Small Business Marketing on Twitter is a post from: VA Business Coaching Blog

Start Facebook Pages and Groups to Market Your Business is a post from: VA Business Coaching Blog

Five Facebook Fan Page Success Strategies is a post from: VA Business Coaching Blog

• Sign up for several of the top free social networking sites, like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. These sites are simple to navigate and user-friendly (even for the technology-challenged!)
• Fill out your profile – This is important to your social media marketing success. Include links to your websites and blogs, which helps you get links back to these sites, increasing your search engine optimization (SEO). Include business contact information like email and telephone as you will WANT potential clients to contact you!
• Keep them coming back for MORE by offering something for free, industry news, valuable information and resources, or maybe even a contest to attract a broader following. Analyze your target markets and hone your message accordingly. If you sell organic-cotton baby clothes you would want to target your message to moms, business women perhaps, or owners of baby boutiques. People want VALUE so give them what they want and they’ll keep coming back for MORE!
• Include a photo of yourself – People want to do business with someone they know, like and trust. A professional photo, not one of you and your children, aligns you with your business name and company, a great branding opportunity! 
• In this medium, less is more. Don’t be too salesy with your message, and don’t tweet about what you had for breakfast. You want to reel in potential customers, not scare them away. Get back to the basics of your marketing message and don’t over sell. If your message is perceived to be ‘spam’ you’ll get blocked by the social media sites and prospects. You want a fan base, not an “I Hate Your Business Because You Spam Me Too Much” club. 
• Keep it simple – Showcase your knowledge but don’t “talk down” to them. Social media is a great way to test what messages work and don’t work for your potential customers. Keep your language/message breezy and friendly (but with a professional edge). 

Social Media Marketing Tips is a post from: VA Business Coaching Blog

• Aggregator or Newsfeeder—software that gathers and organizes content from blogs or other social networking platforms through their RSS feeds, and displays the content in one central location. 

• Blogs—also called "web logs", they are an integral part of your social media presence. These sites allow companies or individuals to create a journal organized into reverse chronological order. This type of social media can have many interactive features, such as allowing comments from visitors, RSS feeds, and widgets. To obtain the best results in overall search engine optimization for your static website, linking a blog back to your website creates a favorable connection as it relates to your SEO. 

• Blog Marketing—using a web log to communicate business news, announcements, and company or business profiles.  

• Blogosphere—refers to all the blogs and blog interactions on the Web. 

• Content—refers to the material on any website, including social media sites and blogs, which can be text, pictures, video, or audio material. 

• Feeds or RSS Feeds—programs used by social networking sites to provide their subscribers with a simple way to obtain any new material without visiting the actual site. These feeds are usually channeled into an aggregator, which organizes and displays them for the subscriber. This process helps you to stay connected to clients and prospects. 

• Forums—usually in a bulletin board format, these sites allow members to interact by posting messages related to a specific topic or industry. 

• Groups—individuals or companies with some common interest or activity gathering together for online discussions, often utilizing email systems to disperse their messages or posts. 

• Lurkers—refers to people who may visit a social media site, but do not contribute through comments or postings. 

• Microblogging—social networking on a smaller scale, usually with posting size restrictions, the most popular example being Twitter, where posts are a maximum of 140-characters. 

• Podcast—audio or video content that subscribers can receive automatically, like a feed. 

• Profiles—information in the form of text, picture, and even audio or visual files provided by an individual or company when becoming a member of a social networking site. These offer prospect’s an inside look at who you are and why they want to get to know you. 

• Social media—this is the term for the platforms and tools that individuals or companies use to display content and interact online. This includes blogs, podcasts, groups, forums, networking sites, wikis, etc. 

• Social Media Marketing—using online social networking sites to promote a company’s service or products. 

• Social networks—these are sites where individuals use the network platform to interact and connect with others through their profile, sharing content, messaging, feeds, and other social media tools. 

• Threads—refers to messages or posts under a single forum topic, or to the comments and trackbacks of blogs.  

