Are you admin for pages on Facebook?

From then the social network will no longer collect data from the old page insights and insights as we know it, will disappear completely on February 15th 2012.

On the old page insights they advise you to back up your information as this will be deleted on February 15th but your data from December 15th will be collected in the new improved insights.

Have you also noticed…. on your personal Facebook page how you can fine tune what you see or what people see of you? If you are tired of seeing what everyone is listening to and reading, change the settings. You now have multiple choices for handling this overload of information in your news feed, by hide,delete,unsubscribe,unfriend, report or block options. The button to the right of a post drops down to give you all these options and a much calmer way to handle the regular (far to regular) postings of some. You can then still decide to visit their feed when you choose rather than your page be overloaded.

You can click to view all updates, or most or only important ones too, so again you can refine individually, what you see according to how much you want to see of friends. Further changes can be made on a friends’ profile where the subscribe button allows you to customise even more precisely. Options are here too, to add friends to particular lists; Places of work,schools,residences and family relationships.

How to hide yourself away…on chat. The follow on from all this privacy and hiding of other people’s posts, leads me to this option. On the chat screen there is a small settings button which gives you the option of, to chat or not to chat, primarily you can see who’s on line and they can see you are available to chat. If you want to refine this, limited availability can be optimised and you can restrict who can communicate with you at any point in time, alternating between your various lists.

Do you need any help with all the things that Facebook keep changing? Email us or telephone Tamara on 0203 468 8594 to find out how to optimise your pages

Copy can be written, for your approval, that regularly connects you with your affiliates and can supply them with banners and links to use for promoting your business. For Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, virtual support can write social media updates that affiliates can use to advertise and promote. They can write examples of blog posts that can also be used to spread the word about your product.

By implementing a timetable, promotions can be scheduled and materials organised that will be required to run the proposed campaign.

A VA can manage your programme by supporting your affiliates, answering any questions and help them with any difficulties they may have. By keeping in touch with them by email they can provide tips to help promote your product. Contacting affiliates by phone, providing a personal touch, can help your team, knowing that there are real people within the business, there to assist them, in what can be a rather ‘lonely’ internet world.

A virtual assistant can run regular reports to check on affiliate sales and follow up with contact to them to help with promotion or congratulate on their performance!

Are you thinking of starting an affiliate programme for your business? You can email us here, or telephone and speak to Tamara, on 0208 468 8594.

They can handle voicemail messages and respond to enquiries where they are able and provide you with details when necessary. When handling phone calls a VA can take notes of important items raised and pass this information on to you.

Customer support in the form of setting up billing, and scheduling appointments are easily dealt with, together with assisting with your group membership.

Support can be set up an online calendar so appointments can be scheduled with you, informing you of time, date, place and who the meeting is with. You can then be fully prepared for an appointment.

With an online calendar in place birthday cards (and any other card) can be sent out for you. Never miss that birthday or anniversary again! You can then be reminded of important dates and deadlines.

Reports of monthly sales and expenses can be correalated for you, so at a glance, you can see how the business is running.

Virtual support can put in place all manner of online systems, an online calendar, membership software and shopping cart are all within their remit, building your online presence without the need for you to learn all manner of programmes which are required to manage them.

They can offer help on how to organise document folders and your email, screen email to reduce time wasted on things that your assistant can handle, sending you only the email that you need to see and action.

A VA can set up recurring payments and pay your bills online. They can manage projects and tasks offering an all round support for your business.

Just recently I had cause to use an online plant company and thought what a grand opportunity it would have been for them to have introduced a virtual support team into the business to have helped handle customer enquiries during what is obviously a frantic time of the year for them. They only need the extra assistance for a small period of time during the year and a virtual assistant could have helped without the need to employ extra staff, and the time would have been billed accordingly. Customers need to have a response within 24 hours to any enquiry they make and not be told that the answer will take four days! One of the advantages of using virtual support, you only pay for the hours worked, reducing your wage bill considerably and keeping your customers happy with a timely response.

To find out more of how we can help in your business, email us or telephone Tamara on 0203 468 8594.

The best of both worlds comes from a team that is provided with a clear picture of your vision , who are then given the freedom to do the job to the best of their abilities.

