Are You Playing Tug-of-War With Some of Your Clients?

In my last post, I discussed 5 Signs that you are working with the wrong support person. This week we’ll discuss the same situation but with the shoe on the other foot.  Are you a service provider who is frustrated with some of your existing client base?  Chances are you knew when you took these clients on in the first place, that there were going to be issues.  So many of us don’t listen to our ‘inner voice’ and are sorry afterwards.  The good news is, it’s never too late to make a change.

Most of the small business owners I work with have little or no technical skills. Many have limited marketing skills as well. So many people go into business because they think they have a great product or idea without appreciating just how many hats they are going to have to wear.  The bottom line is, there are only so many hours in the day and eventually they realize they need help. I coach my clients to spend their time doing what they do best and leave the items that they’ve contracted me for to me!  Work on getting their trust and respect and you can’t go wrong.

There are so many things you can do to maximize your client relationships. Still there will be times when the relationship breaks down.  So, what are 5 signs that you are working with the wrong client?

1. Your client treats you like a subordinate or an employee.

This client doesn’t understand that you are a business owner too and that you understand the challenges of growing a business.  This signals to me, that the client doesn’t respect what you bring to the table.   Perhaps you need to look at how you have positioned yourself with this client and assess whether this client will ever be able to treat you as an equal business partner.  Make the adjustment.  Don’t forget that you need to stay on top of changing trends, stay current with the services you offer and don’t be afraid to keep your client up to date on what you are doing in this vein to help them move their business forward.

2. Your client tries to nickel and dime you to death.

This client doesn’t understand that they are paying only for the time you are spending working on their behalf. They have lost sight of how much it would actually cost to hire someone on a full time basis and pay them even for time they might be idle, sick, away on holidays, sick/maternity leave etc.  I never negotiate on price. When you discount your prices, you are signaling to the client that you don’t have confidence in yourself.    It might be time to sit that client down and share just how much money you are saving them in the long run. Ask me where you can find these stats.

3. This client is a complainer.

Nothing you ever do seems good enough.  Relationships such as these can be a real drain on your productivity and your motivation.   If this is an ongoing issue, ask yourself why you are holding onto this client. If you are holding onto them because of the money, ask yourself how much time and energy you are wasting and then put a price tag on it.  Some people will never be satisfied – it may be part of their personality.  There are a lot of great potential clients out there waiting to meet you who will appreciate you and your efforts.  Spend your energy finding those instead. Don’t be afraid to cut these ones loose and move on!

4. This client doesn’t pay on time or at all.

This client may be legitimately struggling in their business. However, it may also be that they have not put you at the top of the totem pole in terms of the value you bring to their business.  When was the last time you asked your client if they were still happy with your services?    It’s important not to let this go too far. The key is to minimize your risk.  Communication is vital here. It may be time to sit down and discuss this with your client before you feel you need to resort to a Collection Agency.  Not only is this a stressful process, it causes bad karma for you in the business world as well.   In cases where they are legitimately struggling, perhaps you can suggest a temporary longer payment plan or perhaps you need to cut your losses and move on.

5. You feel this client doesn’t care about you or your business.

This individual never asks how you are or how your business is doing.  All they care about is the task or project. Perhaps you need to look at the kind of relationship you have established with your client.  This is a two way street. Ask yourself how much interest you have taken in them.  Are you interested in them as people and as business entities? Or are you just interested in the reward. If this is the case, why wouldn’t they feel the same way?  You might be surprised to find that a change in your approach, may signal a change in the client.

Relationship building is so important. Trust and respect are key elements to successful business relationships.  As a Social Media Specialist, I know that my success depends not only on my ability to establish great rapport with my prospects and clients but to instill this in them when dealing with their prospect and client base. I believe that what goes around, comes around.

What do you think? I love getting feedback here on my blog and here you will get commentluv.  That’s a plugin that allows you to leave a link back to your own blog when you leave a comment.  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment. I love hearing from everyone!

