Standing Out

Have you developed a brand image for your practice yet? What sets you apart from the pack and makes you different?

Have you noticed…there are what seems like a bazillion virtual assistants out there! Your clients are looking for a solution - how is it that you meet their needs as opposed to the next VA?

If you haven’t given any thought to this yet, I suggest getting out a sheet of blank paper, or a white board, and start working on it.

My company brand image is “the know-how all American virtual assistant.” I came up with the brand AFTER I started my business, not before. You don’t have to do it that way, but it does help. I decided on “know-how” after I realized that I had a lot of skills many other VAs didn’t have.

(more…)

Social networking (Facebook, Biznik, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) for business is all the rage right now, and while “trendy” things are usually frowned upon, you need to be where your target market is, trendy or not. Social networking will not only increase awareness of your product or service, it could lead to sales and to those priceless business connections we all need.

But do you know where to start? You don’t want to end up spending hours and hours maintaining your social networks because you didn’t have a solid social network marketing plan from the beginning.

Introducing a free, 4-day e-course that will help you get started on a social networking plan.

Kickstart Your Social Networking Plan Free E-course

Discover:

• which social networking sites are right for your personality type & internet exposure desires
• how much time it takes to maintain each social network optimally
• what you can do with your social networks to bring in business and make solid connections

Sign up below!

So I followed Andy Sernovitz’s advice (admittedly, I followed it partially) and I have to say that I did not get addicted to Twitter, and so now I will officially become a Twitter Quitter. The only part of the advice I admittedly didn’t follow was to “follow” as many people on Twitter as I could. I just didn’t have the time (or inclination) to go through people’s profiles and find others to follow. Too tiring!

Here’s what I discovered: keeping up with the social media crowd is exhausting! This is a lot to ask of any small business owner. As a means of marketing your business or getting the word out, trying to do the social media thing is just beyond me. I use MySpace and Facebook for FRIENDS, and the nice thing about it is that if I don’t log on for a few days, no biggie. My friends have plenty to do besides just listening to me rant or rave about something new. Adding the blog has been great - I’ve expanded my circle of influence and I’ve also gotten a lot more hits to my business website. But beyond the blog and my other marketing methods, and actually doing work for clients, I was tiring myself out trying to figure out how to make Twitter worth it for me.

I also discovered that Twitter simply takes too much time! Yes, they’ve made it more convenient with a feature that lets you text your little updates to Twitter, rather than logging into the website and updating it there, BUT, convenient though it may be, it is not less time-consuming.

So, being the generalizing woman that I am, I am going to go out on a limb and say that social media works for social media gurus and junkies. They have the perfect audience: other social media gurus and junkies. And it also works for people like Andy Sernovitz (who I love) and Seth Godin (who I also love… “marketing-threesome”, maybe? ;-), who are definitely considered experts in their field and who had a huge following before Twitter was even conceived. Twitter also works for people who enjoy reading the little updates of random people they don’t know, OR, who simply enjoying updating people they don’t know about their own random thoughts. Twitter is also popular with the TED crowd. I had never even heard of TED until I joined Twitter.

There are some things to be thankful for. Here is the list.

Thank you, Twitter, for…

1. Introducing me to TED. Very cool.
2. Making me feel proud that Andy Sernovitz became a follower of mine. That, really, was my only goal.
3. Giving me exposure to another very popular social media tool.
4. Aiding in the realization that social media tools aren’t part of my ideal marketing cuisine.

Cheers, folks! Have a great day! By the way, if you haven’t checked out Twitter, check it out! Seriously, you should try it. You might learn something new like I did!

Tia

(I’m also done with Blogjet…but that’s for another blog)