1Click Virtual Assistant » blog

How is Social Media Used for Business?

yelena — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 15:00:25 +0000

That was a question someone asked me a week ago by a business owner who “targets individuals who are business owners/consultants and people within a certain age group”. She then added that she was ”wet behind the ears at this” and expressed hope that I could help figure out how to market her products. She further wanted to know “about blogging and how to attract followers and maybe even create a newsletter that could be linked to a social media site.”

One thing about me is I absolutely LOVE answering questions. I’d play Trivial Pursuit every day if only I could get my hubby (a Monopoly devotee) and my little one (a Candy Land fan) on board. Usually, when answering questions I write long detailed e-mails. But it occurred to me that I already adressed many of the above questions on my blog:

Let’s start with “what’s social media” – it’s basically a catch-phrase that refers to all the conversations between individuals, businesses and organizations, that happen online. These conversations can be in various formats – written words, videos, audio, photos, you name it. The key is not so much the form (full-length blog post, video, etc) or even specific channel used (Facebook, Twitter, blog, etc), but the fact that it’s a CONVERSATION (as opposed to a monologue). So if there’s a way for more than 1 party to join in and discuss things – through posts, comments, status updates, reviews, etc – then it belongs to social media.

As applied to specific channels:

Blogs – allow for conversations to happen through comments – that’s a social media channel
Facebook – is basically built on conversations – that’s also a social media channel
Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, etc… – conversations between users are either foundation of these sites (Twitter) or at least possible through commenting, linking, sharing, etc – that’s all social media channels

Newsletters (sent via e-mail) – if someone decides to respond to a newsletter article, there’s no easy way for them to do it other than e-mailing the newsletter author. Newsletters do not allow for open conversation easily visible to all parties; instead they are primarily means of one-way communication. So newsletters are NOT social media.

If you are considering whether to add social media to your marketing strategy, be aware of the barriers to avoid wasting valuable time and getting disappointed with the results.

Of course, with tens of thousands blogs and hundreds of social networking/bookmarking sites, it’s important to narrow the list down quite a bit and figure out which social networks would be the best for you to be on.

But there’s more to social media strategy than selecting the best channels. This post on building a social media strategy can help you get started.

If you are considering blogging, then be aware of the time it’ll take to write and maintain a blog. It also helps to put together an editorial calendar at least for the first couple of months just until you get into the groove of things. I also wrote a post that helps decide whether to have a newsletter, a blog or both.

And don’t forget, you can leave questions for me in the post comments as well as by e-mailing me directly at yelena@oneclickva.com. Keep ‘em coming

How is Social Media Used for Business? is a post from: 1Click Virtual Assistant

Social Networks – Are You in the Right Ones?

yelena — Mon, 24 May 2010 15:00:27 +0000

Let’s say you, the business owner, want to start marketing your business using social media and, more specifically, social networks. So you hire a virtual assistant or a social media assistant to help you get going and she sends you a proposal with a list of networks she will get you on. Or maybe you do it all yourself (after all, it’s not rocket science or, say, web design) and quickly jot down a “must-do” sites.

Now, let me take a wild guess here. It’ll be LinkedIn, Twitter and either a Facebook profile or even a fanpage. You might have YouTube on your (or your VA’s) list as well and a couple other ones. Once everything is set up, you or your VA (or the two of you) start spending time “networking” and “marketing”, and “building relationships” and “creating a loyal community” and doing all sorts of other interesting and time-consuming things. It’s fun really, this social networking thing, except you realize at some point that you’re just not getting anything tangible (aka money, customers, buzz, subscribers, etc) out of it.

Well, it might be a problem with how you define and track your social networking goals. Or it might be something else entirely. Namely, that you’re spending all that time and money essentially “barking up the wrong tree”. Yep, your or your assistant’s arbitrary choice of social networks might be to blame for lack of the results.