Until next time,

Joanne

While physically located in Newmarket, ON where Joanne lives with her family, she is virtually yours, anywhere.

Facebook – A Shining Star in the Social Media World

Did you know that Facebook has over 350 million active users?  Did you know that over 700,000 local businesses have active Business pages on Facebook?  Did you know that it’s against Facebook terms of use to use your personal profile page to do business there?

Facebook is not only for kids! The fastest growing demographic on Facebook is ages 35-49!

With the explosion of Facebook profiles and business pages, what are you doing to make your page stand out? As a Social Media Specialist, I help my clients impress and stay top of mind in the Facebook and Social Media space.   Here are 3 tips on things you can do to make your Facebook Business Page sing.

1. Enlarge the photo

Facebook allows you a 200×600 pixel space for your graphic or photo. Why not make good use of it?  Make sure that your graphic or photo is high resolution so that when you re-size it, the quality doesn’t degrade.  Include some extra information like your website address or your physical address if you are a storefront.

When choosing your font type, choose one like Verdana or Arial that will display well in a jpeg for e.g., when you upload it.  Legibility is important.

2. Permit tagging

One of the ways to be viral in this space is to allow your fans to tag photos.  (Thanks Kathy Colaiacovo for helping find where you can do this for pages…it’s buried!) By default, this option is turned off on Facebook Fan pages.  To permit tagging, follow these instructions:

a)  Go to Edit Page
b)  Locate the photo section
c)  Click edit
d)  Click edit settings, and ‘Allow Fans to Tag Photos’.

Note to my clients if you are reading this…I have already enabled this for you!

This is a great way to be seen in the news feed.  One word of caution. Check your privacy settings with respect to people being able to post photos to your wall.  Also be judicious when posting unflattering photos of others and be sensitive to how these photos might be syndicated.  This applies to your personal profile as well.

3. Welcome Page

Consider designing or getting someone to design a Welcome Page for you.  This is a great landing page for those who are new to your business page.  On this page you can provide an overview of your business and use graphics, audio and video to really make your page stand out.  You can also set it so that anyone new visiting your page will land on this page first.  Once they have ‘fanned’ your page, upon returning to your page in the future, they will then be directed to your wall.   This will also be a Tab that you can situate on your navigation bar so that even your existing fans can visit it.

It’s tough to land in the middle of conversation, so these Welcome Pages are a great intro.  You will need FBML to create this page. If you are not skilled in this area, a Social Media Specialist who has the training, like myself, can help you.

Above all, the most important thing on your business page is your content.  You want people to return to your page again and again, so provide some real value here.  Share some great industry news, provide great links and engage people in conversation on a regular basis.  That’s what it’s all about.

Facebook will likely be at a half billion users by the 2011.  Businesses are recognizing the power of this application and the opportunities it presents to move your business forward.  Isn’t it time for you to investigate it a little further?

What do you think? Do you have a Facebook Business Page? Does it sing? I love getting feedback. Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv.  That’s a plugin that allows bloggers to leave a link back to their own blog. How great is that?  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment.  I’d love to hear from everyone.

While physically located in Newmarket, ON where Joanne lives with her family, she is virtually yours, anywhere.

Until next time,

Joanne

Plugging into the Difference – WordPress .com or .org

As a Social Media Specialist, I have clients who wonder why they should have a blog and the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.  Matt Mullenweg, founding developer of WordPress gives a great interview below on the usage of WordPress and offers a great analogy on the difference between the .com and .org options.  Listen in and hear what Matt has to say.

I am not only a big proponent of having a blog, I recommend using your WordPress site as your hub. As many of you probably already know, I collapsed my static website at the end of last year and folded that content into the back pages of my WordPress blog. The reason I did that, was

• to cut down on having to maintain two sites, and more importantly,
• my WordPress site is a great place for me to communicate with my readers, establish great relationships and build community. My readership has gone up considerably and I have many more returning visitors to my site in having done this. Google Analytics tells me so!

