Saturday, April 30, 2011

Facebook Marketing Strategies: How to Create a Facebook Account

Facebook is the most popular social media that has millions of subscribers. It allows the user to get connected to various people they want , add more friends and keep in touch with their families worldwide. With that opportunity to connect with many audience, Facebook Marketing Strategies are then formulated. Facebook Marketing Strategies is now widely used by business owners to promote, sell, and advertise their products and services. So to start up on you Facebook Marketing Strategies, Here are the steps on how to create a Facebook account.

1. Go to http://www.facebook.com. log-in using your email address and password. Then click the “Login” button.

2. Fill-in the form. Enter your first name, last name, email address, password, gender and birthday. Then click the green “Sign Up” button.  

3. Enter the Captcha. Key-in the words in the blank box below it. Then click the green “Sign Up” button.

4. Click “Find Friends”. Add friends by clicking on the “Find Friends” menu on the right side of the page in-line with the email services to invite friends/contacts. Just click  “Skip” if you want to add them later.

5. Enter your Profile Information. Then click the “Save & Continue” button or just click “Skip

6. Click “Upload a photo”.  The page will automatically bring you to your Facebook homepage.

7. Click the “Go to your mail” tab. This can be seen at the upper portion of the page. A mail will be sent to you to confirm your registration.  Click the link in your email or the green “Complete Sign up”.  Complete the required information. Follow these procedures. Go to Step 1.

8. Click the “Find Friends” button.  Sign-in with your Google account to add friends. Enter your email and password. Then click the “Sign in” button.

9. Go to Step 2. Click “Upload a Photo” or “Take a Photo”. The photo will be your profile picture.

10. Go to Step 3. Click the “Edit Profile” tab. Then fill-in  your profile information. Then click “Save Changes” button.

11. Go to Step 4. Click “Register for Facebook Text Messages”.  Enter your location. Click the drop down arrow button beside “Country”. Then select your country. Click the drop down arrow button beside “Mobile Carrier” to select your carrier. On your mobile phone, type “F” and send it to 32665. Wait for the confirmation code and enter the code on the box below. Click the “Next” button to proceed.

12. Go to Step 4. Click “Find people you know”. Click “Find Friends” in-line with different email services. Select those that are existing in your account, add then to your contacts and friends list.

13. Go to Step 5. Click “Control what information you share”.  Adjust your settings and that’s it. You’ve just started your Facebook Marketing Strategies that will surely put your business beyond the stars.

Facebook Account Maintenance: How to Block a Person from your Facebook Account

There might be an annoying person, a stalker or perhaps someone whom you don’t know that is harassing you on Facebook or while applying your Facebook Account Maintenance. You can avoid these persons or protect your personal details by blocking them.  The simple ways on how to block a person on Facebook are given below:


1. Go to http://www.facebook.com. Sign in using your email address and password. Then click the “Login” button.

2. Click the “Account” tab on the upper right side of the page. Under the “Account” tab, select “Privacy Settings”. This is just below “Account Settings”.  

3. Go to the “Block Lists” tab. This can be found on the lower part of the page between “Apps and Websites” and “Controlling How You Share” tab.  Then click “Edit your settings”.

4. Enter the name together with the email address of the person you would like to block.

5. Click the “Block This User” button.  A list of names will then show up. Select a person to block. Click the “Block” button in line with the person’s name.

BLOCK
The name of the person will automatically show under the name and email text box. Beside it is the word “Unblock”. If ever you changed your mind, you can still unblock this person by clicking the “Unblock” button. Keeping your facebook account maintenance clean and safe will always be a big help to you and your business.

Friday, April 29, 2011

Virtual Assistant Business: Why It Transcends Other Online Businesses


Many individuals are trying to be successful in an online business.

But what exactly is an online business? An online business is any organization that offer services or products to others with the help of the Internet.


There are different types of online business - corporate websites, web services (virtual assistance), online shops, affiliate shops and information sites/blogs. But how is the virtual assistant business better than other online businesses? Here we discuss the other types of online business and its disadvantages.


These are websites created solely for promotional and marketing purposes.  They’re created for the sole purpose of gaining an online presence for a certain company or business. The bulk of their profits come from offline sales, which are multiplied because of their web presence.
Fact: It’s not an online business, technically, since their products aren’t sold online, calling it an ‘online’ business is a bit off.

Online shops, obviously, are shops you can find online. These businesses sell their products exclusively through the internet. This type of business has been very popular over the years, mainly because many people find it convenient and easy buying products online. It also spares you from the need to wait long in the department store for a particular item.
Fact: It’s an online shop. That’s it. Unless they can offer more than just their products, they need to have a really good marketing strategy.