Here’s an actual advice from a virtual assistant on the subject of which social networks a client needs to be on (mind you, this VA hasn’t even asked if the client is in B2B or B2C type of business; whether he sells products or services; and what specific goal is he trying to achieve anyway):

I would start a client with Facebook and LinkedIn, see how those go and then maybe add Twitter and/or Digg.

My immediate question is this – how long do you think it’d take this VA to “see how those go” and at what cost to the client?

My point is this – when you or your virtual assistant put together a to-do list for social networking, ask a simple WHY question, such as “why do you think this is the right network for my business?” And please, do some listening first.

Don’t be afraid to sign up for 5, 10 or even 20 social networks. After all, it takes only a couple of minutes to create basic accounts on each (your business name, brief description, site URL, you know the drill). Then start listening. Set up searches for your keywords, subscribe to RSS feeds, follow others, join groups just to listen, lurk to your heart’s content. Keep track of what you see and hear – are there any mentions of your brand, your product/service, your comeptitors, the needs your business fills? Who says what and how often it’s being said, that type of thing.

After a while you’ll get a pretty good idea of your top 3 networks. These aren’t just the popular ones, but the ones that are popular with your target audience AND that are relevant to your brand, your product. They are also the sites with features that you can use in your marketing (i.e. if the only video you plan n having is a 2-min company promo, then why bother with YouTube). These social networks will be at the core of your social networking strategy. Now you can start tactical implementation – creating extended profiles, building a fan page, starting a group, connecting, talking, status updating, etc.

Of course, listening takes time. But you know what they say about people who rush in, right? Besides, lurking is cheap, much cheaper than, say, building fan pages.

Social Networks – Are You in the Right Ones? is a post from: 1Click Virtual Assistant

Should Realtors Tweet?

yelena — Mon, 03 May 2010 15:00:07 +0000

Q: My client is a Commercial Real Estate Company. Most of the employees do not use the computer for anything other than searching listings and sending emails. Social Media to them seems like a waste of time and money. Is it possible that in industries such as Commercial Real Estate, where there is no substitute for experience, we might have to wait for Social Media users to grow up before they can be considered industry thought leaders?

A: A few months ago I was asked to give a presentation about Social Media to the Realtors at a local office of one of the largest real estate firms. I thought it went very smoothly until we got to the Q&A part of it. Most of the questions I got were the “me” questions. You know, “how do I get more followers on Twitter”, “how do I promote my blog”, “how do I get more subscribers to my e-mail list”, etc. It’s like the previous 30 minutes of talking about the social aspect of social media didn’t even happen.

You see, Realtors have years of experience with push marketing, including handing out business cards, hosting parades of homes home-tours, or encouraging word-of-mouth referrals. Within 2 weeks of buying our first house, my husband and I received 10 brochures from 10 different Realtors, complete with 10 magnetic business cards.

Now, as Realtors get involved in social media (and lots and lots of them do), they use the same approach. They push through their profiles (listing them first and foremost as real estate agents), status updates with links to listed properties, etc.

That’s just the same old annoying stuff that earns real estate agents reputation comparable to that of spammers. Nor does it help that many Realtors end up using the same cookie-cutter approach to social media. That’s why, for example, it’s not that hard to find real estate agents with practically identical Twitter updates or Facebook fan pages.

So yes, if your clients approach social media with the mindset of constantly pushing their services, then they will find it to be a waste of time. It’s not that they have to grow up or get more experience, but rather that they have to start thinking of the value they bring to the community that this said community cannot get elsewhere online.

It’s just like going to networking events. Sure, you do get a chance for a 30-second “elevator speech” about your business and, ocassionally, for a slightly longer presentation. But most of the time is not spent in selling your services. Hopefully, you take at least some time to speak with other business owners about their businesses (or families or the latest Dancing with the Stars) and help them make things happen.

If you want to dig further into this issue, I highly recommend Transparent Real Estate blog. For an example of a commercial real estate firm using social media, check out this blog by Radius Commercial. Finally, here’s a very good article from the CCIM Institute on the use of social media by commercial real estate agencies.