A blog is a great way for you to give your community fresh, valuable information on a regular basis.  I did a post on Top 10 Tips on Blogging back in the Fall.   If you would like to read it, you’ll find it here.  The questions is, does one go with .com or .org? I like the analogy that Matt uses here of owning a home vs renting. Personally, I would much rather own my own and be in control of my own destiny. Wouldn’t you?  While the low maintenance aspect of the .com site may seem attractive, what does Matt mean here when he says in the .com version, you have ‘no yard’, and you ‘can’t knock down the walls’?  Here are a few key differences you should be aware of.

1. In the .com version, WordPress has proprietary ownership of all your content. Because you have your material installed on their site, there is the risk of them shutting you down if they don’t like your content.  One should read the terms of service before signing up for a .com site.

2. In the .com version, you must use the templates they have to offer.  You cannot modify the template layout, look and feel and you run the risk of looking like every other .com site out there.

3. You cannot install any of the vast array of plugins that are available to you in the .org version.  There are literally hundreds of developers coming out with new templates and plugins all the time and I install many of them on my clients’ sites – things like the Facebook and Twitter plugins for example,  that allow interconnectivity between all of your social media sites.   So functionality in my opinion, is much lower here than on a .org site.

4. You cannot do affiliate marketing on your .com site.

5. A .com site screams NEWBIE!!

There is a VIP option (not free) that allows you more control.  Matt discusses this in the video but as he says, they turn away many inquiries. This would be for larger organizations with a huge online blog presence.

If you are someone who just wants to publish a personal blog, then the .com site is probably fine.  If you are using your blog for business purposes however, I would recommend the .org version for the reasons stated above.  It is true, there is more maintenance and responsibility in maintaining your own site, but that is where I come in.  Using the services of a Social Media specialist who sets up WordPress blogs will be very helpful  not only in the site design, but in its functionality.  I also make sure all your social media sites interconnect and talk to one another.  It is so important for your community to find you no matter where they hang out online.

What have your experiences been like?  I love getting feedback.  And here on my site, you’ll get commentluv.  For all you bloggers out there, leave a comment, and you can link back to your own blog. How great is that?  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave me a comment, I want to hear from everyone.

While physically located in , Ontario where I live with my family, as a VA, I’m virtually yours anywhere….

Until next time,

Joanne

3 Ways to Reputation Management – Keeping An Ear to the Ground

Yes, it’s true! People talk about their life experiences – good or bad every day.  In the past, they would tell their friends, family and co-workers, but here’s what’s changed.  Now anyone can go online and spread word of that experience… with the world.  With the surge in blogging, article writing and tweeting, people now have a voice and they aren’t afraid to speak up.  If you are a business owner, how well are you tapped into what people are saying about your brand?

If people are saying great things about your business, wouldn’t you want to thank them? Wouldn’t you like to springboard off of that positive feedback to influence others to do business with you? Of course you would.  The other side of the coin however, is this.  Do you think it’s possible to keep 100% of your clients happy 100% of the time?  If you do, please tell me who you are! The reality is, that sometimes clients will go away unhappy and they are going to talk about it, potentially online.  So it’s very important to stay tuned in to the conversation that’s taking place out there.

How do you do that?  Here are a few ways to stay connected to the conversation.

1. Google Alerts

Go ahead and set up a Google account for yourself and install Google Alerts. It’s FREE! Enter the keywords for your brand – your business name, your name, your domain names, your key personnel, etc. Go ahead and enter your competition as well.  Wouldn’t it be great to be able to monitor that activity too?  GA will send you an email to tell you when it gets a hit on that search criteria and you can investigate. Yahoo also has its version too. You can find it here.

2. Twitter Search

Set up Twitter Keyword searches to monitor the conversation going on in Twitter. You use the same philosophy as above.  You can do that from whatever console you are using i.e., Hootsuite, Seesmic or Tweetdeck for example.   Don’t forget that tweets get indexed in the search engines too.  Good and bad comments can hang around the search engines for a long time, years in fact.

