2009 February | RJ's Word of Mouth Weblog

Monthly Archives: February 2009

Virtual Assistants Can Help You With That Also

February 27, 2009

As an entrepreneur and small business owner, you are aware of the importance of using social media networking as a marketing strategy. You also realize how much time is involved in social media networking. I can spend an entire day on Twitter alone networking with other entrepreneurs. In order to save you some valuable time, virtual assistants can help you with your networking efforts. Keep in mind, virtual assistants use the same social media networking techniques and know their way around social media sites. A virtual assistant can set up your social media profiles at various sites, as well as filter through posts for any relevant information pertaining to your business. On Twitter, a Virtual Assistant can check your DMs (direct messages) and your replies (posts directed to you) to see if there is anything you need to respond to. A Virtual Assistant can also post pertinent information about your company and products and/or services. Larger companies are starting to use Twitter to communicate with their customers about their products and/or services, in addition to getting their feedback. Another feature of Twitter is you have people following you and people you choose to follow. A Virtual Assistant can research the ones following you to see if they are viable potential clients. In addition, s/he can search for possible clients for you to follow on Twitter.

As you know, social media networking allows you to create business relationships, as well as give your prospective clients the opportunity to learn more about you; therefore, it is necessary for you to spend some time networking on these social media sites. However, virtual assistants can help you save a huge amount of valuable time; time you can use to focus on your clients. Virtual assistants can help you with social media networking also.

By RitaJo | Posted in Clients, Entrepreneur, Online Marketing, Rita Cartwright, Rita J. Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Social Networking, Solopreneur, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Services, Virtual Assistants | Tagged Entrepreneur, Online Marketing, Rita Cartwright, Rita J. Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Solopreneur, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Services, Virtual Assistants | Comment (1)

A Marketing Tool for Your Online Marketing Strategy

February 26, 2009

Recently I went on a virtual e-book tour to promote my newly released e-book, “Online Marketing Tools for Today’s Small Business.” For us entrepreneurs and small business owners, writing can be an inexpensive way of marketing our small businesses. This can involve writing articles, blog posts, and/or e-books. It is not necessary to be a well-known author in order to write or have virtual book tours. If you choose to write e-books, you can go on virtual e-book tours to promote your e-book. As a result, your services and/or products, and your business will be promoted at the same time. If you are an author, you, too, can do virtual book tours to promote your books.

Because of today’s technology and blogs, book tours can be done virtually, and it is an inexpensive, creative tactic to advertise your e-books or books. However, coordinating virtual book tours can be time-consuming. If you don’t have time to arrange the tour, outsource this task to a Virtual Assistant. The process consists of you (or your Virtual Assistant) and blog owners coordinating dates for when you will stop by their blogs. On the date of your tour stop, the blog owner can interview you or you can participate in a question and answer session with the blog owners’ readers. If you choose to do an interview, you supply the blog owners with the questions and answers for them to post on their blogs, which is the standard procedure in the current media world. Periodically, you check in to see if there are any questions or comments from the blog readers you need to address regarding your interview.

To encourage the blog readers to get involved, hold some type of random drawing for anyone who submits a comment or question. At http://random.org/, you enter the e-mail addresses of the participants in a list randomizer and a random e-mail address is selected. This would be your random winner. On my tour, I gave away free copies of my e-book to random winners who participated, as well as to the blog owners as a way of expressing my gratitude for them hosting my tour stops.

In my e-book, I discuss various online marketing tools and strategies, which include virtual book tours. If you would like to learn about additional marketing tools that you can use in your online marketing plan, click here to purchase my e-book, as well as find out more about it.

By RitaJo | Posted in Blog, E-book, Entrepreneur, Marketing, Online Business, Online Marketing, Outsourcing, Rita Cartwright, Rita J. Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Solopreneur, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Book Tour, Virtual E-book Tour | Tagged E-book, Entrepreneur, Outsourcing, Rita J. Cartwright, Single-Person Business, Single-Person Business Owner, Small Business, Small Business Owners, Virtual Assistant | Comments (0)

How Do Businesses Economically Survive Inclement Weather?

February 12, 2009

ritajopurple Since I live in Southern California, I never think about being snowed in because of inclement weather. I can’t even fathom it since I have never lived in that type of climate. However, I am aware that in severe weather, businesses are sometime forced to close; whereas, in other cases, businesses can remain open, but some of the staff may not be able to get to work because of the road conditions.

However, one way businesses can economically survive during periods of inclement weather is to work with virtual assistants. The administrative tasks will be completed no matter what the weather is or if the business remains open or not. This can save companies money or, at least, reduce the amount of money that would have otherwise been lost. Another domino effect is the cost to the economy. Jill McLachlan of JMVA in the UK stated that in her country, according to Federation of Small Businesses, the cost to their economy may rise to $4B, because of a recent snow storm. Approximately 20 percent of the staff could not get to work.

The same holds true for parts of our country that deals with this same type of weather. Businesses may want to consider having virtual assistants as a backup to their regular staff for these situations in order to economically survive inclement weather. Small businesses who work with virtual assistants on an ongoing basis never have to worry about their projects and/or tasks being completed during harsh weather. Virtual assistants do not have to commute to their clients’ offices to provide the administrative support they need in order to keep the operations of their businesses going.