Affiliate shops are like department stores. They sell products that they don’t own. Often, they get commission for this service from the people providing the products or services. It is one of the easiest ways to start an online business, mainly because it doesn’t require a really big investment to start with.
Fact: Profits may come slowly because you’re selling other people’s products.


The web is the largest database of information. Nearly everything you need can be found in the Internet, and fewer people visit the library to get information compared to a decade ago. This is why informational blogs/websites are great online businesses. They don’t sell information though. Instead, they get their profits from ads posted in their website.
Fact: You can’t earn immediately with this type of business. That’s because you need to spend time generating reliable and interesting content to get more people to view your site. Fewer people viewing the site = less revenue from ads.


The main reason why starting up a virtual assistant business is better than all the other online businesses is quite simple: All the other online businesses can benefit from having a virtual assistant. With all other websites as your target market, a virtual assistant business has the potential to earn a lot.

Moreover, virtual assistant businesses have a lot of benefits.

Here are just a few of them:

a. Virtual assistant business  provides a variety of services, such as data processing, data conversion, ad placing, email processing, medical transcription, data entry, paid survey, editing work, SEO (both on-page and off-page optimization), and web development.

b. It is interesting. A virtual assistant business  offers a broad base of services. With variety of services, it makes the business more flexible.

c. It is in demand. Virtual assistance is a growing industry. As more and more individuals and entrepreneurs go into online business, the demand for virtual assistant also increases.

d. Low investment needed to start your virtual assistant business or career. All you need is a computer and an internet connection. All of this can be managed with just few hundred dollars. With this, you don’t need to have a special degree to attain this job. If you have skills, you are ready to get started.

The Internet is a great way to start a virtual assistant business. Regardless of the type of business you’re starting, anyone can be successful. It just takes a little patience and lots of luck.

iSocialMedia: The Virtual Assistants and Social Media Marketing

What can catch your attention? A TV commercial that’s boring or a Youtube video sensation that tickles every viewer? What would you prefer to read? A plain newspaper ad or an interesting post from your facebook group? How about a flyer compared to a tweet of your friend.

The answer might relate to a choice where social media is also linked. Most of the population nowadays spend more time in surfing the internet than on TV, newspaper and radio. They might prefer to watch their favorite TV show in the internet or just download it (at least they can watch it anytime they want), enjoy their cup of coffee over yahoo news rather than a biodegradable newspaper, listen and watch music videos in YouTube than enduring radio ads just to catch up Lady Gaga’s latest single. That’s why, where people is, that is where business should be. It then resulted in Social Media Marketing.

The BIG question of all the stuffs in the internet -- Why Social Media?

Simply because, there’s a lot of people in Social Media. Virtual Assistants share a part of them, establish rapport, interact with others and build relationships. If you’ll have your business involved in social media marketing, then people will know a “part of your business”.

They can spend a little time in exploring your goods or services offered, interact with you and maybe in time they’ll trust you enough to try your services. But take note: you must be careful in using social media marketing as a strategy. It may bring you just two things: either success or failure.

You must build your concrete and realistic goals. Social Media Marketing may include delivering your message the way it should be understood, obviously, not to mislead clients. Generally, all we wanted is to attract, get more clients and improve your sales. By this, you’ll know your clients’ needs and wants, plus you can ask for their comments, suggestions and recommendations. This is where social media marketing virtual assistant can help you more.

5 Simple Tips in Social Media Marketing:

1. Be the real you.
The truth will always set you free. If you’ll pretend you’re someone else, you may look like a vendor selling lies which is a big no-no in SMM. Failure will always be the result of lies.

2. Demonstrate what you can do.
Guide them on what you and your business are capable of doing and the services and products you can offer. Try to impress them by telling what you are and what you are not. Being honest is more than enough.

3. Focus on your own business.
Rather than criticizing others, you may criticize just to show exceptional things that your business can do but don’t over do it. You may end up talking about others business instead of yours. And it’s not good to pull others down just for you to go up. Crab mentality will bring you no good.

4. Do start conversations.
We can’t live life without conversations, may it be spoken or unspoken. As long as there is understanding for both parties, relationship will be planted and by that we’ll reap trust. Always remember good conversations are always followed by relationships and trust.

5. Take good care of your customers.
One million or more are behind your back. The competition is on board and there is no room for insensitivity. If you don’t take care of the customer, somebody else will.

