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.

Virtually Yours, Anywhere!

I just returned from a lovely 2 week vacation – well 6,000 kilometers of driving may not constitute a vacation to many people but I loved it. My husband, son and I traveled to the East Coast of Canada (Nova Scotia primarily), to experience the beauty that province has to offer. But that wasn’t the only beauty of it; my clients also enjoyed  Social Media support while I was gone.

You see, with a laptop, the wonderful world of wireless internet access and some discipline, I was able to publish client blogs, answer emails and deal with any emergencies while on the road and still enjoy my family and our time together. And as a Social Media Specialist, the bulk of the work I do is online, meaning, I have an easily transportable office! It doesn’t matter if I am sitting in my home office in Newmarket, Ontario, in an Inn in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia or in Europe for that matter. I can still meet the demands of your business remotely. And, working with a Virtual Administrator means that you pay only for the time we spend working on your behalf! It’s a win-win situation.  I even managed to keep up to date with my contacts on Facebook – publishing pictures and video from our trip along the way and sharing some of our experiences. Many people commented that it was like being on the holiday with us! I loved that. Social Media tools have a way of making you feel you are never far from home and help you continue to build those relationships.

Another bonus on this trip was having the opportunity to meet up with Kathy, another VA from Nova Scotia. We got to know one another at a VA forum in 2009 and through Social Media, have had the opportunity to get to know one another remotely. We spent the day sharing information and ideas and learned about each others businesses. The VA community in general is a very giving, supportive group. We give referrals to one another, share knowledge and even sub-contract to each other where appropriate. I feel blessed to be part of this world-wide industry.

Virtual Administrators (VAs) come in many flavors and from widely diversified backgrounds. You’ll find VAs with pure administrative skills and others marketing or technical skills. Many business owners hire one VA or many depending on their needs. It makes it much less complicated than trying to find one employee with all the skill sets you may require.

Overall, I love the flexibility of owning my own business and I love supporting my clients in the Social Media realm. I especially love the fact that I can do it from anywhere in the world, even when I’m on holiday!

How about you? Have you been to Nova Scotia? What was your favorite experience?  Mine had to be whale watching off the coast of Pleasant Bay.   You can watch this short video on our whale watching tour with Captain Mark’s.  The whales came within a metre of the boat. Such an amazing experience…

I love getting feedback and here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv. That’s a plug-in that allows you to leave a link back to your own site when you leave a comment.

Until next time,
Joanne

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

Facebook Landing Pages – Why They’re Hot

Do you have a Facebook Business Page? Do you have a Welcome Page set up as a landing page for first time visitors? Why might this be important?

Have you noticed when you visit people’s business pages, you are bouncing back and forth between the info tab, the small bio under the person’s graphic and reading the wall to get a sense of who this person is and what their business is about?  I know I do.

Do you find you get more information on some people’s pages than others? Why is that?  That’s because not all business pages are created equal! By this I mean that the templates that Facebook offer you, are chosen based upon the industry that you are in (i.e., what you specify when you first set up the page. You should also know that when you choose the business name and the industry, these cannot be changed. You would have to delete the page and start over, so choose wisely).).  A brick and mortar retailer for example will be given the place to enter their store  hours etc., but not given any space to include who they are, what their business is, their mission or their objectives – this template is reserved for businesses that are more Consultative in nature.  So in many cases, when you visit someone’s page, you will either land on their less than informative ‘info page’ or on their ‘wall’ and right into the middle of the conversation.

So how does one create a welcoming environment so that you can tell people who you are, what you are about both as a person and as a business entity? This is where the Facebook Welcome Pages (landing pages) have become so popular.  Not only can you tell people in words, but you can incorporate video, audio and pictures to make the page more exciting. It’s another great touch point. In addition, you can set this up so that it is the default landing page for anyone new visiting your page. Once they ‘like’ the page, from then on, each time they return to the page, they will go directly to the wall.  It’s a nice warm welcome and people will gravitate to your page. In addition, this page should be properly branded to reflect your Facebook business page and all your other online sites.

This Welcome Page needs to be created using Facebook Markup Language (FBML) and this is an application that can be added to your page.  Unless you have the necessary technical skills, this isn’t something that most of you will tackle on your own, but thankfully there are people out there like me, a Social Media Specialist with training in Facebook Business Pages, who can help you set one up!  Please feel free to contact me or another qualified Virtual Administrator that you may know.

I would love your feedback on Welcome Pages that you have seen and admired, or even your own! You’ll get commentluv here on my site. That’s a plug in for bloggers. Leave a comment and you can leave a link back to your own site.

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….

Canada Welcomes The World…

There is nothing like the Olympic Games to bring the world together.  Over 80 countries have gathered to compete, demonstrate their skills and share their culture and friendship.   I am a huge fan of the Olympic Games.  This year as I watched some of my favorite sports,  I was struck by how many similarities there are between the Games and Social Media. Here are my top 7 ways the Olympics mirror the Social Media landscape.

1. Strategy: Whether you are a curling team vying for a gold medal or a business owner keen to grow their business, a comprehensive, well thought out strategy is key to your success. One wonders what strategy the Norwegian team was using when they chose these pants however LOL!  The good news is, as a business manager, you can opt for something a little less flashy!

2. Coaching: Few athletes will reach the top of the world’s standings without the assistance of a great coach.  So too for marketing your business in the social media realm.  There are so many applications, so many opportunities, that using the services of a skilled Social Media Specialist, is recommended for your success.

3. Focus: Olympians have a very regimented training schedule and they have a razor sharp focus on attaining their dream – that of an Olympic gold medal.  In Social Media, it is easy to get distracted in the myriad of applications out there.  Staying focused on the defined objectives is half the battle.

4. Commitment: Long track speed skaters can have thighs that measure 70 cms (that’s 27.5″) in circumference.  And that’s each thigh!  No one gets that big without rigorous training and commitment to their sport. To say nothing of the fact that they likely need to have their pants custom made!  Businesses wishing to get involved in social media should know that overnight success is doubtful. It requires a commitment to the process and a willingness to stay the course.

5. Adaptiveness: Short track speed skating takes place at a blistering pace.  With competition nipping at their ‘heels’, a skater needs to stay on their ‘toes’ as change happens very quickly.  So too in the Social Media space.  With technology changes and new applications on our doorstep almost daily, it’s important to stay current and be able to adapt quickly to changing trends.

6. Approachability: You see many athletes being great ambassadors of their sport.  Featured here is Canadian Gold and Silver Medalist Jennifer Heil, trying to explain the concept of Mogul skiing to a group of Rwandans. Wonder how that went? Approachability is so important in Social Media.  Becoming known as an expert in your field and an approachable one at that is a key component to your success.

7. Community: As I said in the beginning,the Olympic Games have the unique ability to unite the world.  This year as the torch passed through Canada, 12,000 torchbearers had the honor of carrying the flame through 1037 communities uniting its peoples as its magic burned bright.  Social Media has also become a bright light in the marketing world, going mainstream, extremely viral and carrying with it, the ability to speak to your audience 24/7. Building relationships is what it’s all about!

I would love to get your feedback. What is your favorite Olympic sport? Mine is definitely short track skating. 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.

Enjoy the rest of the Olympics! Cheer on your favorite athletes and your country.  For me, yup, I’m a proud Canadian – GO CANADA!

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

Joanne

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