5 Things Your Competitors Can Teach You About SEO

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CompetitorsWhat your competitors can teach you about SEO

Search engine optimization or simply SEO is one complex mechanism that even professionals get a hard time in cracking out the shell. For a fact, the algorithm has been changing overtime as search engines always want to give the people justifiable and reliable results for their queries. If you are an SEO professional, how can you get your hands on the top page?
To keep the content in top rankings, your search engine optimization strategies should always be legit and updated. Any foul schemes can be detected and eventually will sink your ranking to a lower level. In light of this, here are some tactics that you can practice to catch up with any search engines’ changes in algorithm.

Lesson #1: Content is king

Over the years, the content has remained as one integral factor in search engine optimization success. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo have always known that people are up to valuable content and not something empty-worded article. If you want your content to live up with the results, then you better affix high quality attribute. Furthermore, avoid putting duplicate content into your website. Observe your competitors articles in relations with their SEO technique or strategy.

Lesson #2: Getting reliable links

One thing that will surefire the success of search engine optimization is the links. This still works until today, but it now has to do with “natural and earned” links. Even if you buy links, there is no absolute guarantee that these links will count.
So how are you going to earn these links that are acceptable to the search engines? It may take up a lot of hard work and luck, but you can earn these links through endorsements. If you influenced other bloggers or journalists to write something about your business and link it to your site, then the search engine will count it in. You can get a good idea on how your competitors are doing this.

Lesson #3: Not overdoing keywords optimization

A content enriched with keyword can be the downfall of search engine optimization. You should take note that search engines can read between the lines. Therefore, keep the specific keywords at bay and use other keywords instead. You will notice how a certain site have good use of keywords but never overdo it.

Lesson #4: Work on social media

Social media plays an integral role in uplifting your online ranking. It should be remembered that the stance of social media is wide and so is its capability to bring quality traffic. Therefore, be active in updating your social media accounts and do not forget to link your content back to your site as part of your search engine optimization strategy. Look at your competitors site and notice how well they do this-normally on the right side of their pages.

Lesson #5: Be patient and always be updated

One time search engine optimization will not instantly make your site recognizable by the search engines. It takes times as you implement several tasks to attain a long-lasting impact on your website’s traffic and rankings. Apart from being patient, you also have to keep yourself updated on the current happenings on the algorithm of search engines. It is through knowledge that you can tailor your strategies in optimizing a website.

If you don’t know who your competitor is simply “google” your keyword or phrase, and the first three sites are going to be the competition. But you’re not going to want to compete with the “big boys” as of yet, so look for websites close to your size for they will be your real competitors.
Indeed, working with search engine optimization is no easy task. In order to be successful, you should unify all the factors or techniques in SEO to reap out justifiable and good ranking.

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9 Effective Practices for Social Media Success!

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Social Media Success

Every businessman dreams out to be successful in his chosen industry. The fact that you will have a lot of competitors, it would not be easy to scratch the surface of success. For this very reason, you might be betting on establishing an online presence and one of these is through social media.

In today’s technological advancement, businesses make use of social media for many purposes. These include getting in touch with their clients, driving sales, or reducing the cost for marketing. No matter what the purpose it may serve, social media success is essential to fulfill any businesses’ objectives.

Speaking of social media success, “How to be successful?” is often the inquiry. The step to victory does not end in merely creating social media accounts, but rather on how you will tailor your strategy and put them into unwavering motion? In light of this, here are some practices that could be beneficial in your online endeavor.

·     Create simple social media references. When you create social media references, make it simple and short. The simplicity of these references will warrant your prospect target ease of remembering your brand and high chances of social media success. So whenever your consumers heard the advertisement on TV or radio, the references will ring easily in their heads.

·          Do your share in offline marketing. Do not simply rely on online campaign of your brand or company. To achieve social media success, employ as well the offline strategies to influence those within your target audience. Examples of which are incorporation of your social media references on business cards, invoices, product packaging, and even broadcast materials.