And most of all, both the virtual sssistant and the client will benefit in Social Media Marketing (SMM). How? As virtual assistants gain clients and grow their VA business, the clients also saves time (We all know we should invest a lot of time for SMM). Clients are assured that their SMM strategy was delegated to their reliable and expert virtual assistant resulting to a peaceful mind, making them concentrate on their business.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

The SEO Virtual Assistant with White Hat SEO

Most of the entrepreneurs that are selling their products online realized that the best place to find costumers are from search engines. Having on the top of search engines are very beneficial. Many of the potential visitors buy products on the site that appear on page one in search engines.

It is very time consuming to scan all of the thousands results from search engine, when they already find the product they want from page one.  Because of these, search engine optimization services (SEO services) sprouted in the field of internet marketing.

This SEO services thing is one of the tasks of virtual assistant. They’re not just a simple SEO virtual assistant; virtual assistant is like an angel that helps those entrepreneurs. They’re an angel that knows the proper techniques in SEO, by using only good deeds. So, if there is an angel, there’s also a devil that uses bad deed in SEO.

To help you understand the good deed and bad deed of SEO, I’ll tell you what are the two broad categories of SEO first. They are the WHITE HAT and BLACK HAT SEO strategy.  Obviously, white hat is the “good deed” and the “bad deed” is the black hat SEO.

Let us first define each strategy.

White hat SEO follows the SEO guidelines and involves no fraud or deception. So as an angel, virtual assistant helps to ensure the site that is indexed by the search engine and probably ranked to page 1 and it is beneficial to the users’ searches. This simply means virtual assistants use only white hat SEO strategies also for the user and not only for search engines. These angels put a real effort in internet marketing to provide quality content and more accessible to search engine spider.

Black Hat SEO is the contrary of white hat SEO. It involves deception. These techniques are really hated by the search engines. If caught, the site will be penalized, either there rankings are reduced or possibly eliminate their listings from databases of search engines.

So why does an SEO virtual assistant became an angel in search engine marketing? Here are the tasks they do, based on the principle of white hat SEO strategies:

Initially, website analysis is the most important part in SEO. These angels keep an eye in all the aspect of the website, its domain and its competitors. And also a complete keyword analysis, right web content, and well researched META tags.

Next, is the links from other related sites pointing back to your site, these are commonly called backlinks. Virtual assistants build  quality links for the site, it means links from related authority sites.

These links came from article submission, directory submission, press release submission, forum participation, social networking…etc.  Apart from that, when you hire a virtual assistant, you can be assured the best SEO services in all aspects of SEO.

So if you are looking for an expert and a well-experienced in the field of SEO services, hire an SEO virtual assistant. You will be assured that the angels of Search Engine Optimization can promote your business on the top of search engines.

Why is twitter marketing great for business?

Twitter, one of the most popular social networking sites, has celebrated its fifth birthday last March 21, 2011. The social network was founded in 2006 by Biz Stone and Evan Williams, the creators of Blogger.com, and Jack Dorsey, a software architect. Since then, Twitter has grown from a simple media platform to an indispensable tool in business marketing giving birth to twitter marketing. The following are the ways that twitter can be of great help to your business.

1. Brand awareness

Since the first tweet was made 5 years ago, the total number of registered members today is more than 106 million with an estimated daily growth of 300,000 users. Also, you can place a button in your website that your customers can simply click to connect to you to twitter.

By simply being present in twitter, you increase the chances that your brand can be noticed. Over 600 million queries are made in Twitter’s search engine everyday - I just can’t imagine how you won’t be noticed in using twitter marketing.

2. Customer Service

The main purpose of customer service is to help customers resolve issues about the brand.
With its simplistic and SMS type features, Twitter marketing is a good way to offer quick and proactive customer service.

It can also be a good medium to promote a positive brand image. Pleasing a customer through a great customer service can become an international hit story as Twitter is one of the most viral social media platform.

Using Twitter as a customer service medium will save you time and precious bucks.

3. Answer Questions

Almost all customers wanted that their queries be addressed immediately and their issues be resolved the soonest possible. Twitter Marketing is a great startegy to answer questions related to the company. It was specifically designed to give short and quick responses.

4. Twitter Marketing - Promote events, products and services

Brand services, products and events promotion using Twitter Marketing is simple and cost effective. You can use one of Twitter’s services, TweetMyEvents, to promote an upcoming company event. Hashtags, another Twitter feature, helps users track conversations, which can also be tapped to promote your products or services and company events.

