by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Feb 2, 2021 | Social Media
In the fast-paced, technology-driven world, the vast part of our day is spent online. Nearly two-thirds of the world’s population utilizes the internet, while the average person spends 144 minutes a day browsing through their social media.
While once the medium for friends to connect, social media now forms an essential part of a company’s digital marketing strategy. Nowadays, not having a presence on social media can hold your business back, preventing you from achieving your best.
Why social media is important to your brand
Social media is no longer an optional benefit for businesses but an essential method of reaching customers. There are many benefits to having a presence on social media, including:
1. Boost your brand awareness
One of the biggest benefits of managing a social media presence is that it can significantly boost your brand awareness. With billions of users utilizing social media, you will be able to place your company into the palms of more potential customers. People do not just follow brands that they know; a recent survey of Instagram users found that 60% of people had discovered a new company while browsing their timeline.
An effective digital marketing campaign across social platforms can help you to develop genuine leads with new customers, enabling you to nurture stronger relationships.
2. Become a thought leader
Alongside helping you reach more potential customers, social media can also help you establish your company as a thought leader for your industry. Regular insightful posts can showcase your company as the go-to brand for information on your industry, and 58% of businesses said they were more likely to choose a company perceived as a thought leader.
3. Reputation management
No matter whether you are using social media or not, your customers will be. Ensuring you are actively utilizing your social channels will help you to respond to your customers, allowing you to maximize your customer service offering.
By using social media, you will be able to control your reputation far more effectively. It will allow you to highlight positive messages and quickly address any negative comments before they become a major issue.
4. 24/7 marketing
Unlike other forms of marketing, your online presence will be able to work to promote your brand 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Potential customers will be scrolling through their timelines at all hours of the day, so regular and high-quality posting maximizes your productivity, ensuring you are always reaching potential customers.
Need help with your social media?
There can be no denying the importance of incorporating social media into your digital marketing. However, many entrepreneurs find they do not have the time or energy to create a successful social media strategy.
Here at Ace Concierge, we know how time-consuming creating a compelling social media presence can be. That is why our executive virtual assistant services have been specifically designed to boost your productivity and time management by providing you with full social media management services.
Our talented team knows what it takes to successfully develop and maintain an industry-leading social media presence. With years of experience managing online communities and creating proven content plans that maximize your reach, we know what it takes to ensure you stand out from your competitors.
Hiring our proven executive virtual assistant will give you the confidence your digital presence is in the best hands possible, ensuring your focus can be on expanding your business. We have helped dozens of entrepreneurs transform their brands, so if you want to find out how we can help you, get in touch today.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Dec 15, 2020 | Productivity, Small Business
If you find that you’re not crushing your productivity and things just aren’t getting done, then you may want to keep reading.
Organizing is one key component to your productivity and time management to bring you back to a central focus, keeping you on task and driven for success.
There are some simple straightforward, no-brainer things you can do every day. They don’t cost anything and they will only help you invest more in yourself, your business, and your time.
Maximize your time to work smarter, not harder. Let’s get started,
Productivity Simplicity
- Priorities: have them. Understand them. Commit to them. Determine what is most important in your day, life, and business. That’s what you need to be doing
- Make a plan: merely thinking about doing something isn’t enough to achieve important tasks and milestones. List out action steps
- Prepare for deviations: they happen. You will be sidetracked but with proper planning, you can quickly redirect
- Move your body. Exercise is a chief factor in your vitality and daily energy levels
- Do less, but do it more strategically by delegating, dumping, or deleting, leaving time for what’s essential for you to accomplish
- Set realistic timelines: deadlines keep you from scrambling and only half finishing your lists or not putting in 100%. If you can’t give it your all, then it is half-ass. Do you want that?
- Tick tock: don’t be ruled by the clock. It does not tell you if you are being more efficient and productive. Your output does. 9-5 does not mean anything if you are just “busy”
- Set goals: this helps to keep you on target daily, weekly, and monthly. Revisit your list and revise it as needed
- Eliminate your distractions: there is nothing worse than the ping of a notification, social media, TV, phone, etc that will detract your focus. Tune out and turn off. It is okay. You will not lose anything but you have everything to gain. Be in the moment and nowhere else
- Don’t multi-task: it does impede your productivity, decrease your brainpower, and limits your true attention to getting one thing right. Emphasize one project, one task at a time.
- Ask yourself, “How or does, this serve my goals?” If something doesn’t serve you, then STOP!