Should Realtors Tweet? is a post from: 1Click Virtual Assistant

Virtual Assistant Rates and Elance Work

yelena — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:00:40 +0000

Can a virtual assistant (or any other virtual professional for that matter) get decent work from Elance or is it just a waste of time? That’s not a rhetorical question, but something that’s being actively discussed on various forums and blogs. I am particularly interested in reading all the negative comments which basically revolve around the following issues:

Rates are too low;
Rates are too low;
Rates are too low.

The blame is then distributed between “overseas providers” and “the clients that asks for low-ball bids”.

Well, I’m not going to talk about the “overseas providers” just yet. What I really want to address is the low rates for virtual assistant work whether through Elance or not.

I might go against the grain here, but I don’t think that virtual assistant’s hourly or other rates should be determined based on the cost of living figures. You know, I have this ideal dollar-amount in my head (if you’re curious, it’s $100 per hour) that I’d love to charge for my work. I arrived at it by adding up all the bills I have to pay each month and dividing the total by the number of hours I can devote to my social media support business (ok, so I rounded it up a bit to max out my Roth IRA). However, my real rates are much lower than that. Why?

Because realistically, the work that I do does not cost $100/hour or even $50/hour for that matter.

There are plenty of good five-cent cigars in the country. The trouble is they cost a quarter. What this country needs is a good five-cent nickel. Franklin P. Adams

I just can’t say it any better than this Franklin P. Adams guy, can I? The problem, it seems, is that many of the VAs who complain about low-ball rates and many of the VA gurus who insist that VAs must charge $$ per hour are the equivalent of 5-cent cigars.

Excel data entry, article submission, basic blog setup and maintenance, etc, etc – these are all services that are very basic, don’t require advanced skills and frequently don’t allow for much optimization. In fact, many can be automated to a large degree. Sorry, but word processing, bulk mailing or fielding phone calls/e-mails is not worth $20-30 per hour. And neither does blog commenting, Wordpress blog installation or many other services.

But hold on, won’t you bring some invaluable insights and improvements into your client’s word processing or article submission tasks that would justify your rates? Most of the time, you probably won’t. First of all, the tasks are too simple, straightforward and limited to begin with. There’s also a bigger issue – do your improvements really work FOR YOUR CLIENT. Meaning does your client make more money or achieve their goals quicker because of your suggested improvements?

But what about the added value of a long-term relationship? In my experience, Elance clients (and non-Elance clients as well) expect the following from partnering with a virtual assistant:

Assigned work gets done on time and to quality standard
Detailed status reports and time-sheets are submitted regularly
Virtual assistant is reliable and attentive

But really, these are such basic customer service expectations that charging more for them is like having an ice-cream shop charge more for staying open late on summer weekends or for offering a variety of flavors and not just vanilla and chocolate. In short, these are the same basic 5-cent expectations.

Here’s the VA rates advice I’m sick of hearing:

You are not a secretary, you are a virtual support specialist! Your services are valuable! - honestly, I’m yet to see one good explanation of how a virtual assistant is SO different from admin or marketing assistant in skills, experience or knowledge to warrant double or triple the hourly rate. And as for all the talk about long-term partnership, the owner of an ice-cream shop I frequent does not charge me more because she knows me by first name and remembers our family’s favorite flavors. In fact, she gives me occasional discounts because of that. Again, these are basics of customer service.

You are not an employee, you are a business owner now! - this argument, when used to justify higher rates, is so illogical that it makes me cringe. True, as a self-employed you have certain new expenses to worry about. But demanding higher rates just because you’re not an employee is kind of like selling $20 burgers just because you chose to build your restaurant in the most expensive part of town. Can you do it? Yes, but these burgers better be something special.