Are you are afraid of taking the plunge because you’ve heard horror stories of Virtual Assistants leaving you in a mess, and you have no idea how to access the parts of your empire they have dealt with?

To avoid this happening:

It’s a mistake to carry on with something that is only OK, it’s a waste of their time and your money. Don’t settle for second best just because it’s easier. Your team should support your business, helping it progress and grow. If you have chosen your team unwisely, you can change this. Don’t expect things to get better until you have taken responsibility and made the moves necessary to remedy the situation, whatever that entails. Having a heart to heart with your team may sort things and give people the opening to either follow and really work with you at your business or take the moment to move on and find something else.

You don’t have to go it alone, there are many virtual support professionals available who can help you succeed in your business . Trying to do everything yourself is a recipe for disaster . There are people available to do all the jobs you hate doing, or the ones that take you such an inordinate amount of time to do, which would then allow you to get on with building your business while they take care of things.

Have you got the right team?
If you feel, or can say, that your team cares as much for your business as you do, you may well have the ‘dream team ‘.
With the right team in place it should give you the confidence that they understand what you want and they will make it happen. They enjoy what they do and share with you in the success of your business, proving with what they do, that they care about your business as much as you do.

For help and advice, email or telephone Tamara, on 0203 468 8594.

Have you employed your Virtual Assistant and now don’t know what to do? If you are unsure of your needs before you hire you may end up with the wrong person for your business. Choosing someone needs to be based on what they can do for your business and if you haven’t a clear idea of what you want them to do, then your ability to choose the right person for the job is made more difficult. Likewise, if you are unaware of the capabilities of a Virtual Assistant, you may be looking at a work load that you think you need to do, when in fact the work load is better managed, and more efficiently done by a Virtual Assistant.

Your team that you employ need to be given a clear picture of what you see as the future of your business, what you want to see happen and where you want to be. If they know and understand your vision they can apply their knowledge and ability to help you reach your goals.

For your team to be able to achieve this, they need to be aware of the ‘big picture’ and will be working at a disadvantage if you expect them to gain this knowledge by mind-reading or ‘osmosis’. Don’t hire a team and think that all the work is now done. You still need to share with them and keep them updated on changes that could affect your vision. The inability to share the knowledge with your team will lead to frustration for them, and could lead to an incorrect decision being made. An error in judgement leading to a wrong things being done, result; a waste of time and money. The other scenario being no action by your team, again a disgruntled you and a frustrated team, twiddling their thumbs and again, a terrible waste of man power.

Have things run well for a while but things seem to have taken a backward step? Did you jump at the chance of hiring and made a mistake and hired the wrong person for the job? Or were you unsure of where you were heading? Before hiring, clarify where you are in your business and what you want to achieve. This gives you a basis for selecting the right people for the job.

For more help and advice, contact us by email or telephone Tamara on 0203 468 8594.

Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Virtual events allow you and your business to present your message and brand, easily and effectively, providing your audience with the information they require.

Your virtual event needs to be easy to use and without the requirement to download, leaving you free to run your business. You can then concentrate on what message you want to get across rather than how to use the programmes.

With the recent rise in the cost of travel and transportation, the virtual event, can reduce your expenses in getting your message to your audience, by removing the need for people to travel.

With the requisite travel removed, so too, the overnight accommodation and extended time away from your audiences’ employment. All these, in any business, will be costed against a real world conference or trade show producing a substantial cost to a company.

Reports say that you may well have 4 times more sales leads from a virtual event than a physical one. Together with a database of attendees to use again and again, which will lead to more sales.

There are 2 basic types of virtual events:

The virtual show – This would ordinarily occur in a large conference hall or similar and brings a large physical production, that may have taken months to plan and augment, to your computer-using audience, wherever they may be. They can listen and watch your presentation, digest your information and immediately put it into action.
Your ability to showcase your latest products so easily and inexpensively will reduce your costs and benefit your audience by removing the hassle factor of travelling to a physical event.

Your presentation can avoid boring slides and using the tools available can be turned into a very interesting and flash production.