- Be accountable: yes, how you manage your day and your time is up to you and only you. Own it. Do it. Be the best boss of yourself
- Focus on results and outcomes, not busy time
- Timers: they work! Set a timer for 30 minutes that you will devote to the time on task. Do not stop. Don’t stray. Just do it. At the end of those 30, take a 5-minute break and then hit it again.
- Break the e-chains: don’t be held hostage to your email. Set a reminder from your timer in tip #14, to check your email 4X/day
- Review/Revisit/Revise: every night, review your day to set your goals/action steps for the following day. This is a key component to your successful productivity planning
- Shout, ME ME: yes, you must self-invest and establish a healthy work-life balance. Schedule in a time that is away from work; away from must-do’s and have some fun. Refresh and refocus your brain and your body
These action steps may seem like simple, common sense activities, but how many do you faithfully implement and maintain as daily habits?
Daily healthy productivity habits are the key to enhanced, quality output and measurable results. Nothing will change until you develop a consistent routine with firm systems, processes, and an understanding of your triggers that may set you off on a wanderlust of to-do list mismanagement. For example, eating 12 apples on a Saturday certainly won’t improve your health. Willy nilly organization won’t improve your results.
Get started TODAY. Forget about procrastinating, waiting for a better day, the right time, or perhaps, a New Year’s Resolution. RESOLVE to make daily changes for 365 days, every year. Consistency delivers results. Master your productivity with your commitment.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Dec 8, 2020 | Blogging, Content Marketing, Guest Blogger
I have seen quite a bit blogging-wise over the past 12 years.
Although I did not create my current blog until 2014, I began blogging in 2008. After ups, downs, and in-betweens I spotted a few rock-solid fundamentals all pros seem to follow.
Imagine your blog as a spectacular, 30 room mansion. Mansions need granite-like foundations to hold the weight of the massive dwelling. Otherwise, a collapse is imminent.
Bloggers need to build their blogs on rock-solid fundamentals to lay the foundation for a professional blogging career. Unfortunately, most bloggers ignore these fundamentals, watching their blogs collapse sooner than later.
Blogging does not need to be hard, painful, or outright difficult. Expect to face fears along the way. All growth occurs outside of your comfort zone. But also prepare to have fun, to free yourself, and to enjoy helping people as you follow these simple blogging fundamentals.
Blogging becomes easier if you follow basic steps for a long time.
Take these 5 steps to lay a rock-solid foundation for your professional blogging career.
1: Blog Mainly for Fun and Freedom
The great Steve Jobs explained how passionate entrepreneurs get ahead while everyone else quits. People who use logic alone observe poor results and quit because it makes sense to quit if you make no money.
Passionate, fun-loving, freedom-seeking visionaries see the journey through to become wildly successful. I never once considered quitting during my 15,000 blogging hours online because fun and freedom fueled me. What happened when three visitors a day visited my blog in 2008? I kept blogging because fun – not blog visitors – drove me to blog. What happened when I made peanuts through my blog for a long time? I kept blogging because freedom – not money – drove me to blog.
Skills, exposure, and credibility earn you money. Skills, exposure, and credibility eat up 1000s of blogging hours of creating and connecting. Blogging mainly for fun keeps you blogging when the money does not arrive. Make the work, the reward. Blog for fun and freedom primarily to get through the early blogging struggles we all face.
2: Invest Money in Resources from Pro Bloggers
Professional bloggers possess:
- 5000 to 10000 hours of experience
- Observational abilities far beyond amateur bloggers
- A vast storehouse of knowledge
Pro bloggers pack these absolute golden nuggets into their:
I wrote and self-published 120 plus eBooks to give bloggers resources for getting through all the obstacles I faced on this long, fun, freeing and sometimes challenging journey. Investing money in pro bloggers resources lets you leapfrog the most painful blogging struggles because pros tell you NOT to do that stuff. Even better? Pros tell you what to do from day 1 as a blogger to position yourself to succeed.
Feel free to follow pro blogs but know this; pros publish their best work for pay because….that is why they are pros!
3: Create Helpful Content
Write and publish helpful content. Gain reader trust. Earn credibility. Help people for free to help people for pay, later.
Content serves as a qualifier. Imagine being a life coach. Readers who find your blog consider hiring you but need to see through your blog content that you are:
- Credible
- Trustworthy
- Experienced
- Skilled
….before investing money in your coaching services. Some life coaches only publish generic quotes on Instagram as the sole source of their digital footprint. Would I invest $3500 on someone who knows how to copy, paste, and gussy up an IG formatted photo?