By accepting low rates, you’re showing your desperation and letting clients use and abuse you - there’s some truth here, but only if the value that you offer is greater than the payment you receive. If you’re selling 25-cent cigars for 5-cents, you are indeed a dummy and quite possibly a desperate one.

Again, the solution here is not to play the blame game, but to look at the what you offer and how you offer it and then determine how much you offer it for. And if turns out your services, the way they are right now, aren’t worth as much as you thought they might (or as much as your rate calculations worksheets tell you you must charge), then it’s time to either get a regular job or upgrade your offerings. But please, just stop blaming others (that’s an employee’s mind set, after all).

True, Elance and other such sites, have their share of unreasonable-ness. There’s some (ok, a lot) of “the lowest bidder gets the project” attitude and good old fishing around for advice. But it’s not much different in non-Elance and offline world.

Virtual Assistant Rates and Elance Work is a post from: 1Click Virtual Assistant

3 Article Marketing Myths That Cost You Money

yelena — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:00:00 +0000

This is a tag cloud of this post I created on http://www.Wordle.net

When it rains, it pours. It is true for, among other things, article marketing. Lately I’ve been doing lots and lots of it for a couple of clients. I’ve also started getting more inquiries into my article marketing support services.

Online article marketing has been around since circa 1999. I remember writing my first article as a ghost writer years ago and getting paid very good money for it (that was before $5/article sweat shops and article spinning software became all the rage). Articles were submitted to directories to build backlinks to authors’ websites as well as to get free exposure.

Ten years is a long time for anything Internet-based and article marketing is not an exception. You’d think that by now any myths and misconceptions about how to market with online articles would be dispelled. Yet almost every day I come across a blog post or, even better, an article (and sometimes even an e-book) that professes to be a well of article marketing wisdom, but in fact simply repeats the same old myths and hearsay.

Some of the most harmful and plain wrong pieces of article marketing advice include:

Myth 1 – Article marketing is FREE

Oh, boy, where to begin with this one… Ok, how about I just repeat what I said earlier, “Lately I’ve been doing lots and lots of it for a couple of clients.” And by clients I mean business owners that pay money to have me write, edit, optimize, and distribute their articles to various directories.

But let’s say you want to completely DIY your article marketing efforts. Sounds great, if you have the budget for it. Wait a second, isn’t that the whole point of DIY-ing to not pay a dime for your marketing? Well, free stops being free if you take into account the time it takes you to write and publish even a single article. And to start seeing results from your article marketing efforts, you’ll need a lot more than one or even ten articles.

Myth 2 – Articles are CHEAP

True, you can hire writers for $3-5 per article. Private label rights content is even cheaper. With rates like this, you can afford weekly or even daily articles. Except here we’re running into the good old “you get what you pay for” issue.

One of my best clients for whom I do article marketing and vendor management has a rule – he does not hire any writers who charge less than $10 per article. Why? Because he knows first-hand that cheap articles require extensive re-writes (occasionally, complete overhauls) to make them readable and in compliance with article directories’ editorial guidelines.

When it comes to private label rights articles, many sites expressely forbid use of PLR in submissions. Extensive customization of PLR is possible, but takes time and money. And even then, some of the best directories will reject your articles.

Myth 3 - You can’t publish the same article on different sites without SPINNING it

This is one of those article marketing myths that is particularly difficult to eradicate. The reasoning goes something like this: publishing the same exact (word-for-word) article to different sites creates duplicate content. Posting duplicate content will get you in trouble with article marketing sites.”

So here we go, the good old “duplicate content” monster that scares you into spending countless hours re-writing each article for each directory and buying article spinning software that turns even well-written articles into garbled pieces of low-quality junk. (Can you tell I think this myth is particularly irritating?)

