Can Social Networks Help Your Business?
Just the other day the question of using social networks as a way to build a business came up in a discussion with my brother. Now usually, he’s a pretty smart guy 
but he just doesn’t understand “this social networking thing.” For him being on Twitter or creating Fan Pages on Facebook was an enormous waste of time that his sales team could be using speaking directly to merchants.
So, that got me to thinking — if this usually forward thinking brother of mine is missing the point, how many others are saying the same thing? It seems a lot. While on the VA Networking Forum, I read one experience posted describing a “discussion” with an editor of a local newspaper. It seems he thinks the idea of a person being able to work without being watched by a supervisor is ludicrous and basically a scam. Wow!
So it seems that while people understand the entertainment potential of social networks, the idea of actually getting paid by using them is still a bit new. So, I’m working on collecting all the things I know about social media and putting them down in blog posts on a regular basis. There so much that can be accomplished by using these networks, if you do it correctly. Social networks make it possible to work and play at the same time.
Now, back to my brother. While I finally got it through my brother’s head that using tools such as Twitter and hash tags to do market research and even find people in the area that are looking for what you are selling, it did take a long time. I wish that I had known about this great free ebook that explains in a plain English how to use social networking to get a job, and in the case of entrepreneurs, secure clients.
The author, Chris Brogan, has made the ebook available on his website. If you’ve ever wondered what all the buzz is about, this is a great introduction to the social networking scene. And while you’re waiting to download that PDF, why not check out the video “Social Networking in Plain English.”
Helpful Tips on Writing Headlines
I really enjoy writing. I think it’s lots of fun and I learn a lot as I ghostwrite articles and blog posts for business owners. But one thing that I absolutely wrestle with each and every time are writing headlines. I absolutely hate it — probably because I’m not very good at it yet. So when this email came to me, I was immediately interested. It has some good points about subject lines (for emails, autoresponders, etc.) and headlines. So here are the tips from that email. If you find these tips helpful (or really lame) please let me know. I need all the help I can get!
One of the numerous ways you can tempt or persuade your subscriber is by providing a well thought out and well written subject. The subject of an email is what is often referred to when a person or a recipient of an email decides whether he or she wants to open or read an e-mail. The subject could easily be regarded as one of the most important aspect of your promotional e-mail.
Your subject must be short and concise. They should provide a summary for the content of the e-mail so that the recipient will have basic knowledge of the content. This is really vital in grabbing the attention of your readers and subscribers. You want your subject to instantly grab the attention of your subscriber and get them to be intrigued to open up your mail. Remember, it is not necessarily true that a subscriber opens up subscribed mails.
A good subject must always be tickling the curiosity of your recipient. It must literally force the recipient to open the mail. A certain emotion must be ignited and get them to open the mail. It is essential to use specific words to get the reaction you need. Keep in mind that the recipient or subscribers spends only a few seconds looking over each subject of the e-mails he receives. You must grab your reader’s attention right away.
There are many forms you can use for your subject. You can provide a subject that says your e-mail contains content that teaches them tips and methods on certain topics. An example of this is using keywords and keyword phrases such as:
- How to
- Tips
- Guides to
Methods in and others like that. You can also put your subject in a question form. These may include questions like:
- “Are you sick and tired of your job?”
- “Is your boss always on your case?”
Try to stay on the topic that pertains to your site so that you’ll know that your subscribers have signed up because they are interested in that topic. This form of subject is very effective because they reach out to your recipients emotions. When they have read the question on your subject, their mind starts answering the question already.
You can also use a subject that commands your reader. Statements such as “Act now and get this once in a lifetime opportunity”, or “Double,triple and even quadruple what you are earning in one year”. This type of subject deals with the benefits your company provides with your product and services.
You may also use breaking news as your subject to intrigue your subscriber. For example, if you deal with car engine parts you can write in your subject, “Announcing the new engine that uses no gasoline, It runs on water”. This creates curiosity with the reader and will lead them to open the mail and read on.
Follow the link below for a full video series on creating great headlines…
http://www.hs-wahm.com/BenBrookVideo
Disclosure: http://cmp.ly/5/yz9z5e
Budding Authors — A Teleseminar You Won’t Want to Miss
This seems to be a busy week for teleseminars. I just found out about another teleseminar that might be of interest to anyone who is an aspiring author. Enjoy!
A teleseminar for authors on Thursday, Feb., 4, at 2 and 7 p.m.
Eastern Time. Steve Harrison will interview Peggy
McColl about the simple blueprint she’s developed
to quickly make many books instant bestsellers
at practically zero cost. This works for all
types of books: fiction, non-fiction, ebooks,
novels, print on demand, etc.