Blogging generously builds your skills, exposure, and credibility. Skilled, credible bloggers with massive exposure become highly successful in their niche. Word counts and blog post frequencies vary; aim to publish one, 600-word post weekly at a minimum.
Solve common reader problems. Resonate with your audience.
4: Befriend Top Bloggers in Your Niche
Imagine yourself alone sharing your blog posts on:
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
Imagine 15 blogging buddies sharing your blog posts on:
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Their blogs
Blogging buddies sometimes email your posts to their email lists, too. Imagine blogging buddies inviting you to guest post on their blogs. Picture blogging buddies submitting valuable guest posts for your blog.
Connected bloggers succeed. Everybody else largely fails because lone wolf bloggers seem to be on the outside, looking in.
Comment genuinely on top blogs from your niche. Promote top bloggers from your niche on social media and through your blog. Ask for nothing in return. Earn their trust. Gain their respect. Build a large blogger buddy network. Amplify your reach by allowing your blogging buddies to grow your traffic and profits passively.
5: Open Multiple Income Streams
Income streams serve as profitable containers holding your:
- Skills
- Experience
- Know-how
- Problem-solving abilities
In essence, income streams are receiving vehicles. Readers trust you based on your content. Readers hire you and buy your stuff to access your premium products and services. You receive money in the exchange.
Income stream ideas include:
- Writing and self-publishing eBooks
- Offer coaching services
- Offer consulting services
- Offer freelancing services
- Create audiobooks
- Write and self-publish paperbacks
- Create courses
- Sell sponsored posts
- Sell advertising space
Note; money only flows through step #5 if you spend 1000s of hours following steps 1-4. Skipping even a single step adversely affects your income potential.
Conclusion
Blogging is a fun, freeing journey for bloggers who follow the fundamentals I noted above. Be ready to venture well outside of your comfort zone to go pro. Be generous, patient, persistent and trusting. Be hyper-aware of any stingy, impatient, non-persistent, doubting traits you picked up as an employee, or from the general public.
Blogging gives you what you give blogging.
About the Author
Ryan Biddulph can help you become a successful blogger at Blogging From Paradise.
Connect with Ryan
Twitter
Instagram
LinkedIN
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Dec 1, 2020 | Delegation, Entrepreneur, Virtual Assistant
If your ToDo list is made up of:
- Administrative Duties: scheduling meetings, drafting and sending emails, filtering your inbox
- Managing your database of contacts and customers
- Proofreading office documents
- Sending greeting cards, invitations, and newsletters
- Storing and managing files in your cloud software
- Travel planning
- Creating forms
- Setting up project management software
- Editing and uploading blog posts
- Adding and updating WordPress plugins
- Managing social media postings
- Playing email tag
- Scheduling appointments
- Curating content
- Drafting e-newsletters
- Creating a blog and branded social graphics
- Managing your team and projects
Then who is operating your business?
Stop allowing your business to run you (around in circles). It’s time you stepped away from the low-payoff activities and put your value back on the playing field.
Remember WHY you started your company.
What skills did you bring to the table and what are you doing now?
This is crucial not just to your success but to how you spend your time.
If you are busy using your toolbox on all of the backend tasks, social media, and daily minutia, where and when are you able to apply your core genius before total burnout?
Train yourself to stop doing tasks that don’t add much value to your business – admin, repetitive, things you hate and things you aren’t good at. Ekaterina Ramirez
ToDo List Exercise
- Commit to 1 week
- Create a spreadsheet: date, task, time in, time out, started, completed, in process
- Track every task, project, distraction, interruption, time lost
- Note what wasn’t done
- Pay attention to time spent on social media (via all devices)
- What were the income-generating tasks?
- How many fires did you put out?
- How much time was wasted on email traffic?
- What items were top priority? Low priority?
- What was a total waste of your time?
- What did you hate doing?
- What else is noteworthy about your time-tracking exercise?
- Before you take on something new, STOP and ask yourself 1). Is this the best use of my time 2). Can someone else do it for me?
What IF you could free up as much as 20% of your time for responsibilities and core business needs that truly matter? Would you invest?
It all begins with the act of delegation.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Nov 24, 2020 | Guest Blogger, Small Business, Social Media
There are so many different social networks to be on today, it is no wonder small business owners feel their heads spinning when they think about it.