·     Be genuine. When you really want to gain the trust of your clients and truly achieve social media success, be true to yourself and to them. Therefore, use your real identity or the company’s name. You should take note that people can sense it whether you are being true or just fooling around.

·       Know your audience. Having a keen understanding on your target market can contribute to your social media success. Once you know how your audience interacts in social media platform, you can then tailor schemes on reaching out to them.

·       Listen to the public. To attain social media success, having all ears is one integral trait that all businesses should possess. You should acknowledge what your consumers’ concerns and what they think about your products or services. By being an active listener, you can address your consumers’ concerns more precisely.

·         Share awesome content. In social media, do not be self-centered. Instead of focusing on yourself, share content related to your industry that will interest your consumers. You should take note in social media success; interesting topics make people hooked into it. When you do so, people will talk about you through your content.

·        Communicate your mission and vision. Whatever social platform you are using, make it sure that you effectively convey your company’s mission and vision. In this aspect, you make your business appear in imbued professionalism and high credibility. In addition to this, you give your consumers a hint of what your company is all about and for what purpose it exists.

·         Do not annoy your followers. One thing that hinders social media success is being an annoyance. If you do not want your audience to draw back, then stop making requests that will do no good in their favor. Therefore, refrain from sending more than three messages or requests in a week.

·      Be consistent and remarkable. This would be easier said than done, but being consistent and living up for excellence will bring all your actions to social media success. Hence, do not falter in sharing valuable content, updating your account, and getting in touch with your audience. These actions will make you a remarkable company in the near future.

Discovering social media will not instantly bring you tangible results. However, keeping up with the best practices in social media will earn you success in the near future. As you attain social media success, there is the likelihood that it will do the same with your business!

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6 Effective SEO Tips to Guarantee Good Website Traffic

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Woman In Traffic

6 Effective SEO Tips to Guarantee Good Website Traffic

When was the last time you found yourself stuck on a freeway during rush hour, or downtown in a traffic jam, or just  simply trying to cross a busy street? There just doesn’t seem to be anything good about the word “traffic.” But that was before the wonder world of the internet. Now if you have a website of any kind, and you want to be found-you need traffic. Good traffic! And the more the merrier. So it’s important that we touch on a few effective seo tips to guarantee good website traffic.

Whether you are running an eCommerce website or a blog, it should speak for itself and reach millions of people online. This would only be possible if you get through of what you can call as Search Engine Optimization or simply SEO. However, many beginners and even veterans encounter troubles in making it on top of the search engine results due to complexity and demands of the process.

According to Blog Growth, there is more than 100 billion searches that occurs on a monthly basis and 70% of it takes place on Google. With this, SEO come into the picture to resolve your conundrum on how you can be on top. Speaking of being on top, SEO is quite demanding and yet, it will greatly contribute to your website’s reputation and credibility.

To get ahead against your competitors and earn massive traffic, bear these tips in mind. Efficient execution of the following  6 seo tips will highly tantamount to your success. So let’s get started!

  • Focus on Long-tail Keywords. One of the basics of SEO is keyword research.  If you are struggling to be on top, then try finding long-tail keywords through the Google’s Keyword Tool. Long tail keywords are a type of keyword phrase that has at least three, and some times as many as five words in the phrase.  For example, “home remedies for bed bugs” or “how to get rid of depression” are long-tail keywords compared to the more competitive search terms “bed bugs” or “depression”.

For a fact, the significance of keywords is undeniable to SEO. It is through these key terms that Google looks on articles, images, and website pages as they are being searched by the users. Although there are thousands of helpful articles or content, not all of them are being brought on the first page. Only the most relevant are shown.