So let’s put this myth to rest once and for all (bear with me please since this will save you a lot of time, money and heart-ache):

Straight from editorial guidelines of some of the most popular article directories that require manual approval of each article by their editorial staff:

MUST NOT be a submission of the exact same article as one that you already submitted. Some authors have submitted the same article multiple times with only a few words changed in the body — we reject these and ban authors who engage in this practice. (from EzineArticles)

Remove any duplicate content or duplicate articles which are submitted to the site. This includes articles which are submitted to numerous categories with no attempt to change any of the content in order to relate the category intended (from ArticleAlley)

All articles must be original articles. Multiple submissions of the same article will not only result in the article being removed, but it can also lead to the author being suspended should we consider them to be abusing the system. (from ArticleBase)

You see it, don’t you? The dreaded duplicate content refers to submitting an article to the SAME directory more than once. If all those editorial guidelines quotes leave any doubt, here’s something straight from the horse’s mouth:

Syndicate carefully: If you syndicate your content on other sites, Google will always show the version we think is most appropriate for users in each given search, which may or may not be the version you’d prefer. However, it is helpful to ensure that each site on which your content is syndicated includes a link back to your original article… (from Google Webmaster Central)

Article marketing is a great tool to include in your online marketing strategy as long as you understand that it requires hard work, long-term commitment, and understanding of the basics of content creation and SEO. If you are not sure whether what you’re reading online about article marketing is true, my best advice is to READ EDITORIAL GUIDELINES for each article directory to which you want to publish.

3 Article Marketing Myths That Cost You Money is a post from: 1Click Virtual Assistant

February Check-in

yelena — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:00:02 +0000

Wew, another month flew by and let me tell you, I’m making some progress at building a sustainable part-time social media support business that would provide sufficient supplimentary income for my family (that’s my goal for this year).

Financially, January was very slow for me. Even though I was working on a couple of projects, they started fairly late into the month and weren’t going to be finished (and paid for) until mid-February. There was also a whole big time-crunch issue. Between all my other obligations, I started to doubt the possibility of building a part-time business.

Ok, so, fast-forward to the end of February. Some time at the beginning of the month I made a major improvement to my goal-setting process, thanks to Leo Babauta’s terrific The Power of Less book. The change was as simple as it was profound – I divided my big goal (the one in bold above, only with a $ attached) into 12 intermediate goals, each with its own $ amount.

This meant, that in February I had to make X dollars; in March – a bit more than in February; in April – a bit more than in March, etc. I specifically chose a very realistic, very achievable number for my February goal. Not only was I able to make that X amount, but, based on my Quickbooks report, I made triple the target amount! That makes me feel very positive and a lot less stressed-out. Lesson learned: small incremental goals work better than one big goal.

Now, let’s review some of my other goals for February:

1. Subscribing to 5 more interesting and relevant blogs – I ended up doing just the opposite – unsubscribing from a couple of the blogs I used to follow. I needed to declutter my Google Reader to get it ready for my new project (yes, another Elance project). I still follow quite a few blogs, but do it through one RSS feed from Alltop.

2. Commenting on blogs – here’s something I don’t understand about some blogs – if you don’t want comments, then why don’t you turn them off? It might sound astonishing, but some blogs take over a week to approve a comment. Which is still not bad compared to others who don’t approve at all because you express slight doubt about or disagree with the original post. Weird, isn’t it? Moving on…

3. Write 1 guest post – done; I guest blogged in a Lifestyle section on a local blog, North Hills Buzz.

4. Develop a solution for my terrible time crunch – hmm, still working on it, but making some progress. Right now I’m trying a new approach and tweaking it as I move along. Don’t want to write about it until I get some more evidence that it works (or doesn’t). For now, I’d like to share this Lesson Learned: choosing projects that are basically the extension of my hobbies or interests was a great way of making the most out of the limited amount of time I have for both business and pleasure.

Feel free to brag about all the good stuff or share your concerns and problems right in the comments or by e-mailing me.

February Check-in is a post from: 1Click Virtual Assistant

Who Throws Away Dry Bouquets, You or Your Client?

yelena — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:00:45 +0000

Valentine’s Day was one week ago. And by now even the most long-lasting V-day bouquets have wilted. I myself had to toss away some dry roses yesterday. Which got me thinking about customer service and taking care of your client.