Just as your audience can be anywhere in the world, likewise your expert speakers can do their presentations from their own offices or wherever they can receive a signal for the Internet connection (even in the nearest Wi-Fi zone when the internet is down). Without the problem of time and travel, which is factored into a physical event, you will be able to provide quality content and speakers who will be able to concentrate on their presentation without the drain on energy of hours spent travelling.

Although you may have a list of attendees for your ‘live’ event, or a boxful of business cards, attendees of virtual events will have logged in with an email that ‘exists’ and provides you with a ready made database of visitors to your event.

The webcast

Revolving around either a single person or a group, no matter where they are located, the use of several different technologies can be used to deliver your message.

Webcasts work on different browsers and platforms, enabling all of your audience to view and take part without the need to download programmes.

Your webcast can also be recorded and distributed after the event, with an ability to reach an even larger audience.

Recording of your event removes the need to take notes and allows reviewing of content at an attendee’s convenience. Removing the hassle for attendees to attend a live event allows you to supply a consistent and engaging message.

Your webcast can be a two-way thing with attendees able to ask questions (or instant message), which lets them learn more and add to your presentation. Your audience can be allowed to communicate with each other also. The extra interaction adds to the value of the webcast for people viewing the presentation after the event.

See next week’s blog for more on virtual events.

ON24, a virtual event company, their research shows that between 20% and 95% savings are achieved when the event is a virtual one. When you realise it doesn’t just stop at savings made by attendees and all the travel and accommodation costs, the people who are arranging the event also gain from the ease and speed of arranging a virtual event, together with additional benefits of spending less time on the project.

In creating a virtual event you have produced a permanent record for future use, whether in a learning base, or for repeating at a future date to another audience or to re-purpose the information to use outside of the event.

A virtual event generates excitement, meaning extra customers and more leads. ON24 research reports that 4 to 5 times more leads are generated from a virtual event than from a physical one.

Your database of attendees will supply you with information of not only who attended but with any other information you wish to gather from them (eg. location) which may assist you in the promotion of your products.

Leads generated at virtual events are far more numerous than those made at physical events, with a neat database compiled as a bonus. Unlike physically collected names and email addresses a virtual event attendee will have always supplied a valid email address otherwise they would not be able to attend (and your report will inform you of who attended). A database from your virtual event informs you of which item your lead is interested in so you can promote that offer (about which you will have learnt everything possible!).

In contrast to the whirlwind of a physical event, where numbers and attendees to each specific part of the event are difficult to track and evaluate, the technology involved in a virtual event can report on numbers of attendees, specific areas of interest and sessions attended. Reports track and log your virtual event(s) showing who showed and what time they spent there. The ability to analyse their interactions with others, what they downloaded or viewed is a very useful tool, which can tell you about your audience.

Virtual event technology can provide you with valuable marketing data based on any criteria you or your sponsors decide upon. The genuine information provides you with information to target your marketing efforts. This can be a real time saver for you when you can ‘read’ your market.

Go green.… a fringe benefit, or it maybe one of your overriding objectives to run a ‘green’ company, using virtual technology to promote, teach or gain leads, ticks many of the boxes to help you achieve this end. The savings on fuel, travel, time lost to events, both attending and producing, compared to the physical event has to be of benefit both to you and your audience in helping to create a greener environment.

Some of our events that we have joint hosted on Eventbrite

Within Eventbrite you can list and promote your event, with analytics and data gathered for future reference.

Blog your business to success! Antonia Chitty of ACEInspire & Tamara Baranova of TJConsulting

Using Facebook to Create Business Success Monique Lester of London Digital PR & Tamara Baranova of TJConsulting Virtual Assistance

Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Engaging your audience is a large part of staging a virtual event.

Let your audience determine your content. Make your content interesting and cover popular topics. Find out what your audience likes to do both on and off line. Produce your event so that the content is familiar and comfortable to them.

Promotion

Once everything is in place, event planned, sponsors on board, your twelve week time line gives you plenty of time to publicise your event.

Start your promotion 8 weeks before your event date. The ability to track your promotional activities (campaign tracking) lets you know just how well things are going. You can take immediate action if your promotion is not working.

10 ideas for a Virtual Event

For more information contact us by email or on 0203 468 8594.