  • Create Quality Content. “Content is king.” This is what SEO will always say in optimizing a website. Well, there is no doubt to it since people are always searching for quality articles. Therefore, always do an extensive research and write uniquely.
  • Optimize the Articles. Once you have created the article, it is about time to optimize it. The essentials to these are keywords, descriptions, and meta-title. As for the keywords, these are the terms that can be found in the post. Insert the keyword in the title to make the permalink keyword-rich as well. The second one which is the description should be concise around having less than 160 characters only. It should be in a descriptive paragraph form. Lastly, the meta-title should have less than 60 characters and should be SEO rich.
  • Practice Ethical Link Building. SEO does not only have to work on-page. It also covers the off-page aspects and embedding keyword links is the pillar to off-page SEO. You can ask someone or a credible source to embed the keywords back to your site. Anyhow, it will yield good results. Apart from this, you can also link your new post to your previous content covering the same niche.
  • Make Use of Multimedia. Images and videos are contents that generate more clicks in   comparison    with texts. Therefore, you will also have to optimize them by adding keywords and descriptions.
  • Ease of Websites. You should remember that search engines also consider the interface of websites. If it is poorly designed and burdens a user to navigate the site, then it will not attract the search engines. Therefore, avoid putting large files on your website that delays loading. Nevertheless, make it more appealing and friendly to the search engines and searchers.

SEO
So all traffic is not bad traffic anymore. Now there’s good traffic! There are a lot of ways to let your brand or website known in the cyber world. It only requires hard work and efficient execution of SEO strategies, and these seo tips will help. Nevertheless, it is only right to say that SEO is the mastermind behind organic searches so that others can find you online.

I hope you enjoyed this post on 6 effective seo tips to guarantee good website traffic.

Reginald Jackson
Social Media Specialist and Blogger in Dallas Texas

What Is Social Media

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Internet Marketing for Beginners: How to Build Your Own Website?

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A question that has often been asked is “Can I build a website myself?” In other words can I start a business online myself which includes building my own website? The answer is yes-compared to just a year or two ago when building a website required that you knew a lot about html and other things, or you had to hire someone to build your website for you for a “pretty penny.” But my how times have quickly change when it comes to building a website and how easier it is to start a business online and get up and running for very little cost-and we’re talking about nice looking sites! Now there are free website builders where you don’t have to purchase a domain name. Just enter on any internet search “Free Web Builders” and choose one.

Reasons For Building Your Own Website

  • Sell a product
  • Promote a service
  • Share or promote information
  • Start your own blog
  • Start a membership site
  • Share something professional like photography
  • Share something personal like a family story or history

Of course if you’re wanting to sell multiple products or create an online store, then you would have to have a commercial website built for you.

Building Your Site

There’s one important thing about free websites and that is you do not own it yourself-they do. You build a website like a Word-press website for an example where you own everything on it. If you already did a search for free websites, you probably noticed one called Word-Press.com. But at Word-Press.org you can build you a site that is all yours. Just purchase a domain name for no more than $15.00 per year. Then you will have to pay for hosting of that domain name for no more than about $15.00 per month. Again you do a simple search online for “web hosting” and choose one you like. Most web hosting allow you to purchase the domain name also. Be sure you put a lot of thought in choosing your domain name since this is very important in internet marketing to help people find your business online. If you don’t want to do this, then you can use a free website builder.

Building a site at word-press.org however is something you can do all yourself but you may need some assistance with tasks such as theme selections and plug-ins. What theme would be a good theme for you and what plug-ins will you need and how to find them and install them?

Where To Find Help

This is where a Social Media Manager or a Social Media Virtual Assistant can help you-but with some cost. You can for example consider those with the “Let’s Get Social” Social Media Managers group headed by a young woman name Kate Buck Jr. These Social Media Managers trained under this logo, are also specifically trained to set-up Word-Press sites. So if you do happen to have a small start-up budget and would like a little help, these individuals are not hard to find on the web. An example of a very simple word-press site is this one where you are reading this post.

Building your own website has truly gotten a lot easier in recent times. Free website builders like “Weebly,” “Web.com,” or “Yola,” and many others have easy to follow instructions. But before you start any business or build a site, DO RESEARCH. What would be a good product or service to promote? How would you choose a good name for your website? For more information on branding, visit https://regjackonline.com/?p=218. To find out how to research a good niche, this article will be helpful to you at http://ezinearticles.com/?&id=6633136. And if you would like to speak with a Social Media Manager, just click here.

