As a Virtual Online Technology Assistant and a small business owner who has had a good deal of success using social media I’m often asked by others about how to use social media successfully for their own businesses.  Often I feel I have disappointed them when I explain why I feel social media has worked for me because it doesn’t include auto-tweets, sales pitches or using a Twitter following or Facebook Page friends as advertising targets.  These are all items that have gotten them excited about social media, so they are stunned when I tell them that none of those items are what helped me and my business.

It seems so much easier to have someone schedule sales pitch-y tweets or wall posts or a constant stream of inspirational quotes than to do what I tell them I did.  What did I do?  I allowed people to get to know me. I shared information I myself found useful. I helped others when I could and connected them to someone I thought might be able to help when I couldn’t.  The people connected to me on social media could tell by my updates and my responses that there was a real person paying attention to them behind my username.

There it was. I just gave you the secret to making social media work for you and your business. What? You missed it?  Let me try again.

There was a real person paying attention.

You know why that one thing makes a difference?  Let me share something with you to help you understand.

Charter provides my high-speed internet service as well as my cable television.  They aren’t perfect. In fact, in the two and a half years I’ve had them I’ve had more technicians here than most people.  Frustrating? Of course it is. But I’ve stayed with them because I’ve gotten some really great customer service…through Twitter.

Just last week I was having some major issues with my internet connection.  Since my business depends on my internet connection I have a cell phone with a built in private WiFi HotSpot, and although it’s not the fastest, it allows me to work when my main internet connection goes down.  What it doesn’t let me do is make a phone call and access the internet at the same time.  I had a feeling it was an area outage but couldn’t find the spot on the Charter website that could give me that information.

I didn’t want to interrupt my work to call the service line so I tweeted the following:

A minute or so later I received this tweet in response:

Followed by :

What that Charter tech did might seem like a small thing, but to me it was priceless. He was paying attention, identified what my need was and provided what I needed.  And he didn’t even actually fix my service; my internet wasn’t restored for another few hours.  But I was satisfied that someone knew about the problem and was working on it.

The next day I received:

Charter has been wise enough to see how they could use a social media avenue to connect one on one with their customers by using the @Charter as a sort of ‘bat-signal’.  Their support specialists are quick to respond, and not just with a scripted answer, but with real, individualized responses.  (Something they really should extend to their phone support)

And this isn’t the first time I’ve received Twitter support from the folks @Charter.  I’d say it’s probably the reason I’m still with them even when other services offer me over the top deals to switch.

You see, when you feel like someone is paying attention to you it makes you feel connected to them.  And that connection is what your goal should be when it comes to using social media for your business.

Related Posts:

• Social Media Time Savers for Virtual Assistants
• Are You a Twitter Menace?
• Getting Clients-Building Trust

I’ve talked about Twitter Do’s and Don’ts before. Today I want to talk about making sure you’re not a Twitter menace.

So just what is a Twitter menace?  Those people that are using Twitter as a bullhorn rather than a communication device. Are you guilty of the following?

• Hourly auto-posting of advertisement type tweets
• Responding to every instance of a keyword you’re following
• DM-ing ‘opportunities’ to purchase your latest product
• Including people (@’ing) when they have nothing to do with your tweet, but they seem to have Twitter clout.

If so, you may be in danger of being labeled a Twitter menace.  And you also may be wondering why I believe you’re better off not to have a Twitter account at all if you are doing them.  Let’s take them one by one.

1.      So you discovered scheduled posting, either through Tweetdeck, CoTweet or some other Twitter help service.  They are great if they are used correctly.  They are just irritating if you set up tweets to go out every hour on the hour with your latest ‘special’ deal.   If you must use auto-tweets, do so sparingly. And don’t forget, when you auto-tweet you always run the risk of people asking you questions or responding when you’re not around to address them, making you look like you don’t care.

