Staying Social – how can a Virtual Assistant maintain your online presence?

Posted by Sam on March 12, 2013 · Leave a Comment 

Many business owners neglect social media because they a) don’t have time for it or b) don’t quite understand how to use it or how to gain the most out of it.  It can really help you get your business to where you want it to be and that’s where we step in!

Here are 3 quick tips on how to be social media savvy and how a Virtual PA can help:

Blogging – Well – this is one and you’re reading it, so this seems a good place to start!  Most businesses today will operate a blog in one form or another, yet many remain relatively dormant or at least not exploited to their full potential.  The company blog is as useful a tool as any of the other big social media platforms in generating traffic through to your main site, not to mention engaging with your customer base.  It gives the consumer an insight into the latest news from within the company including new products, services and other important content that they might otherwise miss.  Time Etc employs staff from such diverse working backgrounds that copywriting can range from the creative to the corporate.

Pinterest - Earliest development of Pinterest began in December 2009. At the tail end of 2011, the site became one of the top 10 largest social network services, according to Hitwise data, with a staggering  11 million total visits per week.  With such rapid growth, it came as no surprise to hear that it became the fastest site in history to break through the 10 million unique visitor mark.  So what is it? First and foremost, Pinterest allows users to curate collections of images from across the web under different “boards” or categories.  Each board on Pinterest is a chance to tell this story and engage with other businesses and consumers. Using simple back links to your own sites and providing engaging content will improve your online visibility and help to build your online community.  This is a great tool for the retail sector.

Twitter – We love a good Tweet at TimeEtc. Twitter is now up there as one of the most influential social media platforms for your business.  But is your follower count falling?  No new Re-Tweets?  Maybe your virtual PA can help to engage with your audience proactively.  After all, Twitter is ALL about engagement.  You can’t just sign up, follow a few contacts and expect them to be interested in you. You need to engage with people and businesses by creating interesting dialogue and offering content that’s relevant and valuable to them – this inherently generates brand recall and allows you to build credibility through what you say. The difficulty is that this takes time!

The clue is in our name though and we have a number of Virtual PAs who specialise in all areas of social media, have the time to dedicate to it and are experts at creating great content, so you don’t have to. If you’d like to find out more about how a Time etc Virtual PA could help with your social media, drop us a line on hello@timeetc.com!

 

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Using social media to grow your business

Posted by Steph on September 29, 2011 · Leave a Comment 

Many business owners neglect social media because they a) don’t have time for it or b) don’t understand how to use it. However, once it’s mastered, it can really help you get your business to where you want it to be. Here are some basic tips on how to be social media savvy:
1) Do your research. Think about who your target audience is and then check out what they’re doing online: what sites and blogs do they visit? Who do they interact with on Twitter and what do they tweet about? What are they talking about on industry forums? Simply doing this will give you some food for thought on what you should be offering. 

2) Be selective. There are so many social media networking tools available to you for free, that it’s easy to get carried away and spread yourself too thinly. My advice is to select a key few that you can easily manage, and to subscribe to a social media dashboard like Hootsuite that enables you to update sites like your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn easily and simultaneously!

3) Engage proactively. Don’t just sign up, follow a few contacts and expect them to be interested in you. You need to engage with people and businesses by creating interesting dialogue and offering content that’s relevant and valuable.

4) Avoid the hard sell. The amount of direct messages and tweets I receive demanding ‘CLICK HERE!’ or ‘BUY THIS NOW!’ is quite staggering, and it’s really off-putting. By creating dynamic conversations and interesting content and sharing ideas and relevant news, you’ll be far more interesting to your audience and much more likely to convert them to a qualified lead.
5) Keep it real. Some automation is fine, such as using a social media platform like Hootsuite to schedule updates. What is not fine is assuming that you can automate what should be genuine interaction with someone; so social media spam is a big no-no! 

So, which sites should you go for? There are *loads* out there, but I believe in keeping it simple (see point 2). We use Hootsuite to sync key social media account and keep things super-efficient. As a starting point, use Twitter to share bitesize chunks of engaging content and find out what others in your industry are saying, Facebook to interact on multiple levels such as discussions, polls and video and LinkedIn to enhance your business credibility through professional online networking. That’s not to say that other great social networking tools such as YouTube and GooglePlus should be overlooked, though.


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