Start Building Your Site

Hopefully this information will help you to get started as a beginner. Once you get your website created, internet marketing begins. You will learn much more as you go along such as how to get people to find your site online. But for now, do good research and get started building your site.

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How to Use Videos to Drive Traffic to Your Website

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Videos-How ToWhether you own a website for business or personal use, videos can be huge for bringing the outside-never before been to your market, to your website. There was a time when having a video on your website was a challenge to make, somewhat expensive, and time-consuming. But my how times have changed! With the emergence of social media sites and tools, video creation and use can be quite simple, inexpensive, and a lot of fun. Here are just a couple of ways to use videos to drive traffic to your business or personal site.

How to Create Videos That Guarantees Traffic to Your Site.

With a computer webcam, camcorder, or your mobile, create very short videos and save them to your hard drive. There are even software that will allow you to extract video footage from a video cassette at a small cost. How can this be accomplished?

How to Install Videos From A Video Camera to Your Computer.

One way is get the StashBox-a video editing application from StashSpace.Com that is very easy to use and has a great import directly from your camcorder option. The application is free. Go to http://www.stashspace.com and sign-up for an account (Free and Paid account levels). Then on the my account tab click on the StashBox icon. Their record directly from camcorder feature is very intuitive. They also have great pick up the phone customer support in case you need any help.
Also you can send your video tapes to StashSpace to be transferred into a digital format (only $7 tape). You can edit the video online or receive your video back on data DVD or portable hard drive.

How to Use YouTube.

1. You must first sign up for a free YouTube membership to upload videos. With your membership, you will also be able  to do things like create viewing playlists and comment on other videos.
2. To get started, the first thing you should do is click on the “Upload ” icon in the upper right corner of the YouTube home page.
3. Once you’ve lo-gin in , you’ll be able to begin the two-step video upload process. First, you’ll need to provide some information about the video you’re uploading.
4. On the next page, you’ll be able to upload your video file and specify the privacy settings (public or private): If you’d like to only select people you invite to be able to view your videos, choose “Private.” Otherwise, if you’d like anyone in the world to be able to view your videos, you should select the “Public” option.
5. To upload your video, press the “Browse” button to locate the video file on your computer and then press the “Upload Video” button:
Once you’re video has been uploaded, You Tube will automatically create an embedded code to copy and paste it to your website. Just click on the “Share” button and simply copy the code and paste it where your site ask for the code on your website dashboard.

Why Videos Draws Traffic.

There are many video tools and website to use besides YouTube. Vimeo.com and Tubemogul.com are also popular video sites to upload and share not just your own videos but theirs also. Remember that videos are SEO friendly-especially YouTube since it is owned by Google. Google loves websites that use videos and gives you a plus score when ranking your site.
Since it is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, so are good use of videos. Just keep in mind that the shorter your video the more effective it is.

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6 Ways to Determine If Need a VA to Manage Social Media?

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Virtual AssistantThis is a follow-up to an earlier post entitled “What Is A Social Media Virtual Assistant?”

 

 

A good question that I am frequently asked-but before I answer, as a business owner, you will need to determine a few things to set a solid foundation for your social media plan.

1) Solid Marketing Plan? Do you have a solid marketing plan?  NOT just social media,which is still the foundation and fabric of your outreach. Remember, social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Comeoninside.com are all TOOLS). Just like in a tool box, some tools are more effective for some projects than others.
My biggest heartbreak is to see an overwhelmed business owner who thinks they “have” to be on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and YouTube all at the same time. The dirty little secret is, not all social media platforms are good for all businesses. Truthfully, if you are promoting a message to the wrong  Twitter followers for example, how much valuable time would you be wasting?

2) Social Media Platforms List. Make a list of the social media platforms you currently have a profile on (i.e. Facebook Fan Page, Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube, Come on inside, etc.) This will help you determine if you want to continue on these platforms.

3) Social Media Time. How much time are you or your team spending ENGAGING on these platforms? Not just pre-posting or “pushing” your info, but genuinely interacting with your Facebook fans, Linkedin connections, Twitter followers, etc?

