Virtual Assistant – THE Blog About Our Industry

About the Virtual Assistant industry for VAs and for clients

Category Archives: Networking Tools

Are you on Google+ yet?

I am, however I’m as yet undecided about the usefulness of it.  I know that there are over 20million people on it already even though it’s in Beta form.  I do understand how the circles work and find that could be a useful tool.  But do I need another social media tool?  Who am I reaching that I’m not already via Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter and do I have the time to really want to play around with it?

How about you? Are you using Google+? Would you like to share your highlights (or lowlights) on its workings for you and your business?  Or, if you’re not yet on it, would you like to be but haven’t yet received an invitation?  I received 2 on the same day just a couple of weeks ago and have been playing with it since.  If you are on it and would like to add me to a circle or two, you can find me at ?http://gplus.to/kathiemt

 

Famous people at LinkedIn

I did a double take when I saw the latest selection of ‘people you might know’ this morning at LinkedIn.  I bet you recognise some of these names too?  Obviously an April Fool’s joke – although it’s now April 2nd in Australia. Or perhaps LinkedIn has found a way to resurrect people too.    Wonder how many people try to connect to them?

Whatever happened to professionalism?

aaarrghh!  I can’t believe how many emails I get these days where people do not sign off, or include contact details. What is wrong with people these days? Is email no longer considered a professional way of contacting others?

What am I talking about?  Signature blocks. I receive emails from Virtual Assistants, from service and product providers, from other organisations where people just sign off with their firstname and nothing else.  No surname, no business name, no website address, no phone number, nothing.

Like yes I have everyone’s details at my fingertips and why shouldn’t I waste my time trying to look up that information if I want to visit their website or give them a ring on the phone?  The amount of time I’ve wasted going through older emails to get someone’s details if I don’t have them on my database, or having to google to find them.  It’s extremely annoying.

I was purchasing wooden photo frames recently for an exhibition I have coming up – the provider just signs off with her first name and nothing else.  I already had to email her and ask for her address. And then she wondered why I didn’t know what hours her shop was open after I complained I’d gone down there for a pick up only to find the shop was closed.  How was I to know she’s not open on Mondays?

An NFP organisation that was fixing a problem on their website for me – not giving the web link after letting me know things have been sorted.  I don’t remember everyone’s web addresses off by heart.

Many VAs do it too. Give your readers and potential audience/clients the chance to know how to find you online and by phone by always making it available to them through your signature block. It’s your online business card!

Ok, vent over, but hopefully you get the point.  Make sure that you have more than just your name at the end of your emails – you stand to lose potential business otherwise.

Using Facebook for business

As many business owner/operators have done, I’ve turned to Facebook for networking opportunities.  When I first started using Facebook a few years ago I set up two profiles – one for personal use and one for business. I didn’t want to confuse personal stuff with business stuff and really didn’t want my business contacts seeing what various members of my family were chatting about.  For me, that made sense to do.

However, Facebook has in their Terms of Use that you should really only have the one account and when the use of business pages became the thing to do, I closed down my business profile and created business pages for people to ‘like’ and remain connected with me on a business level.  So I contacted as many as I could to let them know, but not all followed me to my new location and I lost a few.  Hopefully they read this blog and might reconnect by liking my new existing pages.

I have made many new contacts via Facebook and because I use it consistently have also gained new clients through being able to provide a service setting up Facebook pages and helping clients to maintain their Facebook business profiles.

I have more than one business page on Facebook – in fact, four, and each have their own list of followers.  It is, however, mainly my A Clayton’s Secretary and KathiesPhotos pages that have the most followers and activities and I have my respective blogs feeding both of these pages, plus connections to Twitter.  Photography is a passion of mine outside of working hours and so it was with both surprise and pleasure that I picked up a booking for an exhibition of my photography, simply because my photos had been seen at Facebook.  I also gain many comments at Facebook about the photos – more than at my blog, although my blog does cry out for comments (hint, hint).

One more thing – if you have a signature block for your business (and you should) why not include your Facebook and Twitter links – I use the logos for each social network tool in my signature block. A great way to encourage people to connect with you and continue networking.

So, if you haven’t already, I invite you to ‘like’ my Facebook pages – either one or both.  And please understand that if you send me an ‘Add Friend Request’ it will be refused but only because I prefer to keep family and friends separate to business.