Tips on how to get more people to like your page.

1.  Be 100% committed to your page
2.  Focus on what you want to promote. 
3. Brainstorm on the possible themes that are interesting and related to how you want your service to be recognized for.
4.  Create regular posts that relate to your main theme and connect your page to your blog sites, twitter, linkedin, merchant circle and community based site like patch.com. In this way, you create more possibilities for more people to view your page

Social Networking.....What comes to mind?

Social Networking…What comes to mind? "Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin".

There is more to social networking than these three giants.  Try to open an account with ping.fm and you will see how much social networking sites there are.  Ping.fm provides the single log-on to all social networking sites for free.

Creating awareness for our products and services is the reason why we need to be visible and active in the social networking sites.   There are just so many out there and   Wikipedia has come up with  list of social networking sites, check this link,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites.
Let us take a peek at the some of the newbie social networking sites and how it can help you with prospecting and selling your services:

1. Referral Key  is an online referral network that helps users strengthen their existing relationships with an emphasis on driving referrals to one another.
2. BranchOut was founded in July 2010 which will help you expand your career network to include absolutely everyone you know on Facebook.  I would say that this is a LinkedIn-wannabe-in Facebook.
3. Stik.com allows friends in facebook win business within your social circle by recommending them.
4. Meetup.com  lets you meet other local people to discuss Meetups you have attended, ideas for future Meetups and find a group that shares your own interest.
5. Merchant Circle is  best site to connect with merchants, allows you to post blogs and create coupons for your businesses. 
6. Shopchino.com is a business site for merchant  This works like merchant circle as well the only difference is that it allows you to create your own virtual store. 
7. Activerain is the site for realtors. 
8. Groupsite.com is one of my favorites because it allows one to connect with your own community/group.  I have met a lot of professionals through this site and being part of this site has been very helpful with being noticed within your own community/group.

All these sites will help you create awareness for your products and services but learning how to use these sites to maximize your profitability is what you need to learn as a business owner.  This is where social networking trainings can help you learn how  to set up and  use the sites to get more clients  or  consulting  a virtual marketing assistant that specializes in social networking will be your best cost effective choice.

Grace Castillo is a social networking consultant and expert who focuses on helping businesses set up their promotions through social networking and teaches businesses how to utilize features of the social sites to drive in more clients to your business.

Learning to push your website ranking up

Learn the importance of backlinks to your website.  Understand the big role it plays in pushing your website ranking with the search engines.  Hence, link development is crucial, trainings are available for businesses.  Sign up for individual or group trainings.  VAG Media Offers individual or group trainings for SEM focusing on creating the right backlinks that your site needs.  The training will include the following:

• Encouraging creativeness – thinking innovatively for link-building
• Conducting brainstorming sessions – evolves new ideas and contributes to the results  better
• There is no shortcut for success, and you will need to very consistent with your strategies
• Researching on how to find the right sites to link with

Social Networking .. making it work for you

Social Networking is the new trend for doing business.  I am a virtual assistant and I conduct my business through facebook, twitter, Merchant Circle, LinkedIn and blogging.  It has helped me a lot in promoting services of my clients, infact, this is all I need. 

How many profiles are there in Facebook and Twitter.  How many businessmen have a linked In account.  How many articles are there in Blogger?  Millions….How can this not be the best way to get clients?  In the case of realtors and insurance agents, referrals usually come from your own network of friends.  Isn’t that why we  have facebook profiles to keep in touch and to know what is going on with our own circle of friends?  We post pictures of where we have been and what is happening to us…isn’t this the best way for us to know if anyone from our circle needs something that we can provide?

Facebook and Twitter starts within our own circle and, as we continue to connect with all our immediate friends, we get to have the chance to invite more friends of our friends to be part of our own circle depending on  how you set up your Facebook account.  What is the first thing that you see when you open your facebook profile…you see your home page.  You see feeds of what is happening to all your friends and not just that….you  are given access to comments made by their friends on postings they have made.  Isn’t this awesome to know that from this postings you can actually get a lead and be given the chance to have a prospect?   For example, a friend of yours posts a picture of their new baby…isn’t this telling you something? For an insurance guy it tells you that they will need protection, a savings plan and an educational plan, and so forth.  For a realtor, if you are a close friend or may have someone who is close to the family, it gives you an idea that maybe you need to see if they need a bigger house with more rooms or maybe they are now planning to buy house because they were just renting.   Then maybe you need to stop by and bring something for the new baby.  This is just an example of how you can interpret posting in Facebook.
Facebook has so many features that we can maximize to our advantage.   We only need to learn and understand how facebook and all  other social networking sites will be used as a tool to get our clients.  I will discuss this in separate blogs.

Grace Santa Cruz
Virtual Admin & Marketing Assistant

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Virtual-Assistance-Grace/194460257247565
http://twitter.com/#!/gracescc2000

How to make your expenses work for you efficiently

Tips for Small Businesses -- How to make your expenses work for you efficiently through the services of a Virtual Asisstant:
1. Search the market for an efficient Virtual Assistant (VA).  VAs  charge less than a regular staff member but the efficiency is equal or, at times, even higher.  Let's take a scheduler as an example.  Virtual Assistants will focus on getting you those appointments set 100% of the time since they are focused on that specific role.  

2. Virtual Assistance (VA) is an independent service and is not directly hired by you.  Having a VA does not bind you to the legalities of having an employee.

 3. There is no need to invest on training them because VAs are experts on specific functions that you require thus saves you time and effort.