Twitter marketing is not about how many followers you have or the people you are following but the significance of your tweets and how you value your relationships that matters. Use Twitter in a way its founders intended it to be and that is to create relationships online. That is why it was called a social network in the first place.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Link Building:A Way For Website’s Popularity

Audio Book: Play to listen

Websites, like people, want to be popular. The only difference is that, websites ought to because it is essential for ranking in search engines and getting more people to visit the site.
Popularity is one of the factors that can land your website in the first page of a search engine results page (SERP). For search engines popularity means the number of links to your site. The more quality links your site has, the higher it ranks. To achieve this, a link building campaign must be done.

Link building is the process of obtaining relevant inbound links to your websites to gain high rankings in search engines and increase site traffic. It is no ordinary job thus, it requires trained or better yet talented link builders.

Link builders consider their craft as an art. They must have thorough knowledge on how search engines work. They should be like web crawlers - able to differentiate bad links from good links.

The link building game is not about harnessing as many links as you can. It is by gathering as many quality links in the shortest time possible. To rank number one in search engines is a tough competition, which is why link builders must be swift enough to reach the top. To remain on top is another story.

However, not everyone can do link building. It is the most tedious part in search engine optimization(SEO), that is why it is the most outsourced tasks to BPO companies like virtual assistant companies. These companies have the right tools and skills to build links.

Hiring their services will help you focus on core business functions and cut overboard expenses. They also offer services other than link building that can also optimize your website, like keyword research and analysis, content writing and publishing. They can also offer service plans to suit your budget.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Virtual Assistant as a Home-based Business: IT’S IN!

The online revolution made many things possible.  Because of the internet, people from different parts of the world are connected. Through the internet, businesses are able to make their products and services visible and available anywhere in the world.  Also, the online revolution has made working from the four walls of our home possible.

You may now be probably thinking about starting your own home-based business. One of the most popular options is becoming a Virtual Assistant (VA).  If you have been working with the Internet and have good administrative and office skills, perhaps working as a virtual assistant from home might best suit you.

What are the benefits of becoming a home-based virtual assistant?


Definitely, you are the boss of your own business.  You have the flexibility to work on your own pace and at any time you want, as long as you are able to keep up with the deadlines.

Think of the money you will spend for transportation and for an office space.  By working as a virtual assistant from home, you can save a lot of money.

On top of that, since you are working from home, you can take care of the kids and spend more time with your family while earning at the same time.



What are the things you might need to become one?

To start with, one must have a personal computer and reliable internet access.  These are the most important things for a home-based virtual assistant business.

A business phone line and a fax machine are also essential for communicating with your clients. Also, don’t forget the printer. An office space may be unnecessary since you can work at any corner of your house.

Finally, how to get started?

The most basic thing you need to do is to define your skills.  Make a list of the things you are capable and are good at – content writing, word processing, etc. These will serve as the basis of the services you will offer to your clients.

Undergoing training and certification programs will enhance your skills and will be of great help in establishing your credibility and getting clients.

Once you have those ready, it’s time to market your services.  Putting up a website is an important part of your professional image or you may want to create social media accounts to become visible to your potential clients.  Posting at freelancing job sites can also be helpful. 

The first months of putting up your home-based virtual assistant business is crucial and tough.  But once you start getting clients and get all the jobs done with excellent results, you will noticeably find your business growing while enjoying the benefits of working from home.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

The Legal Components of a Virtual Assistant Business

Thinking of putting up a virtual assistant business?

Then let’s talk about legalities. If you think that the virtual world and online businesses are free of legal obligations, then think again. Almost all countries and states requires that every business, whether online or offline must register to the government. This measure is for internal revenue purposes. Well, you know, the government.



Wrap up all legal and financial aspects of starting up before securing your first client.

Before you open the doors of your virtual assistant business, it is your duty to ensure that your business is working on legal grounds. To avoid future legal entanglements you must observe the following steps:

1. Find out what business licenses are required for your town or city and apply for them.

2. Determine whether you need a zoning permit to legally work from your home. If you do need a zoning permit, apply for one.

3. Choose your business name, ensuring that it is not already being used by another person or company, and register it with your town or state as required.

4. Choose your business entity – sole proprietorship, partnership, Limited Liability Company (LLC) or corporation – and register with your state.

If uncertain of what business entity you will register your business to, then you must consult it with your lawyer. The business entity that you choose will determine how you will be taxed in the future.

Starting up a virtual assistant business is somewhat difficult because of the legalities attached to it, but after wrapping up the legal matters, your business will be smooth sailing. And as long as you abide with the law you will remain to enjoy its protection.