2.      I advocate the use of Twitter search to follow keywords that have to do with your business. For example, I follow the term virtual assistant.  But please, please, PLEASE don’t set up an auto-tweet or even live tweet to every person that uses those words in a tweet without reading them first.  Take the following tweets that I received in response to a couple of my own updates:

This first one was the day before thankgiving when I was baking, note that not only is the response inappropriate, it’s irritating.

This second one was just a few days ago in response to my tweet responding to someone else.

In both of these cases it is painfully obvious that the tweeter hadn’t even read the content of my tweet. For crying out loud, it’s only 140 characters or less, take the time to read it.  It keeps you and your business from looking like a complete ass.  Needless to say, not only didn’t I click on the link, I blocked the tweeter.  It’s Twitter spam, plain and simple.  And nobody likes spam.

3.      Another form of Twitter spam –the DM’s (direct messages) that are offering me an amazing ‘opportunity’ to purchase their latest product or attend their latest webinar.  Look, it’s great to offer these things on Twitter, but do it in your general stream.  Direct messages are for personal conversations, not for selling me something.  If I want what you’re selling I’ll DM you and ask for more info. Really.

4.      Have you ever gotten an @ tweet that had absolutely nothing to do with you or anything you’ve said?  Now I doubt any of you reading this would ever do it, but there are actually people out there that will include an @ just to get the name of someone who is popular or engaged in a currently trending conversation into their tweet and thus pull their own tweets into the thick of things.  It might seem innocuous, but it’s sort of like having a passerby jump into your conversation by saying something completely off topic.  It’s confusing, irritating and makes you look …well….stupid.

I really hope you’re not guilty of any of these activities. But if you are (or the person you’ve put in charge of your Twitter is) stop now!  The real value in Twitter is humanizing your business to others.

Do you disagree?  Do you think any of these items should be taken off the Twitter menace list?   Do you have something that you feel should be added? Let’s talk about it in the comments section.

Related Posts:

• Social Media Time Savers for Virtual Assistants
• What You Can Learn from @Charter about Social Media
• $60,000 a year to Tweet?

I hear you out there. Those unspoken responses to my previous post. You know, the one where I said that getting clients wasn’t about price?  Yeah, that one.  And you’re thinking,  “Those points are well and good if you have clients already, but how do you build trust in the beginning. You know, when you’re just starting out?”

It’s still about building trust, even when you don’t have satisfied clients to give you glowing testimonials.

How?

You have to let those potential clients get to know you.  That used to mean attending local networking events week after week, robotically spouting your elevator speech and handing out business cards that likely never got out of the pocket they were tucked into.   Even then, it was difficult to build trust, it was more a meet and greet than a chance to really get to know anyone.

Social media has changed all of that. It’s leveled the playing field for those of us who never felt comfortable in those sweaty handshake situations and it’s given us a way to show others what we can ‘do’ not just how well we can give a sales pitch.  Blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and others allow us to open ourselves up to the world and let them see what we’re made of.

Are those groans I hear?

Are you among those service providers that have been dragging your heels about joining Twitter or building a Facebook page?  Did you feel vindicated when you read some article about social media being overblown as a marketing weapon?  I hate to break it to you, but social media should be a service-based business’ best friend.

You see, the key word in social media is social. It gives you a way to introduce, interact and inform your target market about who you are and what you can do for them.  And more importantly it gives you a way to build trust.  There are three things your potential client needs to be confident of before they can trust you with their business needs.

• They know you. Meaning they are confident that you are who you say you are.
• They understand what you do.   The details, not just the overview.
• They perceive that you are competent at what you do

In order to accomplish these things you need to use your social media accordingly.  Use your photo, not a logo as your profile picture and allow your personality to show.  Just be careful about what you share for personal information.

Use status updates to share not only what you do, but how you do it.  For example, look at the Twitter tweets below.

There is a big difference between sharing what you do with your social media followers and telling them what your industry can do.  There is absolutely nothing personal or social about the tweet above, nor does it show anyone what  you do or how you do it.