Interested? Register at
http://www.BestsellerBlueprintCall.com/?10011
Cut Through the Clutter, Chatter & Confusion of Social Media
Hi,
I just wanted to alert you to an informative webinar coming up on Wednesday, February 3rd. It’s being hosted by Publicity Hound, Joan Stewart. I first became aware of her while working on a set of transcripts on how businesses can get publicity using free and low-cost methods. This week she’s hosting a webinar to help people who are new (and not so new) to social media to get a handle on how to use it and not get overwhelmed. It’s free to join and I’ll definitely be there.
Here’s the RSVP Information:
Response to my invitation to a free webinar on
“How to Cut through the Clutter, Chatter &
Confusion at Social Media Sites” on Wednesday,
Feb. 3, has been overwhelming, and I encourage
you to claim your seat NOW before registration
is closed.It’s at 3 p.m. Eastern Time (noon Pacific) and
it will feature Jeanne Hurlbert, my new business
partner, and me, offering our best tips on how
to avoid the frustration of participating at
social media sites.If you haven’t already done so, register here:
http://budurl.com/socialmediarxwebinar——————————–
Joan Stewart
The Publicity Hound
3434 County KK
Port Washington, WI 53074
Phone: 262-284-7451 Fax: 262-284-1737
http://www.PublicityHound.com
Exploring VA Niches: Virtual Event Specialist
When I was away on that homeschooling/business retreat in Destin, FL I met many aspiring virtual assistants including my new best friend Mimi of Your Virtual Services. We were roommates and talked a lot (I’m sure you can tell I’m the quiet type — not!) and during one of our marathon conversations Mimi told me about an interesting VA niche called “Virtual Event Specialist.”
Disclosures: http://cmp.ly/5/m4l2iq
Transcription Basics – Part II
In my last post I recommended downloading special software that will enable you to transcribe videos using an open source video player. But guess what I learned? I just found out that I can remove audio from videos and use the free Express Scribe software to do the transcription. And it’s simple and FREE!
- All you need to do is download the free Realplayer software and install it on your computer.
- Once you’ve completed installation go to the website that has the video that needs to be transcribed.
- Press Play and then hover your mouse over the upper right hand side of the video. Realplayer will ask you if you wish to download the video.
- Click on that and the Realplayer Downloader program will pop up. Let the video download completely.
- Then click on the video and another set of selections will appear under the video. Select Convert Video. Another dialog box will appear.
- At that point you just select MP3 and tell Realplayer to Save the file and start transcribing.
I also learned (quite by accident) that if your video is an .AVI file, you can transcribe it directly from Express Scribe. No conversion is necesssary. How cool is that?
If you know of any other cool tools to make life easier for the work-at-home crowd, please be sure to add your comment below.
Disclosure: http://cmp.ly/5/m4l2iq
Basic Transcription Equipment
When it comes to transcription one of the more popular questions is:
“If I wanted to start doing transcription from home, what kind of equipment would I need to buy?”
Thanks to technology the answer to that question is a lot less than it would have been ten or more years ago. Today all you need to buy is the foot pedal (which controls the speed of the audio as well as letting you rewind and fast-forward without taking your hands off of the keyboard), a good headset and perhaps some software. And for those who are interested in medical and legal transcription you’ll probably want to buy the various plug-in dictionaries that will check terms peculiar to your discipline.
You’ll need audio transcription software and there are many different types on the market. However, I like FREE software and there is a great software called Express Scribe that does the trick quite well. To thank them for the free software, you might want to buy your headset and foot pedal from them.
Audio Transcription Requirements
- Download and install the free transcription software called Express Scribe.
- Express Scribe can be controlled with a USB Foot Pedal, preferably the Infinity IN-USB-1 USB Foot Pedal for PC Transcription (available for sale at NCH and PCDictate.com). Or if a foot pedal isn’t in your budget just yet you can use keystrokes, but I don’t recommend it because it slows down the ttranscription process considerably.
- A headset is helpful if you have one — helps to block out the rest of the family’s noise. You can, of course, use your computer’s speakers, but I’ve found the headphones to provide a clearer audio than the computer speakers alone.
- After you setup Express Scribe you’ll be able to choose where to upload your audio files so create a folder to hold all of your ranscription audios.
- Having trouble with the setup process. Then check out this video on setting up Express Scribe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo56Ywi1C00
- If you prefer reading instructions, here’s the the link to downloadable PDF http://www.execommsys.com/Express%20Scribe%20Manual.pdf
Video Transcription Requirements
- Download and install the free program VLC. This program will play all audios and video formats. Really cool player.
- Download and install the free RealPlayer. If you are given a link to a video that is already online, RealPlayer will (in most cases) allow you to download the video so that you can watch it in your VLC player for transcribing.
- There’s a free 30 day trial called VLC Foot Pedal Software you can download. It’s about $50 after the trial.