Last words: Remember that the long arm of the law will always get to you.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

The Pros and Cons of Being a Virtual Assistant

The virtual assistant industry has grown tremendously over the past few years.  It has created more jobs and opened opportunities to work from home.  Since then, many have become interested in working at home as virtual assistants.

Are you one of the VA wannabes?

Before dipping your toes in the realm of virtual assistance, you need to have a good knowledge or at least a bird’s -eye view of what you are getting into.

You may start by asking your successful virtual assistant neighbor. She may tell you that entering a VA business was the best thing she did. On the other hand, you may hear news that your other friend has given up being a VA for some reasons she wouldn’t tell. So, your next step to your VA journey would be weighing the good and bad side of being a virtual assistant.

Pros of Being a Virtual Assistant

The best part of becoming a virtual assistant is that you’re the boss.  No one's gonna tell you what to do (except for your clients) and how to do your tasks. You have the freedom to choose the projects you’re capable of and find enjoyable, and charge any rate you wish.  Of course, no office space is needed, you can work in any corner of your house wearing only pajamas.

And you wouldn’t have to organize.
You’re entire working life is completely flexible. You have the freedom to work on projects whenever you want. You can take a break to go shopping or go on vacation whenever you please as long as you meet the deadlines provided.  Another thing is, you can take care of your kids and spend more time with your family since you’re working at home.

Finally, working as a virtual assistant offers limitless income potential.  Since you’re working solo, every penny you earn goes into your pocket, giving you sense of satisfaction.

Cons of Being a Virtual Assistant


Like everything in the world, virtual assistance has its dark side.  Working on your own, gives you the full responsibility of your entire business. You’re gonna look for your own clients, handle your accounting and even buy your own health insurance. This can be pretty exhausting to some.  You should also be well-organized to handle projects and finish it on time.  The loneliness you might feel while working alone can make things boring.
 Can anyone make me smile? Anyone?
Another drawback of becoming a VA is financial instability especially on the first months of your VA journey.  Finding clients who will trust and engage business with you may take time and can be tiring.  You must work from project after project if you want money to keep coming.

Lastly, there is a great competition in the realm of virtual assistance. Because of the internet, anyone can be a VA - making the search for clients even harder.  This tight competition may also lead to low payment for every project.  However, as soon as you build up your name as a VA, your profit will increase in the long run.

All that matters is...

To become a successful virtual assistant, you really have to weigh all of the pros and cons and be sure that this is something you are ready, and willing to do.  Once you have decided to become one, stick with it.  There could be a great future ahead of you as long as you do it right.

Friday, April 15, 2011

11 Things to Remember Before Starting Your Virtual Assistant Business

There are only two kinds of online businesses: virtual assistance and others.

Just kidding.

Seriously though, what is it with virtual assistance that makes it a great online business?

Well, for one thing, it can do all the task that other online businesses offer. Now, how was that for versatility? Multitasking is in the genes of virtual assistants and who knows what else they can do?

There are rumors of VA’s capable of doing this. Just rumors though.

Aside from virtual assistants’ versatility, putting up a virtual assistant business is cheap with high Return on Investment (ROI).

All you need is a computer set and an internet connection and you’re ready. Just look for clients in the web and presto! You’ll have that six figure income that you keep on dreaming about all night.

Wait a minute. I know you’re now excited t                                                                                           o hear that six figure income, but before that, you might need to consider these 11 things:

1. Decide just what type of services you want to offer, and analyze your background to ensure you have adequate experience.

2. Determine your business niche-consider specializing in just two to three services.

3. Determine how much time and energy you have to commit to your venture. Do you want to work part-time or full-time?

4. Conduct thorough industry research to determine a need for your services in your local area.

5. Outline who your clients are, where they are and how to access them.

6. Do a market analysis. Find out the needs for your niche and focus on how you'll apply that to your business.

7. Know your budgetary constraints-projected expenses, expected income and how long you can "float" until your business is running successfully.

8. Prepare a business plan and review it often to manage growth and change.

9. Examine your equipment, software and work space to ensure they meet client’s needs.

10. Wrap up all legal and financial aspects of start-up before securing your first client.

11. Market your services 24/7. Just because you've built a website or placed an ad in the Yellow Pages doesn't mean clients will come knocking on your door.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Web Content: Gaining Traffic and Link Building with Quality Articles

If you are in the online business, I’m sure you are familiar with the saying “content is king”. Somehow, it’s true because the key to good website traffic is quality content. One that will be a surefire marketing success. Gaining traffic and link building comes with this quality content.