How much more personal does it feel if you say:

Can you feel the difference? With the second tweet you’ve made it much more likely that someone curious about using a virtual assistant now sees an item you could help them with and also introduces them to a tool that you use to do so.

When done right, using social media can help your potential clients get to know you, better understand what you do and give them the perception that you’re capable of getting those things done well.  In effect, it can be a tool to build trust in you and your business, even when you’re just starting out.

Related Posts:

• What You Can Learn from @Charter about Social Media
• Social Media Time Savers for Virtual Assistants
• $60,000 a year to Tweet?

If  you follow me on Twitter you’ll have noticed that for the past week or so I’ve sent out a tweet that looks like the one below every day:

The virtual-assistants Daily is a compilation of tweets, links, RT’s and information shared on Twitter by the other virtual assistants I follow there.  I started it because some days are just so busy that I don’t get much time to check Twitter, but I really hate missing all the great information.  Then, it was such a great way for me to stay up to date, I thought, “gee, maybe other virtual assistants would find it useful too”. So I decided to share it with everyone.  If you don’t follow me on Twitter you can find me @TMarieHilton.  If you’d like to get a chance at having your tweets included in the Daily, send me an @ or DM on Twitter, leave me a comment at the end of this post or send me an e-mail.

Now that’s great for Twitter, but what about all of those great virtual assistant blogs that are out there?  Well, I have a time-saver for those too. Launching today,  AssistantEdge is giving us one place to stop in and see just what our fellow virtual assistants are writing about.  I’m honored to be a featured source there. I love the fact that it allows me to see the latest posts by great virtual assistants, but still leads me to each assistants site to read the entire article.  This is also a great place to refer to those interested in working with a VA, not only allowing them to learn about virtual assistance, but a chance to find a wide variety of virtual assistants that they may be interested in working with.

I’m a firm believer in staying involved in social media for my business, as my latest posts on Getting Clients will explain in detail. Yet the busier I get, the more I have to find ways to do

Related Posts:

• What You Can Learn from @Charter about Social Media
• Are You a Twitter Menace?
• Professionalism is Priceless. Lack of Professionalism? Costly.

I’m surprised at the number of business people who have admitted to no longer adding content to their blog because they are now on Twitter. I’m not sure where or why these folks got the impression that Twitter is a substitute for blogging.  Perhaps it has something to do with the following 5 reasons to abandon your blog for Twitter?

1. You don’t care about sharing quality content. 140 characters does not allow for adequate sharing of important information. Sure, you can share links to other people’s quality content, but what is that saying about you and your business? That you’re not unique, that you aren’t an expert in your field yourself?
2. You aren’t interested in getting new clients or staying in touch with your current ones. Chances are your target market/clients/ customers are not following you on Twitter. Although Twitter is gaining in popularity, there is still an huge segment of the population who isn’t buying in. A portion of that segment does however read blogs and visit websites.
3. You could care less about adding value to your customers experience. Twitter streams don’t equal the added value to clients/customers that blog posts do.
4. You want your website to stay hidden from search engines. Three letters..SEO. Your Twitter stream isn’t going to increase your website SEO, fresh content is.
5. You have no interest in ever compiling blog posts into an information product. Think of a blog as a depository of useful information. Since it’s your information, you can choose to re-purpose it the way you choose. Older blog posts can become articles, special reports , e-books and more. Try doing that with your 140 character tweets.

By now you’ve figured out that the title for this blog post was rather sarcastic. If you’ve read my previous post, you already know that I consider a blog to be one of  the most important tools for growing your business. And if you’ve been reading here for any length of time, you also know I’m a fan of Twitter as well. As useful as Twitter is, it’s not a blog. Heck, it couldn’t even play one on TV.