4) Social Media Presence. How much time do you WANT to spend on any given platform? What type of engagement do your client desire? What type of relationship are your clients asking from you?

5) Determine Time Needed. Once you have a determination of the amount of TIME needed, then you will know if a social media  assistant is a good fit.
Your time has to be worth something. Just like you are an expert in your field, your Social Media VA would be the same managing your online campaigns for you.

Based on approved guidelines the Social Media VA would be responsible for:
•Connecting with various types of professionals
•Updating content and making sure the content is linked with appropriate keywords, seo, etc.
•Distributing blogs and events to various locations. A lot of work.
•A good social media assistant or manager will give you statistics on what your social media plan is achieving. Platforms include but not limited to: Facebook Fan Pages, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, etc.

I would recommend that a Social Media VA only answers or responds to people on your behalf, with the business owner’s consent. Some business owners will want to reply to negative conversations themselves, let’s say on Facebook or Twitter for example, or some will  leave that entirely up to you. So it’s good to have an experience or trained Social Media Manager to help you, if that being the case.

6) Your Time’s Value in Dollars. Once you know the amount of time your company is spending on relating in social media, you figure out the cost to your business for those hours. If your team used those hours in a different area of your business – how much more successful will you be? That dollar figure is your new “marketing” budget for a Social Media Virtual Assistant. Their hourly rates will vary depending on location or specialty, from about $40 to $70/ hour. If you want expert results, then you will welcome an expert on your team as well.

By Angel Lebak of Virtual Assistant Social Media.com

Regardless if you hire a Social Media VA now or wait until your budget allows, social media management is quickly becoming a part of many companies marketing plans. So to be sure you have the accurate tools on hand to get the desired results, just click here for Contact information for RTJ Online-Social Media Assistant.

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How to Craft a Killer “Elevator Pitch” For Your Business

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This article will explain the elements of a powerful elevator pitch and then walk you through how to craft your own.

What is an Elevator Pitch?

This is the 30-60 second business description of what you do and why someone should work with you. It’s called an “Elevator Pitch” because it describes the challenge: “How would you explain your business and make a sale if fate placed you in an elevator with your dream prospect and you only had the time it takes to get from the top of the building to the bottom?”

Why Is Having an Elevator Pitch So Important?
You only have 30-60 seconds to make a powerful first impression. The attention span of the average person is just 30 seconds before their mind starts wandering. The other reason is people have less time today. You need to grab them quickly or lose them forever.

Essential Elements of a Powerful Elevator Pitch
1. Concise. Your pitch should take no longer than 30-60 seconds.

2. Clear. Use language that everyone understands. Don’t use fancy words thinking it will make you sound smarter. Your listener won’t understand you and you’ll have lost your opportunity to hook them.

3. Powerful. Use words that are powerful and strong. Deliver the “Sis-Boom-Bang” to grab their attention!

4. Visual. Use words that create a visual image in your listeners mind. This will make your message memorable.

5. Tell a Story. A short story, that is. A good story is essentially this: someone with a problem either finds a solution or faces tragedy. Either type of story can be used to illuminate what you do.

6. Targeted. A good elevator pitch is aimed for a specific audience. If you have target audiences that are vastly different, you might want to have a unique pitch for each.

7. Goal Oriented. A great elevator pitch is designed with a specific outcome in mind. What is your desired outcome? You may have different pitches depending on different objectives. For instance do you want to: make a sale , gain a prospect, enlist support for an idea, or earn a referral.

8. Has a Hook. This is the element that literally snags your listener’s interest and makes them want to know more. This is the phrase or words that strike a chord in your listener.
How to Craft Your Killer Elevator Pitch