Note: I have a friend who is also doing video transcription, but she and her son have figured out how to get the audio to run through their Express Scribe setup. I haven’t figured out how to do this yet, but you’re a computer whiz you might be able to save yourself $50.
Other Software You Should Consider:
- Microsoft Word is usually preferred, but if your client primarily wants PDFs then you can use OpenOffice’s Write program or Google Docs.
- Software to convert the transcripts into Adobe PDFs. There are some free ones on the Internet such as www.FreePDFConvert.com.
- Internet Explorer/Google Chrome: I download the ttranscription audios from Internet server links my clients provide me. IE/Chrome lets you save the file directly to your hard drive. Firefox automatically starts to play the files for you.
- Abbreviation Expander: This is a software that saves you keystrokes. For example if you want to add the word “laughter” into the expander you could type “lol” and in the next column put the word “laughter”. Now whenever you type “lol” it will automatically change to “laughter” saving you five keystrokes. There are lots of them on the market. I prefer ShortKeys, but if you do medical transcription you might want to look into a software called Speedtype designed for the medical profession. Most software companies give you at least a 30 day trial, so play around with them until you find the software that’s most comfortable for you.
If you’re thinking of making video transcription your focus, you might benefit from DVD Transcription Kit that I saw at PC Dictate. You get the VLC Media Player Foot Pedal Software, Headset and Foot Pedal for $119. Considering a USB foot pedal can cost about $80 by itself, this is a good deal.
So, even starting from scratch, if you want to work from home doing transcription you’ll be able to do so for under $150. Not a bad start-up cost, huh?
http://cmp.ly/5/m4l2iq
Why Teamwork Makes for a Smart Business
Leveraging your time is one of the ways that smart businesses operate. One way that you can do this is by borrowing resources, trading skills and services instead of using money. But first what is a team? According to Webster’s dictionary, a team is “a number of persons associated together in work or an activity.” There are many ways to assemble a team, and one way is through what is known as a joint venture. How does a joint venture work?
- Let’s say that at one of those business mixers you meet a Ms. Escribe who runs a transcription business. You two develop a friendly relationship. Now somewhere down the road you decide to create an audio or webinar product that you want to sell to your client base, but you want to also include a free eBook for those who prefer reading information to watching or listening. You think of Ms. Escribe and give her a call. You tell her your situation and plans. You offer her a deal. If she will do the transcripts for the product launch for free you’ll split the profits from the sale of the eBook and product. Ms. Escribe accepts and now you are in a joint venture.
Carefully planned joint ventures can be a winner for both (or more) parties involved. All you did was exchange skills (her transcription skills for you marketing skills). By exchanging these skills you’ve created another source of income for both of your businesses without any additional cost to either partner.
- Another way to add members to your team is to enlist contractors to get the work done for you. Some virtual assistants are Marketing Mavens and can bring in business faster than you can blink. However, the downside for these gifted people is that now they may have more work than they can physically accomplish! To alleviate the stress (and panic!) that this will cause they reach out to fellow Virtual Assistants for help. These subcontractors are paid to do the overflow work for the Marketing Maven VA who is bringing in the business.
This is another win-win scenario. Newer virtual assistants can join up with experienced VAs while they learn the ropes and gain greater skills. For VAs that may not be as successful in attracting clients, this allows them an opportunity to earn a living while still doing the work that they love. And in many cases they also learn some marketing skills from an expert. Of course the subcontractors are still responsible for their own taxes, so the Marketing Maven VA has not added any additional tax liability to her business.
VAs that create joint ventures and make up a team not only gain the monetary benefits, but have a built a talented support system to keep their business chugging along in good and bad times. Speaking of which, I just found out about an upcoming free teleseminar that’s being held on January 27th, 2010 at 8 PM (EST). It’s being hosted by someone I just discovered named Sydni Craig-Hart. She’s a coach to virtual assistants and has some great material at her websites EAtoVA.com. You can sign up for her seminar by visiting VASuccessSecrets.com.
Welcome to 2010
Shhhh. I promised my children that I wouldn’t do any work today (they seem to think I’ve been working very hard … and they’re right!) so I haven’t been on the computer all day long. But I did want to say I wish everyone a happy, healthy and PROSPEROUS 2010.
The world is full of opportunities and as traditional jobs seem to dry up there are a plethora of new needs opening up. This month I’ll be getting into some of the different aspects of the world of virtual assistance. I’ve had the privilege this past month of working with Super VAs, learning from “old-timer” VAs as well as my own experiences so stay tuned for a lot of information coming your way.
Happy New Year everyone!
Road Trip and a few thoughts on life
Although it is sad that the home I was born and raised is gone, it just goes to show that memories that we create together are much more lasting and important than all the stuff that money can buy. So go out there and make some memories!
Mobile post sent by CherylHendersonKhalid using Utterli. Replies.