Here are the characteristics of a good web content that will draw uncontrollable traffic and a very big bonus of link building for your site.


Search engine friendly

When I say search engine friendly, it means spiders or crawlers can see it. It should not belong to the invisible part of the Internet.




How do you make your web content visible to spiders?

Simple. Proper use of keywords. Research keywords using free or paid online keyword tools, like Google Adwords. They can provide data on the global and local searches as well as the competition for that keyword.

You also have to position the keywords in such a way that when the spiders crawl, they will bump on the page and index it. Your keywords must be located in the title, meta-tags, heading, and body, In that way, you are already starting your link building campaigns.

Word of caution: don’t over stuff your web content with keywords because spiders know if you are trying to cheat.

Link Building

This is one of the powerful characteristics of having a good web content. Quality Articles are properly edited and customized so google spiders can crawl freely. Including links that are relevant and can help your audience or viewers will be surely appreciated, and the very best part of it, you’ve just done link building for your site. Brilliant isn’t it?

Interesting

In order to win the battle, you must know the enemy. The same thing can be said in content marketing in which you must know who your readers are. You have to research on what their likes and dislikes are. Knowing who your readers are will give you an idea about what to post. Every content must be reader centered.

Don’t forget that web content must entertain, inform and entice the reader.

Sometimes in order to entice the reader you have to make an attention grabbing headline. A headline that answers a burning desire works most of the time. Remember that people search because they have queries in mind.

Persuasive

The goal of online marketing is to convert those fans and followers into loyal customers.

How do you do that? Your web content must be persuasive but shouldn't appear like selling. Readers hate sellers.

First of all, to be persuasive you must meet the readers expectations. It’s not about being perfect but being able to relate to your audience. They’ll love it even more if you exceed to their expectations.

You must also display authority. Don’t try to be an aloof academic, just be street smart. Show proofs to back up your claims.

Cultivate goodwill between you and the reader. Use humor to grow goodwill and gain their trust. Make them feel that you share their pains and joys.

Reward your reader

Now remember this, your reader must be able to feel that they will earn something after reading your blog. As I have said, it must answer the audience burning desire.

Can’t do it on your own? Then hire a link building SEO services to do the job for you. Contact virtualassistant.org for best link building services.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

The Future of Virtual Assistance Industry

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is an act of assigning a task or responsibility using a third party. The most common BPO service is called virtual assistance.

What’s in store for virtual assistance? Maybe the crystal ball can help.
In it, virtual assistants are contracted to do specific tasks on a company’s behalf. Companies that are hiring virtual assistants are trying to save not only money but also other resources, such as time. Hiring regular staff to do the tasks means having to pay for taxes, benefits, holiday pay, office space and equipment.

Business exists to make profit, and hiring a virtual assistant is one way to save more money - meaning more profits. Because of the cheaper costs of living in India and the Philippines, they are the leading providers of virtual assistance in the world. Fortunately, the difference in the quality of work is not noticeable compared to hiring an onsite staff.

There are a lot of virtual assistant tasks and services that are offered by virtual assistants and are very varied.

As we all know, India, Philippines and China are the top countries wherein you can find the most virtual assistant companies. The virtual assistant industry in these countries is growing, adapting to change and updating their virtual assistant on the latest about outsourcing industry.

As a part of the business industry, virtual assistance is doing well year-by-year. They are now experiencing an impressive growth of about 20%  in terms of Annualized Contract Value in 2011 according to the 2011 predictions of the Everest Research Institute on Finance and Accounting Outsourcing.

With these bright predictions in the virtual assistant industry, 2011 is going to be an exciting year not only for India and the Philippines but also globally. As virtual assistants, they must be prepared and be updated on the latest trends about internet marketing and what is going globally. They must not wait for the opportunity to come and must grab it to get ahead.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Tips On How To Create A Twitter Account: First Step in Twitter Marketing


Twitter Marketing is now hitting the block. So what are you waiting for? Don’t let your business sink in a very vast ocean. Start up by creating an account and get twitter followers as much as you want. Creating an account on Twitter is just like signing up in other websites. As long as you already have your name and email, it’s very simple. It’s as easy as peeling a banana with your own hands. 


As easy as this. With lesser peels!
This banana, however, can be messy the first time around so it’s good to start off by not wasting time and effort on unnecessary decisions. So are you ready to start your Twitter marketing? Let’s start with clicking Sign Up at http://www.twitter.com.  From there, the required information are the following: Full Name, Username, Password, and Email. 

