and being bombarded with data overload. Crush the chaos. It can take all of the discipline you can muster to tune out the influx of information coming at you. Time can be an elusive mystery when you are in a constant struggle to find more of it, so it is up to you to invest in your time, in your life, in your business. The best thing you can do is learn to manage yourself to better manage your time. “Choice management.”
We are repeatedly bombarded by data overload via our push notifications, social media notices, text messages, phone calls, e-mails, Skype chats and news alerts on a daily basis. It is marvelous to always be connected, in touch and just a mere keystroke away. You are never alone and continuously up to date in both your personal and professional life. But there is a hitch and that is the negative impact it has on our concentration and stress levels. It hurts our brains!!
As a technologically in-tune society, we must learn to filter the urgency of our incoming communications in order to remain devoted to the tasks at hand. The constant interruptions have a pronounced impact on our productivity and efficiency level, never mind time management. If we continue to allow outside distractions to compete for our time and focus, we are unable to give our absolute attention to our present moment and activities. Interruptions because of too much data in the workplace costs US businesses $650 billion a year!
Computerworld reports that we are now living in a world of “interruption technology.”
In a 2012 study by The University of California, Irvine and the US Army, it was found that frequent email checkers were less productive, less focused and more stressed. On average, these types of email users averaged 37 switched windows per hour compared to a non-email checkers who only switched 18 times per hour. The second group of workers engaged more deeply with teammates, were focused on their tasks, increased their productivity and were less stressed.
Limit Distractions
- Schedule time on your calendar to tune out and turn off
- Let others know you are “off limits” during certain working hours
- Close the door or put on ear buds
- Silence your Smartphone
- Just say NO to social media! (Facebook and Twitter updates are always accessible).
- Shutdown everything that notifies you of an alert, sound, or other announcement (your e-mail will still be waiting for you).
- COMMIT to your decision to focus and jump in with gusto
- Once your project is completed, come up for air, stretch, respond to voicemails, text messages and other communications.
- Grab an energy snack to refuel for your next session
- Hide your tech gadgets
Remember, being offline is an industrious act toward completing your projects, achieving your goals and remaining on task. You will see a considerable increase in your productivity as you continue to shield yourself from outside disruptions and digital noise or as Stewart Baines says: “infobesity.”
Turning off isn’t just for the business world. We are electronically tethered 24/7 and this crosses into our personal boundaries. It becomes too much when we allow technology to consume our time and energy away from the present moment, sacrificing the things that truly matter. In a consumer survey last year, Qualcomm found that 37% of people use their phones while attending a party, 36% do so while eating at a restaurant and 35% use their phones while playing with their children.
Life is available only in the present moment. If you abandon the present moment you cannot live the moments of your daily life deeply. Thich Nhat Hanh