• Trackback—ability to leave a link on a blog to a related blog post or comment on a different blog. 

• Viral Marketing—refers to spreading awareness of a product or service from one consumer to another through the social media platforms. 

• Widgets—short strands of code embedded in a site that perform specific functions, like news feeds or donation buttons.  

• Wiki—web pages that can be edited by a group of people who have permission to do so from the page owner.  

Have I missed any definitions; do you have questions about social media that I may not have addressed?  Please feel free to leave your comments or questions below, I’m happy to help if I can .

Social Media Marketing Basics is a post from: VA Business Coaching Blog

Some of the better known blog forum sites are: Blogger Forum, Bloggeries and Blogst Forum. A basic Google search will yield vast numbers of forum sites; it’s worth checking to see how active any forum is prior to registration, so you are joining the busiest, most popular groups.

Be certain to carefully read any forum rules prior to posting and abide by them. Also, don’t alienate potential visitors by submitting multiple posts just containing the link to your blog.

You are not limited to advertising your blog link or accumulating traffic on these forums; you can ask others to point out its positive and negative aspects; ask people to critique the style, layout and content.

Bear in mind opinions may widely differ, but it doesn’t mean something is bad if one or two people don’t like a particular aspect – it could be a matter of personal taste.  However, if you consistently get negative comments about certain parts of your blog, take the time to think about what changes you can make to improve them.

Return the favor and critique other blogs. Not only are people more likely to help you if they see you are willing to reciprocate, by viewing lots of blogs you get an idea of what works and what doesn’t and you’ll learn to more objectively view your own.

Reading forum posts allows you to pick helpful tips and tricks from other blog owners on topics like content, advertising and affiliate marketing. Absorb as much information as possible and make notes on anything of interest; then implement them to make your own blog more successful.

Don’t expect to post your link on a few forums and quickly gain hordes of traffic – you will only get out as much as you are prepared to put in. Advertise your blog on as many forums as you can to gain maximum exposure and you will be rewarded with a steady increase in traffic.

Jeannine Clontz, owner of Accurate Business Services, a VA practice, is an author, writer, speaker and VA Business Coach specializing in providing professional business coaching to established and start-up virtual assistants (VA’s).  For her FREE audio CD “What’s Holding Back my Business Success?”,  a 2-month trial in her Insider group coaching program, or 1-month trial of her coaching club visit:  http://www.VAbizcoach.com; or contact her at: coach@VAbizcoach.com.

Generate Free Blog Traffic With Blogger Forums is a post from: VA Business Coaching Blog

State of the Virtual Assistance Industry is a post from: VA Business Coaching Blog

So, share your blogging experiences.  How have you been using your blog and what can we think of to take it up a notch? BAM!!

Blogging for Business (Part Two) is a post from: VA Business Coaching Blog

Today, social media sites are very popular among Internet users. This has allowed them to become attractive platforms for Internet marketers. A wide variety of potential prospects can be gained by reaching out in this way. Of the most popular platforms are video sharing and social networking sites.

 1) Video Sharing 

Aspiring artists, and other performers have been using sites like You Tube as a launching pad for some time. As these sites have continued to grow, online businesses have realized the value of using video sharing to improve their success. By producing entertaining yet professional videos businesses are able to reach a broader Internet market. Product demonstrations that highlight benefits to customers have become quite popular, too. 

Not only are you capturing a large number of video enthusiasts, but these sites make it easier for videos to be spread virally. They can also be shared through social bookmarking and networking sites as well as via email. 

Should a video be relevant to other businesses, they can easily publish them on other websites and blogs, who can then spread your messages virally.  Video marketing has proven to be a crucial element in any internet marketing campaign. 

Additionally, if videos are attractive or interesting enough, people can leave comments that assist online business owners in gaining consumer insights on their offerings. 

2) Social Networking 

Savvy Internet marketers regularly share relevant content to engage users and prompt them to follow their brand or become a part of their network. Some use these sites as an alternative or supplement to their email marketing campaigns. 