 
Full Name  - Your real first name and surname is enough. If you want to use other names, just be careful not to misrepresent another person or entity.  For example, your account cannot be named after your neighbor’s dog but can be named after your own. If you are a business or a brand, you may use your company/brand name, owner’s name or someone who is in-charge of that business/brand.

Username – Twitter usernames are useful in a number of ways. These are characters preceded by the “@” sign. This will also be for your custom profile URL on Twitter (e.g. http://twitter.com/VAsocial).  It will be used for signing to twitter in other than your email address.  Lastly, your username must be relevant for people to find you. This will be the name that your audience will remember as you go along with your twitter marketing.

According to Dummies.com, a good username is similar to your name.  Here are real examples:
      http://twitter.com/Schwarzenegger - surname
      http://twitter.com/craigdonnelly - full name
      http://twitter.com/starbucks - business name

If your desired username is not available, try adding adjectives, verbs, location, abbreviations or think of another related name.  Here are some examples:
      http://twitter.com/WindTurbinesNet  - Wind Turbines is not available
      http://twitter.com/UN - United Nations is not available. Someone who took it got suspended.
      http://twitter.com/KingJames - LebronJames account is fake.

By the way, twitter usernames should not exceed fifteen characters.

Password & Email –  No rules of thumb here except for assuring your account’s security. Just make it hard to guess.

After completing all the required fields,  read the Terms of Service (TOS) and then click CREATE MY ACCOUNT. 

Voila!
You now have a Twitter account. (Yehey! This will be the foundation of your twitter marketing.) You will be then led to a page where you are guided on what to do next. Let’s explore that on the next article. Don’t forget to confirm your email address on Twitter. Just check for an email from Twitter and click the confirmation link. You’re on your way to get twitter followers.

Check out our Twitter Marketing Video Tutorial for your Twitter Marketing campaign!


Taking a Peek in the Crystal ball: The Future of Virtual Assistance

Before we take a peek in the crystal ball, let us first reminisce the past and rekindle the birth of this profession. It is undeniable that virtual assistants sprung from the bosoms of secretaries. 

In ancient times, when typewriters were expensive, secretaries ruled the world of administrative support. In fact, there is not a single executive without a secretary.

Secretaries were a fad back then.

But in the turn of the century, the world became obsessed with technology and the Internet.

Everything was removed from its hinges.

The dawn of another century witnessed the blossoming of yet another profession that revolutionized the business world - Virtual assistance.

Then came the global economic recession - which was a really good thing for virtual assistance! Lots of businesses had to cut their costs, making them resort to outsourcing their work to virtual assistants.

Seeing this as a business opportunity, many people invested on it and started putting up virtual assistant companies dedicated to provide cheap yet high quality services to businesses both large and small. Ever since, virtual assistance has sprouted all over the world like mushrooms filling up your backyard the next day.


These were the milestones in virtual assistance history. Since our optimism makes us not to worry about what will happen on December 2012, we are pretty sure that the virtual assistant profession has a bright future.

In fact, a large company in the field of information technology business agree that virtual assistants have a really bright future. Analyst Firm Garner predicted that by year-end 2013, at least 15 percent of Fortune 1000 companies will use a virtual assistant to serve up Web self-service content to enhance their CRM offerings and service delivery.

The virtual assistant market is maturing, with a diverse set of vendors differentiated by factors ranging from cost and ease of use to support for software as a service and front-end or knowledge base support. As a result, selection criteria should extend beyond the image on the front end.

The virtual assistant profession on the other hand will also experience a fair weather future. Experts say that there will no longer certifications for virtual assistants. It doesn’t mean that anyone can now suddenly become a virtual assistant though. The reason why certifications won’t be needed anymore is because virtual assistance will now be offered as a degree in different colleges and universities.

However, before formally instituting virtual assistance as a profession, a proper definition to it must be established. That’s because the accepted definition of virtual assistant or virtual assistance is just a consensus definition.

Hopefully soon, the term ‘virtual assistant’ would be found in your Webster’s dictionary, with a clearer definition.  Or just change the term itself.