3. Trackur.com

Consider using an application like Trackur. It has a great Social media monitoring system and comes with a free and a premium version.

There are a myriad of other applications that you can try out as well.   Some are free, others charge a premium.  Depending on the size of your business, you may need something more robust.  Try radian6.com

Good news spreads fast on the net, and bad news spreads even faster.  So what do you do when your brand gets mentioned?  If it’s a great review, as I said above, thank the person/entity that is providing the great feedback. Foster that relationship.   They are acting as a great ambassador of your brand.  But what to do about a bad review?  Don’t ignore it.  Others won’t.  Take this as a great opportunity to engage them in conversation, listen carefully to what is being said and respond appropriately.  By addressing it here, not only are you are showing that you care, but you may be able to change their opinion and you can turn the relationship around.  It’s Public Relations.

As a Social Media Specialist, I encourage all my clients to monitor their brand and make sure they are participating in the conversation – good or bad.  After all, it IS your reputation at stake.

What do you think? Have you engaged people in this environment using these tools? How did they work?  I found an example of this just yesterday where someone included my content in his post and gave me credit for it with a link back to my site.  What did I do?  Thank him of course!

I love getting feedback.  Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv.  That’s great for all you bloggers out there. Leave a comment and you can leave a link back to your own blog!  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment. I’d love to hear from all of you.

Joanne

While physically located in , Ontario where I live with my family, as a VA, I’m virtually yours anywhere….

‘Cardinal’ Rules of Twitter

As a Social Media Specialist VA, I have new people following me on Twitter all the time.  It is always my choice as to who I will follow back.  It is very important to stay focused on who your target market is and build your relationships in that community.   Having said that, I always check the profiles of anyone who is newly following me.

There are many people out there who have not yet grasped the concept of just how powerful Twitter can be.    The following is an example of a particular profile I reviewed recently.  The entire Twitter stream was made up of the same kind of ‘conversation’.  There was very little interaction.  I will share 5 tweets here  and give you some ideas as to how these tweets might have been done differently.  This individual is in the eco-friendly industry and their profile implied that they were looking for business contacts.  The following tweets are not business related. Here is how they might have showcased their expertise, and shared value-added information to their target audience.  See how you can use these examples and adapt them to your own environment.  Don’t be afraid to standout.  Be colorful.  Be a Cardinal!

Tweets:

1.  Just removed the lint from the dryer, yuck

As an individual in the eco-friendly industry,  while removing lint from the dryer is admittedly not a stimulating chore, it is one that needs doing. So if I were inclined to talk about this, here is a way that this could have been done differently.

Don’t throw out your dryer lint. Place it on branches of trees. Birds will use it to feather their nests. With Spring around the corner, this can be a timely tweet.  Even better..consider writing a blog post on 5 ways to use your dryer lint along the reduce, reuse, recycle approach and tweet a link to the blog post. You’d be surprised how many uses there are!

2. Just had my second cup of coffee from ******* .  Am finally waking up.

Take this opportunity to remind readers about not contributing to landfill.

Took my thermos for a second coffee fillup this a.m. to ****. Finally waking up. Glad I’m not adding more cups to landfill. Even better, consider investigating some organic coffee growers and write a blog post on the benefits. Share this information with your readers. Again, Tweet a link to the post.

3. Looking forward to dinner – chicken cordon bleu  YUM!

It’s ok to share some personal tweets from time to time.  Try to focus 80% of your tweets on business related information.  However, this doesn’t mean that when you post something personal, that you can’t add value.  This might have been better..

Looking forward to dinner – chicken cordon bleu. Love this dish. Here’s the recipe. Tell me what you think! Add a link to the recipe. Even better, provide a picture using  a product like Flickr. You can attach the pic to your tweet.