Related Posts:

• Professionalism is Priceless. Lack of Professionalism? Costly.
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listening to the weekly podcast “Word on the Tweet“, a show that focuses solely on all things Twitter, the Multnomah County, Oregon Social Media Coordinator Position was one of the topics of conversation.  If you’re not familiar, Multnomah County is looking to hire someone to use social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, which may not have caused all the attention if it weren’t for the salary. The county is looking to pay this social media guru $60,000 to $70,000 a year.

Needless to say, those of us who felt like the description of the appropriate candidate was tailor made for us are hoping that more counties, as well as cities and towns will follow suit. But there are plenty of others out there that feel that the county is willing to pay a ridiculous amount of money for someone to ‘tweet’. Especially amid cutbacks in other areas.
I’m not going to debate the value of a social media coordinator, nor am I going to get on my “social media marketing is not child’s play” soapbox.  What I want to point out is that Multnomah County understands what many other county governments, cities, towns and businesses don’t.  The future of effective communication with constituents, clients and customers lies in social media. It’s not only a great communication tool, but it’s marketing potential is huge.

Unfortunately, too many people are repeating the same mistake that was made when the Internet was the newfangled way to reach people. They are discounting the potential and thinking it’s a fad. And like the early adopters of websites, people that are seeing the potential in social media early are being seen as foolish for jumping in with both feet.
But just why would a county government be willing to pay someone to ‘tweet’?  One of the biggest issues of any type of government, but especially at the county, city or town levels is communicating with their constituents.  Jeff Parsons, a Maine radio personality and co-host of Word on the Tweet, mentioned a vote for a new school in his town that was to take place, one that he would have voted on if he’d realized when it was taking place. Social media is a way for local governments to connect with their residents and get them more involved.
How many times do you think a town has planned an event, even spending lots of money to do so, and only had a handful of people show up because local residents weren’t aware it was going on. Unless your town has a huge budget and can purchase advertising time on TV or radio, it’s highly unlikely that word will spread like wildfire.  Until now.

Now, by using social media avenues you can spread the word quickly, easily and in many ways more effectively than tradition methods.  A ‘tweet’ is likely to gain more attendees, voters, etc. than a flyer posted somewhere ever will.
I don’t feel the big deal about the Multnomah County Social Media Coordinator position should be focused on the amount of money they are willing to pay someone to do the job, I think the focus should be on how many other counties, towns, cities and business it will cause to sit up and take notice.  Will others be wise enough to see what this Oregon County sees and get on board with social media too?

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I’ve spent the past four days moving into my new place in Conover, North Carolina.  I must admit, I forgot just how stressful moving can be.  I was nicely surprised this morning, as I work surrounded by boxes, to see that I have been quoted in an article by Lesley Spencer Pyle published by Entrepreneur.com and picked up by MSNBC. The article is entitled, “Can Twitter Really Help Your Small Business?”

As anyone who has read my posts here or at Home Office Warrior knows, I’m a firm believer in the power of Twitter for small businesses.  So head on over and check out Lesley’s article and see how it can help yours!

Related Posts:

• Are You a Twitter Menace?
• Social Media Time Savers for Virtual Assistants
• Professionalism is Priceless. Lack of Professionalism? Costly.