Truly brighter days are coming the way of both the virtual assistant business and profession. With the Internet now as the main medium of doing business, more businessmen will hire the services of a virtual assistant. More and more inputs will be added to the profession which will enrich it and sooner or later we will be stunned on how it will become one of the most in demand professions in the world. We will be witnessing a thrilling era in human history - the era of virtual assistance.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

What’s on the Menu? Services offered by Virtual Assistant Companies

During the recession when many businesses crumble into pieces and economic meltdown is as common as oxygen, businessmen tried to find ways to cut cost. Luckily they were able to. Recession not only has a negative effect on the economy at that time in fact it became a seedbed of new business ideas and solutions. One business that boomed during the recession is virtual assistance. At first it was only a home-based business by entrepreneurs who mostly were victims of recession but later when many investors saw that the demand for virtual assistants increased they became aware that it could be a good business. So many businessmen put up virtual assistant companies. These companies offer services beyond those offered by freelancers. Freelancer virtual assistants are those who are on their own and not connected to a company they are the home-based virtual assistants. So what are these services that virtual assistant companies offer to their clients, who are mostly companies.

Multi-Tasking Virtual Assistant

If you are going to search the web for the services of various virtual assistant companies scattered all throughout the planet you can conclude that they provide redundant services. I mean they all got the same services. And if you are even meticulous and dig deeper you can noticed that they can be categorized into three major categories. The three major categories are virtual assistance, business support services, and IT services.

Virtual Assistance

Services classified as virtual assistance are those involving administrative and clerical jobs. Like secretarial works. Commonly included in this category are administrative support and phone services. Examples of administrative support are data encoding, simple web research, personal assistant, email response, transcription and word processing. Receptionist services, taking messages, call answering and transfer, order taking and processing, customer service, and telephone support are included in the phone services.

Business Support Services

Virtual assistant companies can also offer business support services. As the name suggest business support services are indeed meant to provide support for other companies or businesses. This category of services by virtual assistant companies is further subdivided into three sub categories; these are business services, sales and social media marketing, and content writing.  Business services offered by virtual assistant companies are accounting, bookkeeping, human resource management, project management, recruiting, CRM management, and business research and surveys. Sales and social media marketing are also in the list of services offered by virtual assistant companies and these includes advertising, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, Facebook marketing, Twitter marketing, email marketing, lead generation,  and sales assistance. Virtual assistant companies also provide content writing service that increases the ranking of businesses in search engines. Content writing services include article writing, blog writing, copy writing, ghost writing, and newsletter.

IT Services

IT services are yet another service provided by virtual assistant companies that made them in demand over freelancers who might not able to provide this service category. This service of virtual assistant companies includes web development and maintenance, website security, server administration, technical support, blog creation, forum moderation. This service is one that separates virtual assistant companies from their freelance counterpart.

As they are meant to provide cheap yet quality services to businessmen who are cutting cost by outsourcing, virtual assistant companies offers services that has fixed prices or what they call as plans. This scheme, the plans, was made so that businessmen will be able to decide which plan they will choose that will fit their budget.

If you are going to look at it, virtual assistant companies are like restaurants. Like a restaurant they got value meals and menus where customers can choose which menu will suit their budget. And like restaurants they tailored their services in such a way that will always be palatable to their clients. After all its customer satisfaction that matters most.

So You’re Finally a Virtual Assistant...Now, What?

Well, first off, you gotta find a job.
DUH
Before you get working on your job though, you gotta remember that there are a lot of things expected from you as a virtual assistant.

ATTITUDE

For starters, you shouldn't look like this while doing your job:



Getting all grumpy about work won’t work, lady. That’s bad.

That doesn’t mean you CAN’T be bored though. Life is boring if you can’t be bored.

It’s just discouraged.

Seriously though, you have to have a positive attitude towards work to be able to excel in it.

COMPETENCE


Before you start working on a job, another thing that’s expected from you is not just that you can do your job, but that you can do your job RIGHT.

The one thing that a client expects from his/her virtual assistant is that he/she can work at his/her best.

Don’t try to take jobs you can’t do.

Do that and you’d end up:

 
CONFUSED.
PUNCTUALITY

Just like working in an office, a virtual assistant is also given deadlines for his/her tasks. Your client must not be made to wait for you if you went over the deadline.



You can’t get back lost time. Remember to fully utilize every minute given to you by your client and never disappoint.

QUALITY OF WORK

A VA should always strive to give his/her best in doing his/her tasks.

Oftentimes, quality beats quantity. A single, awesome output is better than hundreds of crappy ones. Infinitely better.

Your clients always expects quality work from you. If you do that, here’s what you can expect from them to say:


AWESOME JOB, KIDDO!
Now, you know what to do?

I hope so.

Remember that if you can’t fulfill all these expectations of you, don’t feel bad.

Being a virtual assistant isn’t a static job. You get to learn new things every day and hopefully would allow you to even exceed these expectations in time.