- Facebook
- Instagram
- Twitter
- TikTok
- Snapchat
- Pinterest
- LinkedIn
- Reddit
- Parler
- Mixx
- Flipboard
- Me-We
- YouTube
- Rumble
These are just the most recently popular social networking websites where people gather today.
So, what is a small business owner to do? Let us look at some options here:
Ask Where Your Clients Are on Social Media
Yes, you can ask your clients which social network sites they participate the most on. When they visit your business online or in-person be ready to ask them. Online, you can send out a quiz via email or even on a landing page of your website. If you are an eCommerce merchant, you can easily check your Google analytics to see where people are coming from to your website.
Do Some Research
Many of the networks have a completely different audience. Many young people on TikTok may not even use Facebook or LinkedIn for example. Stay tuned with the latest trends of where people are going online. Recently many conservative-minded people fled over to Parler. Some even quit being on Facebook and Twitter.
It is not always about which social channel has the most users, but about which channel has more of YOUR user base.
The Big Three Social Networks
The big 3 are Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter in the United States. These are the social media sites with the most users. They do not necessarily spend the most time on these but that is where they have an account and login at least once per month. Interestingly, the site with the most time spent is over on Instagram. So, if you have a younger female clientele, Instagram would be your #1 choice for where to market your business.
But remember if you need a large broad audience, these big 3 networks are where you will need to be.
Best Social Sites for B2B
Now on the other hand, if you are doing business just with other businesses you may want to consider LinkedIn. LinkedIn is known as the professional social media network. Most people talk business only on this professional network. Keep that in mind!
Younger Audience Networks
If the teenagers and young people in their 20’s and 30ths are your target audience then maybe TokTok or SnapChat would be where you want to market to. But do remember, it’s not where the highest earners go to be social.
Reaching Higher Income Demographic
As I researched this one recently it took me by surprise! YouTube far outranks all the others in a higher income user. Yes, YouTube! 83% of users on YouTube earn over $75+K per year. The next one that even comes close is Facebook with 74% of its user base earning $75+K.
The least was SnapChat audience at 22% of its audience earning the $75+ per year. Twitter came in at 32%, Pinterest at 41%, TikTok at 40%, and LinkedIn at 49%.
Best Social Media Networks for Customer Service
So, another thing to consider when choosing your social media sites to be on or advertise on is customer service. I love the speed of customer service over on Twitter. So, if your business handles a lot of customer service questions or complaints, Twitter is the place to be on.
Customer service works when someone tweets a business and then the business takes it as a private direct message. That way the whole thing does not air out in public. Many companies will either call or email you to help you resolve a problem or issue.
Up and Coming Parler and Rumble
Recently 2 other social media sites have exploded in the United States due to censorship claims. Millions have signed up on both and many left Facebook and Twitter as they signed up for Parler. It will be interesting to see how it all pans out in the coming months. Will they continue to stay on Parler? Will they stay off of Facebook and Twitter?
I believe Twitter may be in more danger as Parler has a familiar Twitter feel to it. I will say Parler seems to be handling their growing pains better than Twitter did a decade ago with their fail whale. Twitter used to be out for hours upon hours. I have not seen that with Parler though some users had trouble signing up on the busy weekend.
Parler is a more conservative network in many ways and they do not allow terrorists, spam, unsolicited ads, pornography, threats to harm, porn, blackmail, and content that glorifies violence against animals. If you see anything that looks suspicious you can report them just like on Twitter and Facebook
Rumble came about as YouTube videos were being taken down as fast as they were being put up. Rumble was formed to provide video creators a way to host, manage, distribute, create OTT [over the top] feeds, and monetize their content. Political commentator Dan Bongino co-owns the platform. “We need somewhere to go where conservative views won’t be discriminated against,” Rumble is similar to use as YouTube.
Your Turn
So where will you spend your time and effort marketing in the coming year? Which social media platform (s) will you spend marketing dollars on? Let’s discuss in the comments below.
Guest Author
Lisa Sicard
Lisa loves helping others to thrive online through Social Media, Blogging, and SEO. What good is knowledge if you cannot share it with others? She has 30+ years of experience in marketing/advertising with 9 years of experience in content marketing, social media, blogging, and SEO. Check out her latest eBook “How to Tweet and Thrive on Twitter” now on Amazon.
Connect with Lisa
www.inspiretothrive.com
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