In my last post, regarding virtual assistants on Twitter I used the term professionalism as something that those searching for a VA should look for when scrutinizing the many choices available to them.  But in this day and age of social media, just how important is professionalism.  I mean, don’t the masses of home office warriors brag about their ability to work in their p.j.’s  or other comfy clothes?  Isn’t social media all about being ‘real’?
Although it is important to be yourself to a certain extent, it is also important to remember that if you’re in business, there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed.  A certain amount of dignity and yes, privacy, must be maintained or you risk losing all credibility as a business professional.
Sadly, I see many virtual assistants and other home-based professionals make the mistake of sharing too much of themselves.  They forget that the words they tweet or post online all contribute to creating a picture of not just who they are personally, but reflects upon their businesses as well. For example, regardless of your penchant for using curse words in the privacy of your own home, they are probably better left out of your Twitter stream. Pretty obvious right?  Another example might be your need to go take a nap in the middle of the work day. Now, this doesn’t mean you can’t go take that nap, after all if you’re running your business, you might do your best work from midnight to 3 am and a mid-day nap is a neccessity. Just don’t tweet about it. Why? Because clients, potential clients and other people that might end up being important to your business aren’t going to know that. Family fights, sexual exploits and the fact that you forgot to take your Xanax are also things that are on the ‘don’t need to know’ list. Honestly, I’ve literally cringed when reading some tweets and blog posts due to the over share factor.
Another social media faux-pas I see happening often is ranting or complaining about a client, client work or client related matters. Nothing will lower your professionalism standing faster. There are ways of not only sharing your frustration, but getting some positive feedback on the situation without ranting. But if you can’t be sure of how to do that, then simply keep from sharing it.
There is such a thing as being too open and transparent. I understand the need for self expression, but if you’re a business person, don’t do it on blogs or social media connected to your business or business website.  Sure, have a personal blog, but for professionalism’s sake, don’t link to it from your business website.
If you want to see examples of how to be real without losing your credibility read and watch Chris Brogan and Gary Vaynerchuk.  I follow both of these business men on Twitter.  Chris Brogan gives us just enough of his personal side through his tweets that often speak of his family or current activities to make us feel like we know a bit about him. He’s human. Yet he doesn’t share so much that we ever lose sight of the fact that he’s a brilliant business man and marketer.  And watching Gary V. do his videos for Wine Library, garyvaynerchuk.com or his guest appearances on places like the Today show might give you the impression that he’s ‘out there’.  His high energy is infectious and his ability to connect to his audience makes us all feel like he’s a regular guy, just like us. Ok, so he probably has way more energy than us, but you know what I mean.  However, I don’t know about you, but I never, ever lose sight of the fact that he has brilliantly used the web to his marketing advantage in business . The fact that these two men are professionals is never questioned.

The following is the definition of professionalism:

pro?fes?sion?al?ism  [pruh-fesh-uh-nl-iz-uhm]- noun

1.     professional character, spirit, or methods.
2.     the standing, practice, or methods of a professional, as distinguished from an amateur.
(from dictionary.com)

When I first read this definition, the words that seemed to hit me like a baseball bat to the head were “as distinguished from an amateur”.  And perhaps for the virtual assistant or other small business this is the single most important thing they should take away from this post.  You project professionalism to distinguish your business from the amateurs. Never forget that your words, whether tweeted, blogged or simply shared in an online forum are available not just to those people you specifically write them to, but to clients, potential clients and others who may be instrumental to the success of your business.

Related Posts:

• Social Media Time Savers for Virtual Assistants
• Are You a Twitter Menace?
• Experienced Virtual Assistants on Twitter?

