Posts Tagged ‘social media plan’
Getting Your Virtual Assistant to Help with Facebook, Part 3
Now that Facebook has more traffic than Google, you’ll want to make sure you are in the game. One of the best ways to promote your business on Facebook is with a fan page. Your virtual assistant can help you set up and drive awareness for your brand on Facebook. Without further ado, let’s check out some strategies for engaging with your fans and winning new ones.
Get Involved
If you want to have an active fan base, you need to be an active administrator. This is where your virtual assistant comes in. Give your virtual assistant a strategy for keeping your fan page updated at least once a day with something new. You could ask your fans a question, launch a promotion, offer a preview of an upcoming product or service so they’ll be ‘in the know.’ Keep the conversation going – participate.
Launch Contests and Promotions
If you want to attract fans and keep the fans you have coming back, launch contests and promotions. Your virtual assistant can offer incentives to people to join your fan page, like a discount or free shipping. You could also offer a $10 coupon for your products and services as an exclusive to your Facebook fans.
Install Facebook Apps
There are hundreds of Facebook apps you can install to make your fan page more interactive and unique. You can add videos, podcasts and much more. Ask your virtual assistant to explore these apps and come up with some suggestions for applications that might work well with your social media strategy.
Ask Your Fans to Recruit
If you want to get more fans, you could launch Facebook ads. You could also get your virtual assistant to post a request on your wall asking your current fans to “Suggest this page to friends” by clicking the link under your brand image. When your fans recommend your fan page to their friends, it’s a valuable endorsement.
Did you know Facebook just overtook Google as the most visited site on the Web? According to the latest Hitwise analysis, Facebook now boasts just a little bit more traffic than the leading search engine.
What does that mean to you? If you aren’t already on Facebook, it’s time to get busy building your social networking profile. The good news is your virtual assistant can help you get up and running on Facebook – then help you make the most of this social media platform for professional purposes.
In yesterday’s column, we looked at looked at some basic tips for professionals who use Facebook and how your virtual assistant can help you get up and running. Today, we’ll dive a little deeper with more strategies that can help you make the most of the most-trafficked property on the Internet.
Get Connected
Now that you are on Facebook, be sure that your virtual assistant cross-pollinate your social media efforts. You can tie your Facebook account to your Twitter account and your Twitter account can feed your LinkedIn account. Make sure your virtual assistant takes advantage of the widgets available to connect your social media world.
Post Business Updates
Give your virtual assistant updates that relate to your business. If you just landed a new client, you can share the news on Facebook. If you just completed a major assignment and received a client testimonial, you can post that as well.
Keep it Useful
You should also post information that might be helpful to your Facebook “friends,” such as industry articles. Your virtual assistant can scout out articles on Google News that might relate to the interests of your friends, then post them as links on your wall.
Marketing Ops
Although you don’t want to spam your Facebook friends, your virtual assistant can post promotions on your wall. Why not give your friends first dibs on the discounts your company offers as a perk for being your social networking buddy?
Need more Facebook tips for professionals? Come back tomorrow for the final part in our social media strategy series. Got some tips of your own to share? Leave a comment below.
So far your virtual assistant has built your LinkedIn profile and started expanding your business social networking connections. Now it’s time to make the most of your LinkedIn experience. One way is through recommendations.
After all, it’s all about relationships right? Recommendations can set you apart from the rest of the LinkedIn population and help you make the connections you need to drive business growth. So how can your virtual assistant help you get recommendations on LinkedIn? We’ll explore that in this post.
First, log into the LinkedIn home page and click the ‘Recommendations’ link under the profile tab. You’ll see another link that says ‘request recommendations.’ This is a three-step process that your virtual assistant can handle for you quickly.
- Identify the job for which you’d like a recommendation.
- Choose people who would be the most appropriate to offer that recommendation.
- Write a note to the person explaining why you need their recommendation.
You need to be clear with your virtual assistant. Don’t let them choose whom to ask for a LinkedIn recommendation. Decide ahead of time and give her a list, which could include clients, business partners, former employers or colleagues.
You’ll also want to give your virtual assistant some copy she can pass along with the recommendation outlining the some suggested key points that makes it easy for the person writing the recommendation.
Keep in mind that you don’t need recommendations from all of your LinkedIn connections. The quality of your recommendations is more important than the quantity. You might also prime the recommendation pump by having your virtual assistant post recommendations for some of your LinkedIn connections, prompting a return recommendation.
Once your virtual assistant has set up your LinkedIn account, it’s time to start making connections that could ultimately lead to profits for your business.
Think of LinkedIn as a virtual business networking forum and be on your best behavior. Much like going to a Chamber of Commerce meeting, there’s a right way and a wrong way to build your contact list. This article will give you some guidelines you can share with your virtual assistant so you can do it the right way.