  • Write down what you do. Write it several different ways. Try writing it at least 10-20 different ways. Don’t edit yourself at all. You will edit later. This first step is for generating ideas. Don’t hold back. Ideas can be goofy, serious, wild, funny, or conservative. It doesn’t matter. The goal is to get at many ideas as possible down on paper.
  • Write a very short story that illustrates what you do for people. If necessary, the story can be long. You will boil it down later. Paint a picture with words.
  • Write down your objective or goal. Do you want to make a sale, gain a prospect, enlist support for an idea, earn a referral, or something else?
  • Write 10-20 action statements. This is a statement or question designed to spur the action associated with your goal.
  • Record yourself. You can use Dragon Dictation if you don’t have a recording device. Dragon Dictation is a free phone based service that translates your messages into text as well as providing an online link to the original audio.
  • Let it sit. Come back to what you’ve written with fresh eyes and ears the next day or later on in the same day.
  • Highlight the good stuff. Listen and read through what you’ve recorded and written. Then either highlight or circle the phrases that hook you with clear, powerful, and visual words. Obviously not all the words will fall into these categories. You still need connector words, but you want them to be as few as possible.
  • Put the best pieces together. Again you’ll want to write down several versions of this much tighter pitch. Tell us what you do and why people should want to do business with you. Include elements from your story if you can fit it in.
  • Do a final edit cutting as many unnecessary words as possible. Rearrange words and phrases until it sounds just right. Again, the goal is 30-60 seconds maximum.
  • Dress Rehearsal. Run it by as many people as you can get to listen to you. Get feedback from colleagues, clients you trust, friends and family.
  • Done for now. Take your final elevator pitch and write it down. Memorize and practice it until it just slides off your tongue naturally.
  • Continue to improve. Over time, always be on the listen for phrases that you think could make your elevator pitch more clear and impactful. And then test it out. Every once in a while you will probably benefit by starting from scratch because things always change: you, your business , your goals, and your clients’ needs.

By K Stone of Life Learning Today

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What Your Body Language Say About You-Professionally

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Whether it’s a business or personal interaction, multiple studies show that as much as 50-90% of the communication is nonverbal. That means that people who are addicted to text messaging and e-mail may be sending only half the message, and receivers often misinterpret even that half.

Yet the use of text messaging for business purposes continues to grow, in concert with more of Gen-Y entering the workplace, and a continuing increase in the global rate of texting by everyone. This total rate now exceeds seven billion texts sent per day, according to a new mobile marketing website (more than one per day for every person on earth).

But are these text messages an efficient and appropriate business tool? Where body language is part of the message, it definitely is not.

Sure, there are many cases where a 10-word text message, or 140 character social media tweet, will communicate a simple message more efficiently than a face-to-face discussion. But most business processes, like negotiating a contract, closing a sale, customer support, or managing employees, are much more complicated than just words.

Eye Contact

The eyes are the most powerful part of our body language, and can express everything from happiness, annoyance, interest, to pain. Frequent eye contact is interpreted as honesty and forthrightness. Staring is interpreted as too aggressive. These are obvious in person, but lost in a text message.

Posture

If you are trying to appear dominant or authoritative, stand erect with shoulders back. A slumped position usually indicates insecurity, guilt, or weakness. A dominant sounding text message, on the other hand, generates anger rather than acceptance.

Mirroring

 

Most people feel more comfortable and open with people in a similar position to themselves. An example would be sitting down to meet with a key vendor, rather than standing to deliver demands. Good managers practice this one for personnel issues.

Handshake

This, of course, comes into play to signal openness or goodwill at the beginning of an interaction, and agreement at the end. Remember, a nice firm palm-to-palm handshake is important for sincerity. This cultural icon is totally missing from text messages and e-mails.

Hand-to-face

Even when the words sound good, hand-to-face movements such as holding the chin or scratching the face shows concern or lack of conviction. If a person is covering his mouth while telling you something, he may be lying.

Facial Expression

A critical message delivered with a smiling face will have a totally different impact than one delivered with an angry face. “Smiley face emoticons” were invented to simulate this in text messages, but they don’t always work, because the sincerity is lost.

Arms and legs position

Folded arms or crossed legs, perhaps turning away slightly, indicates a lack of interest and detachment. Later uncrossed arms and legs may be a sign of acceptance of your position or terms.(Top image)  An extrovert will have toes pointed out, introvert will keep them pointed in. None of these come through in texting.