4. Good morning from ******. It’s sunny and beautiful here today. Hope it keeps up.

Again, there is an opportunity here to share some environmental news with your readership. Try this.

Good morning from ****. Weather is beautiful here today. Check this Farmers Almanac prediction for 2010. Provide a link to farmersalmanac.com.  Even better, Encourage people to start thinking about planting their own organic vegetable gardens this year.

5. Time to paint the kids’ bedrooms.  **** wants her room painted pink.

You might consider educating readers that there are low VOC (volatile organic compounds) available today.  VOCs are key to the ozone…so consider a tweet like this..

Time to paint the kids rooms. So glad there are paints with low VOCs now and in such great colors too! Even better, consider writing a blog post on 10 ways to decorate a room using eco-friendly products. Again, tweet about it and provide a link to your blog post or your website if you sell some of these products. Add pictures to your blog post to make it more interesting and include one in your tweet.

These alternatives share industry related information to your target market and showcase your expertise/understanding of the issues in the eco-friendly space.  By adding value, your readers are more likely to return, eager for more content.  In this way, you begin to develop relationships and build intimacy and trust.  Twitter is a great tool to drive traffic to your blog or your website.   But as I have said before, stay away from heavy marketing tactics where you are doing nothing more than selling wares.  The social media space is all about adding value and creating relationships.

Take a look at your industry and see how you can begin to adapt your tweets in this way. Let me know how it’s going. I love getting feedback.  As a Social Media Specialist, I am here to help you grow your business.  Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv.  That’s great for all you bloggers out there. Leave a comment and you can leave a link back to your own blog!  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment. I’d love to hear from all of you.

Happy Tweeting!

Joanne

While physically located in , Ontario where I live with my family, as a VA, I’m virtually yours anywhere….

Duking it Out

As a Social Media Specialist Virtual Assistant, I have clients asking me to help them clarify between a Facebook Group and a Facebook Business Page.    For many they appear to accomplish the same thing…but do they? Here are 3 major differences between Facebook Business Pages and Facebook Groups.

Before I begin however, let me mention as I have in previous posts, that Facebook frowns upon anyone using their Facebook profile page to do business. If reported, Facebook will shut down your account if they find you abusing their terms of use, so it makes sense for anyone doing business on Facebook to have a Facebook business page regardless of the other factors below.

1. Findability: Facebook Business Pages allow that once you have 25 fans, you may apply for a ‘vanity url’ on Facebook.  Logon to your Facebook profile and visit Facebook.com/username to explore this option.  Until you reach 25 fans, your Facebook busines page url will have a string of what will appear to be ‘garbage’ attached to the end of it.  Google for example, will have no idea what to do with this address and therefore you won’t be ‘findable’ in the search engines.  Once you have your vanity url, there is a good chance that your page will be crawled and searchable.  Facebook Groups are not searchable by the search engines.   In my opinion, that’s Pages 1, Groups 0.
   
2. Purpose: A Facebook Business Page is recommended for anyone wanting to do business on Facebook.  One can generate content on their business page that has no tie to your personal page.  You many have unlimited fans and update them with no limitation.  Business Pages are great for building your brand.  Almost anyone can become a fan of your Facebook Business Page.  However, the only limitation a business page owner can impose on their page with respect to fans is age and location. Facebook Groups of less than 5000 members can send email blasts to their members. A  Facebook group can be a little like a private club and are intended to be more personal and on a smaller scale.  Group administrators can set their groups up whereby the group owner can control membership.  Many people use Facebook Groups to rally people around a cause.  So for example,  if you wanted to create a group to rally support around the crisis in Haiti, a group would be a good choice here.  Groups are tied to your personal profile.     So depending on what you want to accomplish, the score here for me would be Pages 1, Groups 1.
3. Functionality: Facebook Business Pages allow you the much the same functionality as your personal page. In other words, you can upload photos, video, use applications like HTML or Facebook Markup Language (FBML) to create areas on your page to include things like opt-in boxes or link someone to your e-commerce site. There are some applications however that you cannot install on your business page but that is becoming less so and the possibilities are almost endless. Many people are now building exciting landing pages for the business page to really make it shine.  Facebook Groups allow you to use links, upload photos and video and that’s about it. In my opinion, that’s Pages 1, Groups 0.