Everyday use of social networking sites has practically become a way of life for many internet users. However, promoting a business is not as simple as building a network of random people and marketing to them. Treat these sites as a means to build relationships rather than just another advertising medium. Like video sharing sites, social networking sites can prove to be a valuable source for customer feedback. 

Encourage comments from users who can help manage an online reputation and give the brand a higher potential to spread virally among people who share the same interests. Consequently, this allows businesses to spend less time, money and energy on brand building and customer acquisition. 

This social media popularity allows people to spread the word about a brand and business offerings and increases the number of prospects who see the message. The idea is to get more people to talk about the business and keep the brand top of mind so that internet users will be more likely to patronize it or to share it with other people. 

Jeannine Clontz, owner of Accurate Business Services, a VA practice, is an author, writer, speaker and VA Business Coach specializing in providing professional business coaching to established and start-up virtual assistants (VA’s).  For her FREE audio CD “What’s Holding Back my Business Success?”, a 2-month trial in her Insider group coaching program, or 1-month trial of her coaching club visit:  http://www.VAbizcoach.com; or contact her at: coach@VAbizcoach.com.

Promote Your VA Practice Through Social Media Platforms is a post from: VA Business Coaching Blog

Now that we have the platform to our liking we will want to avoid some of the pitfalls when we first establish a blog site, as it relates to the multitude of widgets and add-ins available to bloggers.  For example, don’t put up a Feedburner widget advertising that you have 6 subscribers.  Stats like this should only be shared when they get into the hundreds or even thousands, depending on the audience you want to reach.  Look and see if other blogs like yours share those stats.  Many professional bloggers shun showing such stats, but often new bloggers are so excited about available widgets, they’ll stick anything on their blogs without thinking of how it looks to their readership. 

Comments are the one stat you can’t (and shouldn’t) fake.  Never ever create comments and post them yourself.  People can tell.  It’s impossible to make fake comments sound genuine, so don’t try. It’s dishonest, and will break the trust you’re trying to build up with your blog readers.  It is okay to ask friends to comment on your blogs, but make sure they have a genuine interest, otherwise it will show.  Don’t let yourself fall into the trap of being so desperate for comments that you resort to lying to your audience.

The absolute best way to get comments on your blog is to leave comments on relevant blogs.  When you comment on a blog, you’ll be allowed to leave a link back to your own website.  Typically the blog owner will come visit your site to see who you are, and likely their readers will come visit you, too.  This method takes a little extra time, but it works.  Just remember that once those comments are out there, you can’t take them back, so be professional! 

Once you have your audience built up, you will be able to devote less time to commenting on other blogs, but don’t forget that blogging is a community event, not a one-man show. 

Here are a few things to consider: 

• Talk up your successes, achievements, what you’ve learned.
• Don’t talk down in your posts – this will cause readers not to come back.
• Invite readers to comment by asking questions in your posts and thank them for their comments.
• Be consistent with your posts.  Even if you’re not getting comments the posts will add up and get indexed by Google driving people to your site.
• Don’t give up!  It can take up to a year to build a good blog following.  Keep making regular posts, they will come. 

Blogging is a rewarding way to not only drive business to your website, but connect with readers and customers.  Keep at it, and success will come.  Be patient, and participate in a community of bloggers who all write about the same topic, and soon you will find your visitor stats building. 

Take a moment to share a blog question or success in the comment box below.  It will help to expand your online presence and connect people back to you. 

Jeannine Clontz, owner of Accurate Business Services, a VA practice, is an author, writer, speaker and VA Business Coach specializing in providing professional business coaching to established and start-up virtual assistants (VA’s).  For her FREE audio CD “What’s Holding Back my Business Success?”,  a 2-month trial in her Insider group coaching program, or 1-month trial of her coaching club visit:  http://www.VAbizcoach.com; or contact her at: coach@VAbizcoach.com.

Tips for Developing a Popular Business Blog (Part Two) is a post from: VA Business Coaching Blog