Without a business plan, how can you, or any one else involved with your business, judge where you are? You can have the best business coach in the world, be motivated and have a fantastic idea but a plan makes the difference between disappearing into the darkness or becoming a shining light in your niche. With business plan in hand, you and others involved with your business can time-line and measure your progress. You can tell when you are ahead in your game or dreadfully out of alignment and therefore need to alter your website to regain your audience and customers.

Business plan:
There are several different ways to create a marketing plan to promote your online presence. Your local Chamber of Commerce may offer free or discounted business planning and development resources to members and non-members or you can try the do-it-yourself way with Marketing Plan Pro by John Jantsch ,powered by Duct Tape Marketing.( It is a simple, practical marketing plan software that makes it easy to plan and carry out the marketing activities you need to grow your business.) Another approach is to find a coach or consultant that specialises in creating marketing plans.

Marketing:
With a business plan in place, now is the time to activate your marketing. If you find yourself without the resources to put the plan into action, use Duct Tape Marketing principles to get things moving until you can hire additional resources. A virtual assistant or online business manager may be an alternative. Paying per hour reduces the costs but gains you experienced help for putting your business plan into action. With a business plan in place, all those involved in moving your business forward are aware of your goals.

Steady as you go:
Now you have a plan in place, you have identified the resources to implement; now it’s time to set off. If you have limited resources, aim for a slow, steady approach and find a rhythm that works with your available resources.

Measure:
The results of your marketing plan and strategies need to be measured and assessed for effectiveness on a regular basis. Do you have an e-newsletter or e-mail signup on your site? How many are subscribed? Or unsubscribe? Aweber and other e-mail/e-newsletter programs generally have reports so you can tell how well different campaigns have worked. Google analytics tracks site visits, page visits and time spent on your site so you can analyse how well each page is working. In the beginning, don’t try and track everything but be aware that the information is there when you are ready. With your reports and knowledge gained from these, you can develop consistency in your marketing to build and grow your business.

Secondly, it’s all about the process and self-discipline. Keep your books up to date and avoid piles of receipts and invoices stacking up in the corner. Tackling books a little and often would reduce your fear and overwhelm when dealing with it. You can also employ an accountant to keep an eye on your records. This will be much cheaper than getting them to do it all for you, but you won’t have to fear making a mistake and being fined by the “tax people”.

Finally, realise why you are doing it. Bookkeeping is a wonderful practice helping you as a business owner understand where you need to reduce the expenses and how you can gain more profit. Bookkeeping is a core area of your business, it’s the blood pressure measurements of your cash flow lifeblood. If you don’t do it regularly you may miss the warning signals of your business running out of cash. As a solopreneur coach or consultant you would really want to avoid that at all costs!

Here are our useful tips on how to deal with your business bookkeeping:

• Your bookkeeping will be more effective if you have a system that can quickly analyse the financial transaction of your company. You will then see the “large picture” behind the numbers and reconciliation.
• Keep your offline books and registers in either invoice number or date order, rather than entering some in invoice number and some in date order. Try to keep your personal expenses separate from your business expenses at all times. Be consistent with the way you decide to do your bookkeeping.
• Follow a check-off list whether you employ payroll services or you are preparing payroll tax returns by yourself. Keeping a good due date reminders will be the best idea in order to file and pay the taxes on time.
• Keep good records. If your records are poorly maintained, you will not be able to understand the expenses and the income in the past and in the future. You will be unable to decide on important decisions like investment, marketing or hiring staff. This creates massive chaos in your business planning!
• Request bank statement with month end cut off date. This will save your time while reconciling your records with the bank statement every month.
• Establish a systematic practice of monitoring transactions on a regular basis (daily or weekly). This will avoid the small mistakes, lost receipts or the unwanted purchases.
• Depositing the cash immediately at the bank once it’s received. Check how the bank charges you for over the counter services. It may make more sense to receive payments and pay your suppliers via online transfers (direct debit, standing order or direct deposit).

But if all fails and you just don’t want to do it any more – hire a bookkeeper. Online bookkeeping is straightforward and will let you just view the reports and summaries, while someone else, like a virtual assistant, can deal with entering all transactions.