Overall in my opinion then, it’s Pages 3, Groups 1.   I believe Facebook Business Pages are more functional and effective than groups.  There has also been another issue around groups lately that you should be aware of.  It appears that Facebook had a breech a while back whereby a fringe group  seized control of many Facebook groups that had no administrator assigned and used these groups to push forward their agenda.  Facebook has shut down the ability now to recapture administrator status on a group that is unassigned.  And, without administrator status, there are things you cannot do such as delete your group if you so desire.

Whatever you choose, if you aren’t sure about how to set these profiles up properly, you should consider using the services of a Social Media Specialist to help you through the process.  Customizing and optimizing these sites is key to your success.

I would love to hear about your experiences with Facebook Business Pages and Groups.  Tell me what works for you!

For all you bloggers out there, you’ll love commentluv here on my blog. Leave a comment and you can leave a link back to your own blog.  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave me your comments! I want to hear from all of you!

While physically located in Newmarket Ontario where I live with my family, as a VA, I’m virtually yours anywhere….

Joanne

Putting My $$ Where My Mouth Is

Well, I did it! My static website has now been incorporated into my WordPress site. It took a little doing to make sure all my links stayed intact but I’m here.

As a Social Media Specialist VA, I coach my clients to use their blog site as their hub so it was time to put my money where my mouth is.    It’s so much easier for me now to maintain everything pertaining to my business here on my WordPress site than on my blog and my static website.  More importantly, it’s easy to communicate with my prospects and client base right here with the comment section so I am looking forward to lots of interaction!  It is already reinforcing the discipline to be in the moment – present and authentic.   A blog site is an ideal place for you to build intimacy, trust and loyalty with your followers.

You’ll notice that a ‘Services’ page has been added here along with a ‘Need Help?’ page so everything you need to know about me and my services is easily accessible.  I have all my links to my Social Media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter so you can communicate with me where-ever you are most comfortable hanging out online.

I still use my LinkedIn profile as my “About Me” page because I keep it up to date with all the current information and that is where my testimonials are housed.   To me, showcasing  testimonials on LinkedIn rather than a traditional website is more ‘authentic’ because they are generated by the recommender themselves.

It can be a bit of a challenge keeping up to date with this rapidly changing Social Media environment, but I am confident that with this transition, I will be able to keep my readers abreast of what’s happening with my business and be able to share fresh, relevant information all in one place.

I am keen to get some feedback!  How many of you have made this transition?

For all you bloggers out there, you’ll love commentluv here on my blog. Leave a comment and you can leave a link back to your own blog.  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave me your comments! I want to hear from all of you!

While physically located in Newmarket Ontario where I live with my family, as a VA, I’m virtually yours anywhere….

Joanne

Starting the Year on the Right ‘Track’!

As a Social Media Specialist, I always install Google Analytics as part of the profile setup on my clients’ blog sites but I also recommend that they have it or some other tracking device installed on their website as well. This is particularly important for clients who have e-commerce on their site/s.

While I keep track of what’s going on on these sites for my clients, we meet once quarterly (or more often if required), to go over these stats and ascertain what is working as a strategy and what isn’t. These are some of the factors to consider when analyzing your or your client’s’ data.