I use Twitter. I use it to communicate with others, get my questions answered and learn new things for my business and for me personally.  These things are all great. But there is one more way that I use it, that gave me the basis for today’s post. I monitor it for feedback on virtual assistants, my business in particular, but also virtual assistants as a whole.  This weekend I received my e-mail from TweetBeep giving me the low down on what was being said about virtual assistant’s on Twitter.  Most of it tends to be VA’s offering services or sending ideas of how their services can be used. Occasionally someone tweets that they need a VA and they are then overwhelmed with messages from virtual assistant’s offering their help.   But there was one tweet that stood out from the rest in this particular digest of tweets.  The author said, in effect, that there were tons of virtual assistants on Twitter but none of them had experience.
I don’t know the story behind that tweet, heck, I haven’t even used his exact wording, but I can imagine what might have happened.  He used Twitter to publicize his need for a VA and was greeted with plenty of responses, but when he went to the corresponding websites, he somehow came to the conclusion that they lacked experience.  Is it true?  Are all of these virtual assistants hovering, waiting for the next “I need a virtual assistant” tweet, inexperienced VA’s?
I happen to know that there are plenty of experienced virtual assistants on Twitter, myself included. So why did this person come away with this perception? I’m not sure, but I can throw out a couple of thoughts on the matter.
My first thought is that perhaps the individuals he is checking out are ‘new’ to virtual assistance, but have plenty of professional office experience. Perhaps they aren’t including or referring to that professional experience on their websites?
My second thought is that the more experienced virtual assistants probably aren’t as apt to jump all over a ‘tweeted’ request for a VA. Why? I can only speak for myself, but there are several reasons I don’t generally tweet back an “I’m a virtual assistant, how can I help you?”  Many times I don’t see the tweet until a service like Google Alerts or TweetBeep sends it to me in digest format.  I figure by the time I see it, the writer has already received a ton of responses. If it relates specifically to something I specialize in, I might contact them asking if they’ve found what they are looking for. Sometimes I simply follow that person, who can resist checking out a new follower?  And some days I’m just too busy to keep track of Twitter. So perhaps many of the experienced VA’s are like me, and miss the tweets for virtual assistant help completely.
My final thought?  I’m sure the tweeter was right in some respects, I’m sure there are some virtual assistants on twitter that lacked the experience he was looking for. The recent attention virtual assistance has gotten in the media has caused a flurry of bandwagon jumpers looking for an easy, work from home opportunity. Sadly, many people that lack any true professional administrative experience are hanging a shingle and calling themselves a virtual assistant.
So what’s a savvy TwitterFolk to do in order to find a quality VA via Twitter?  Perhaps ask others if they use a VA  and ask for a referral?  Or do a twitter search for the item you need a VA to do for you and see if one has tweeted about doing that item.  Look at what particular virtual assistants have posted recently.  Are there links to blog posts they’ve written?  Links and retweets of other Twitter users?  Perhaps if you look a little closer you’ll see these might possibly be that VA’s clients?  But most of all I believe you should look for professionalism. That’s not to say a truly experienced VA won’t be tweeting lighthearted stuff, but I believe you’ll recognize the professionalism when examining their twitter stream.
So in answer to the mystery tweeter who said none of the virtual assistants on Twitter had experience; there are plenty of highly capable, experienced professional VA’s using Twitter. But like anything else of value, sometimes you have to look a little harder for it.

Related Posts:

• Are You a Twitter Menace?
• Social Media Time Savers for Virtual Assistants
• Professionalism is Priceless. Lack of Professionalism? Costly.

I’ll admit it, when I first signed up for Twitter, I couldn’t see how this 140 characters or less communication tool could possibly benefit my business.  I almost wrote it off as a techie fad.  Almost.  Luckily my association with Home Office Warrior made me curious enough to give it a go.  Several months and 348 updates later I’m a Twitter convert.  Even with the all too frequent appearance of the ‘fail whale’.  Hits to both my website and my blog have increased drastically.  I’m getting fantastic information by following interesting people like Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan), Grant Griffiths (@grantgriffiths), Erin Blaskie (@eblaskie2) and Susan Cartier Liebel (@SCartierLiebel) just to name a few.  People blazing new business paths like Zappos.com CEO, Tony Hsieh or Attorney Stephanie Kimbro with her  VLOTech web based software service for Virtual Law Offices are ‘tweeting’ as well, networking with a wider audience than would be possible through traditional methods.

If you’re like I was when first signing up, you’re reading my words above, raising an eyebrow and saying, “How?”  It’s simple really.   Take the time to find people to follow that you find interesting.  Look at the people they follow for more possibilities.  Use TwitterLocal to find other Twitter users in your area. And then say hello, in 140 characters or less.  Follow the conversations, watch just how those you’ve chosen to follow are using Twitter, and before you know it, you’ll not only be ‘tweeting’ up a storm…you’ll be building a network for your business.  And if you’re a virtual assistant, you’ll be advocating that your clients start ‘tweeting’ too!

Related Posts:

• Are You a Twitter Menace?
• Social Media Time Savers for Virtual Assistants
• Clerical Advantage mentioned on Entrepreneur.com