Space occupied

Some people stand up and move around to be more dominant, maybe even threatening. Even sitting, you can stretch your legs to occupy more space. Standing while talking on the phone will make your voice sound more urgent. Maybe all CAPS will satisfy this one.

Overall, the most successful people in business learn to use the right tool for the right job. I’m supportive of using text messaging for agreeing on a time and place for a customer visit, but when I read that text messages are the new pink slips for layoffs, that’s just wrong!

By Martin Zwilling of http://businessinsider.com.

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5 Reasons You Need A Social Media Manager

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Virtual AssistantBusiness owners around the globe are asking themselves whether or not they need a social media manager. However, more and more of them are noticing the popularity of social media, but don’t know how, where, when, or why they should jump on the bandwagon themselves. They notice their colleagues, peers, friends, children, and family have jumped on board, on a more personal level. But, what so many of them fail to see, is that their present and future customers have jumped on for a ride too!

Right now, as you read this, your customers are flying down the road going mach 5 with no end in sight. They’re enjoying themselves too while reading/writing reviews, articles, comments & opinions on your business. They’re chatting amongst themselves (and to the rest of the internet world) about their latest visit, what their experience was, and even how it bugs them that Sally the cashier always seems “nice”, but never says thank you when they are leaving.

Wouldn’t you love the opportunity to be in that cart flying down the road too? Do you want to know what your customers are saying about you? Do you want to be able to effectively converse back with them? Wouldn’t you love to hear, first hand, about their experiences? Wouldn’t it be great to know how they felt about Sally so you could enforce stronger cashier policies?

There is no excuse for you not being in that bandwagon yourself. If you want to continually grow your business every year with the goal of higher profits and better ROI’s, then you need to be in that cart. Most importantly, you need to be sitting in the cart as strategically as possible so your customers don’t mistake you for luggage!

If the last four paragraphs didn’t provide you with enough reasons as to why you need a social media manager…don’t fret! Here are five more:

1. Contrary to popular belief, just because your 14 year old niece has a Facebook account, that doesn’t mean she could (or should) create your own businesses fan page. Hire a professional. Your goal should be to have a better social presence than all your competitors. Better website, Facebook, Twitter etc. Hiring someone who has extensive knowledge on the platforms best suited for your business will benefit you enormously. Social media is so constantly evolving, that you want a professional handling yours that you know is up to speed with the latest tools, platforms, & strategies.

2. You must have a well thought out social media strategy if you want to succeed. You must have a plan. One that will provide a road map for you so you don’t get lost. You need to be consistent with your content and most importantly, you need to make sure your content is *valuable*.

3. Just because you already have social media platforms in place, that doesn’t mean you are using them correctly. If you have a Facebook business fan page or Twitter account that gets updated once “every now and then” (when you find the time) … you’re in trouble. It actually looks worse for your business to have inactive pages than not having any at all. Also, you want them all integrated together so they are working for you, and not the other way around.

4. You need someone to remind you -not- to be a broadcaster! It is extremely easy for someone to “hide” you on Facebook and “unfollow” you on Twitter. So easy, it can be done with one click of the mouse! You need someone helping you develop content strategies that are focused on providing engaging valuable content that people enjoy reading and make them feel comfortable enough to join in on the conversation. One of the most successful companies at doing social media is Zappos.com. Check out their Facebook site to see what I mean about engaging content.

5. Having a social media manager saves you, the business owner, time (our most valuable asset). Even though an effective social media campaign requires an “all hands on deck” approach to be effective, having a social media manager undoubtedly saves you time. They can provide you with a road map and content strategy that should make it easy for you to distinguish what is considered good and bad content. They also could take away the burden of having to log onto your computer and manage comments and updating content regularly on all platforms. They do all that for you leaving you more time to concentrate on your livelihood … your business!
By Krysty Petrucci facebook.com/TribalMedia

Now it’s your turn. Have you jumped on the social media bandwagon yet? What has been your experience thus far? What have you had difficulty with? What seemed surprisingly easy? If you haven’t jumped on yet- what’s stopping you?  What are you waiting for?

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