1.  Visitors:

• Benchmarking:    Choose the category that your business fits into and Google will run your stats against other businesses in that category of a similar size.  There is no point in measuring yourself against the whole world.  Compare apples to apples.
• New vs Returning:  It’s great that you have 1000 new visitors!  But how many of these visitors are returning to your site.?  The objective here is to build loyalty.  Your blog,  for an example, is an ideal place to build intimacy and trust with your prospects and clients.    When your returning numbers continue to rise, you are on the right track.
• Map Overlay:  The map overlay tells you where your audience is coming from geographically.  This may be of particular importance depending on your business.  You’ll want to know which locations are driving the most amount of traffic to your site and where you might need to focus more attention.  If your product were for example, woolen underwear, you would want to make sure that places like Alaska and the Territories were a good source of traffic for you.  Of course as a Canadian in the middle of winter, I’d be watching those Canadian numbers too! LOL

2.  Traffic Sources:

• It’s important to take a look at where your traffic is coming from.  If you have invested considerable time in your social media sites, you should find that profiles like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., are great sources of traffic to your blog and to your website.  You might also find, if you are pushing your blog posts out to the social bookmark sites, that places like Digg, Delicious and Stumbleupon for example are also a source of traffic for you. You will be able to see pretty quickly which sites are the ones that are working best for you and it is here that you should devote a little more time and attention.
• It’s also important to keep track of the organic searches from places like Google or Yahoo.  If these organic searches are not sending considerable traffic to your sites, you may need to take a closer look at the keyword/tag choices on your blog or your website.
• For those of you involved in e-commerce, you’ll want to make sure that you have installed the proper Analytics code on the appropriate pages of your website or blog.  Google will provide that code and you or your website support person can install it.  You will be able to ascertain where in the buying cycle, people may be opting out.   You can then focus more attention on that page/s to encourage buyers to complete their purchase.  Of course if you are involved in e-commerce, you’ll want to make sure that you use the ‘Goal’ portion of GA to set some objectives and measure your success.
• If you have embarked on an Adword campaign with Google, you’ll want to carefully track the adwords and how they are working for you.  There are a myriad of ways to find the right kind of keywords to use to drive traffic to your site.  As an Internet Marketing/Social Media Specialist VA, I am able to do the kind of background work necessary to find the right ones.

3.  Content:

• While content isn’t a category on GA, it does directly correlate to your pages/visit and length of time on the site.  The key here is to remember that  CONTENT IS KING.  If you have great content on your blog or your website, then your readers will continue to return and spend more time there.  It doesn’t take rocket science to figure that one out.

The last thing that I’ll talk about here is the Bounce Rate.  Some people get all hung up on bounce rate.  There are many reasons why your bounce rate may be high.  You will want to visit GA and go to the help portion and key in Bounce Rate to find the reasons why your bounce rate might be high.    The goal of course, would be to try and get that bounce rate as low as possible but in some cases (like a brick and mortar business who only does business locally) where your bounce rate may be higher than average.

These are of course, deeper levels of Google Analytics for those who are so inclined. I have outlined the major categories that you should be evaluating on a regular basis.

How about you? Are you using Google Analytics or are you measuring your sites’ performance in some other way?  Tell me what you’re using.  For all you bloggers out there, you’ll love commentluv here on my blog. Leave a comment and you can leave a link back to your own blog.  But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave me your comments! I look forward to hearing from you.

While physically located in Newmarket Ontario where Joanne lives with her family, as a VA, she is virtually yours anywhere….

Joanne

Santa on Twitter? What a Cool Idea!

Looking back over the last year, I am pleased and amazed at the growth in my business. Social Media has played a huge role in this success and I am grateful to all those clients who have put their faith in me to help them build their business using these incredible tools.

Here are the top 5 things that I have learned this year about Social Media and the role it plays in building your presence online whether you are doing it for yourself or potentially as a Virtual Assistant like me, doing it for your clients..