Your virtual assistant can use LinkedIn to look for business associates, partners, customers, suppliers and others you do business with or would like to do business with. But you have to take caution: If you send invitations to people you don’t know, they have the option to report it to LinkedIn and you could be banned from the service for what they consider spammy behavior. So here’s some tips:
- Include your LinkedIn profile on your e-mail signature. This way, everyone you e-mail is encouraged to invite you to join their network.
- Add customized buttons to your blog or Web site that compels your business network to hook up with you on LinkedIn.
- Search for classmates from your college or university using the search function.
- Click the “Expand Your Network” button at the top of the page. If you have their e-mail address, your virtual assistant can type it in, along the contact’s name, to find them on LinkedIn. If they aren’t registered, LinkedIn will send them a request to sign up.
- Your virtual assistant can ask for an introduction with the “Get Introduced” link. This allows you to ask one of your active connections to make an introduction to one of their connections that you aren’t yet connected with.
- Posting your LinkedIn profile on your other social networking accounts, such as Facebook and Twitter, can also generate new connections.
- Finally, your virtual assistant can sign you up for specific networking groups within LinkedIn. You can invite other members of the group to connect with you based on your mutual interests.
These seven tips for building your LinkedIn contact list should take you a long way down the road to business social networking. If you have other tips, share them with us in the comment section.
Now that you’ve developed a social media strategy, it’s time to hand it off to a virtual assistant who can execute it in brilliant form.
In order to succeed with social media marketing, you need to keep up with posts in Facebook, comments on blogs, Direct Messages on Twitter and all the rest. You won’t get much ROI on your social media plan if you don’t work the plan diligently. That’s why you should consider a virtual assistant to run with the social networking ball.
So how do you execute a social media strategy?
1. Start by setting some daily goals. How often do you want to post to your social networks or blogs? Make sure you give your virtual assistant the materials he or she needs to properly execute the strategy. If you are going to post several times a day, send the virtual assistant all the content at the beginning of the day and set a posting schedule that they can follow daily.
2. Engage with your audiences. Be sure your virtual assistant knows enough about your products and services to intelligently engage with audiences on trends in your industry, questions about your company, and so on. Your virtual assistant can also be dispatched to comment on your behalf on other social media accounts and blogs related to your industry. Again, just make sure they know enough to comment intelligently.
3. Act on feedback. What type of feedback are you getting in the social media world? Make sure your virtual assistant alerts you when you hit on a big topic that spreads like wildfire so you can do it again. And if you are getting backlash, make sure your virtual assistant knows to alert you right away so you can step in and comment personally, if appropriate.
These are just a few of the ways a virtual assistant can help you execute your social media plan. As you get more comfortable, you can off-task additional social media duties to your virtual assistant so you can keep growing your impact in the social networking world without missing a beat keeping up with your clients.
When you read the headline of this article, you might not have been sure about the answer. You may not even have a social media strategy! So before we talk about how a virtual assistant can help you execute your social media strategy, let’s review how to develop the most appropriate plan for your business.
“In 2010 and beyond, a substantial portion of marketers’ expenses will go toward creating and maintaining a fan page, managing promotions or public relations outreach within a social network, and measuring the impact of a social network presence on brand health and sales,” eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson wrote in “Social Network Ad Spending: 2010 Outlook.”
So without further ado, here are some points to consider as you develop a social media strategy that your virtual assistant can later implement:
1.What do your consumers want?
Listen and learn from your customers before setting out to develop a social media plan. What do they value? Make sure your goals are aligned with your target audience’s goals. If you don’t offer valuable information or specials that serve both you and your target audience, you won’t win with social media marketing.
2. Outline Your Social Media Plan
What types of promotions have worked in the past? What special promotions might work through social networking sites? How will you translate your brand to the social networking world? How often will you update your site? How will you drive traffic to your social network? Will you offer freebies? Valuable articles? Get specific about how you will make the most of business social networking.
3. Choose Your Social Networking Tools
Is Facebook right for you? Is blogging enough? Should you join Twitter? MySpace? Some other industry-specific social network? What about LinkedIn? YouTube? Flickr? Google Buzz? Windows Live? There are many social media platforms available. You can spend a lot of time – too much time – if you don’t focus on where your target audience is likely to flock.
4. Measure Your Social Media Efforts
Don’t just blindly join social networking sites. See what’s working and put more time there than on sites where you aren’t enjoying the fruit of your labors. You can use a number of free tools like Social Mention and Tweet Reach to see where your Web site visitors are coming from.
Now that you understand the basics of developing a social media strategy, it’s time to hand over the job to a virtual assistant who can execute your plan, keep up with the Facebook fans, Twitter direct messages, LinkedIn response and the like. A virtual assistant can post you updates, monitor your efforts and suggest new opportunities for your company’s social media efforts so you can focus on serving your customers.
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