1. Search Engine Optimization.   Social Media sites are very heavily indexed by Google. If you want yourself (or if you’re a VA, your clients) on the front page of Google, an investment in the Big Three (LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter) is a great way to get them there. Before February of this year, I was lucky to have 1 or 2 listings on the first page of Google. Now, if you key in my business name, Virtually Yours, Joanne Burgess,  I basically own the first 3 pages of Google. That’s expensive real estate. If you key in just my name, (and believe me, there are a lot of Joanne Burgesses out there), I still have 5 entries in the top 10 including the first two spots. This never would have happened if not for Social Media!
2. Links are Key. No matter what Social Media sites you are using, you need to have your sites inter-linked. Personally I have almost doubled my Facebook Fan page by having a fan box on my blog site. Making it easy for people to find you and follow you is key.  People don’t have time to search all over the place for you. Time is precious. Make it easy for your prospects and clients to find and connect with you wherever they ‘hang out’!
3. Yes, brick and mortar businesses can make good use of  Social Media tools. I automatically create a local business account listing for my brick and mortar clients.  While this is not considered part of a ‘normal’ social media strategy, I have used the ‘keyword’ component to help drive up their exposure on Google.  Google has recently incorporated Analytics on these profiles.  You can easily see what search strings potential prospects and clients are using to find your client’s business. I then use these findings to help the client build great blog posts and generate great tweets. There are also new apps popping up all the time to help scope out local prospects.
4. Potential to find great resources.  I have met the most amazing people by being involved in Social Media – not  just other VAs (who are amazing), but leaders in the industry  with whom I have shared great ideas and resources.  Social media puts you on a level playing field like never before and grants you incredible access.
5. Consistency is KEY. It’s easy to setup profiles on Social media sites.  It’s something else to commit to the process and stay the course. It’s a struggle many days to find the time to get on the sites and participate in the discussion… but as I tell my clients, a few minutes each day, gets you closer to your goal of being the person people think of when they think of your product or service and more importantly to show that you are an expert in your ‘field’ and an approachable one at that.

In summary, it’s been an amazing year for me. I am grateful for the opportunities I’ve had, my amazing clients, the awesome people I have met and for the potential in 2010.

This will be my last blog post of the year.  I will be spending the next couple of weeks practicing what I preach. I tell my clients that a blog site should be your hub, so I will be migrating my website content over to my blog. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, I would like to leave you all with my warmest wishes for continued prosperity in the coming year and for a safe, happy holiday season with your loved ones.

I will be spending the holidays close to home this year.  Tell me how you plan to spend your holidays. I love hearing from my readers!

Kindest Regards,

Joanne

LinkedIn and Twitter Get Cozy

Well it looks like LinkedIn and Twitter are making a similar move (following the Twitter/Facebook alignment earlier this year) and will be working together.

Over the course of the next few days,  you will notice something new on LinkedIn. You will be able to tie in your Twitter account to LinkedIn and when you post a status update, you will be able to send that update to Twitter and vice-versa.  And that’s not all.  Click on this link to get a little more detailed information.  According to Biz Stone (co-founder of Twitter) and Reid Hoffman (co-founder of LinkedIn), the two will work together like peanut butter and chocolate! Yum, I love that combo! Watch this brief video that shows you how this will be done.

Now all we’re missing is the ability to hyperlink from your LinkedIn account to your Facebook account and I’d be happy from an SEO standpoint.

While this is a welcomed union and hopefully one of many ways they find to work together, if I am looking to do a general status update, I still use Ping.fm which updates all my sites – FriendFeed, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all from one place and all at the same time, which for me, generally suits my needs.  And if you look closely at Reid’s Twitter page in the video, you’ll see he’s been using Ping to update his status as well.

As a Social Media Specialist VA, I tell my clients that status updates are an important way to stay high in the search rankings of Google. Google likes fresh content!  So I update my status on each of my profiles daily. It takes a little discipline but there is a big payoff in the end.

How do you do your updates? Give me your feedback. I’d love to hear from you. And here on my blog, I offer comment luv. Anytime you submit feedback, you can link back to your own blog which is another great thing for SEO.

While physically located in Newmarket, Ontario where Joanne lives with her family, as a VA, she is virtually yours anywhere….