I mean, does your work stop after the project is delivered? And when you do work on a project or a task for your client, do you think of the present or the future of the results you deliver. Ok, I guess I better clarify.

Just like giving a great Valentine’s Day gift, completing a task or a project for a client requires more than a standard approach:

#1 – Go beyond roses and chocolates

Just as with Valentine’s Day gifts, there are some stereotypes associated with pretty much any project. Don’t be afraid to offer something different to your client – different format layout, tracking software, status updates schedule, etc – as long as you believe it will benefit your client.

I recently worked on a project where my client required daily status updates with Excel spreadsheet. I suggested that Google Docs might be a better solution for real-time tracking, easy version control, and simplified collaboration. That was a simple change that made my client’s life a bit better.

#2 – Serve breakfast in bed (metaphorically speaking)

On Valentine’s Day (and on most weekends) my husband cooks me breakfast. I know, I know, he’s awesome! But he’s yet to discover a very simple way of moving to the next level and becoming “super-awesome” – buying and occasionally using a simple folding tray.

Most of us already go above and beyond to make our clients happy. But how about (once in a while) doing something super-awesome and really making their day. Here’s what I did for one of my most favorite blogging clients – I created a log file of all their blog posts for the last year (about 60 posts).

This log file included basic information about each post, including number of comments. It also included a “Blogging Ideas” column where I entered ideas based on the previous posts’ content and reaction from the readers. There were a few other nice social media-related features in that file. The client absolutely loved the log file and it has already proved to be a very useful tool.

#3 – Don’t forget to clean up

It sure is nice to get fresh flowers, except that now you have to change water in a vase and, eventually, get rid of the dried out arrangement. Well, that’s another opportunity to move from “awesome” to “super-awesome”, both in personal and business life.

I’m talking about following up even after the project is delivered or the task is completed; making sure that everything works the way it should; answering last-moment questions even after the project is over; and asking for feedback not just to use it as a testimonial, but to improve your services.

The term “great customer service”, much like Valentine’s Day, can be annoying and meaningless. Or it can be real and simple, as simple as taking care of that withered bouquet and maybe even bringing some fresh flowers. What do you think?

Who Throws Away Dry Bouquets, You or Your Client? is a post from: 1Click Virtual Assistant

Part-Time Business Owners Need Not Apply

yelena — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:00:12 +0000

As I was looking for a networking group to join, I came across one that basically advised start-up and part-time business owners to look elsewhere. I can’t say I totally understand their motives, but hey, it’s their group. So I’ll just move on.

But it got me thinking – is it even possible to have a part-time business? Let’s say, to be a full-time stay-at-home mom during the day and a successful entrepreneur for a few hours each evening and maybe some weekends? And what, in a situation like this, would be a measure of success.

It didn’t help that I got an e-mail from one of the most successful women in the virtual assistance industry, Danielle Keister, aka the GrittyVA, that said

Most of them [virtual assistants] are barely scraping by and making under $10,000 a year.

I mean, here’s someone very knowledgable about all things VA, someone who is the driving force behind annual virtual assistance industry surveys, who says that even working full-time, “slaving away”, I’d be lucky to break the 10K mark. (Yes, I’m not a virtual assistant, but I do use essentially the same business model).

Then I calmed down and said to myself that $10K a year, while not much for someone working 40 hours a week is not all that bad for someone working only 10 hours a week. It is also not bad if the main goal of this someone’s business is to provide reliable supplemental income for this someone’s family.

But is it possible for a part-time business owner to reach even this modest goal? I mean, the 10 (or ideally, 20) hours each week that I can spend building my business include client (billable) work, searching for more work, selling and marketing, and personal and professional development.

Clearly, some time budgeting is in order. Thankfully, I found a well-worn copy of Susan M. Drake’s Freelancing for Dummies at a library with a whole chapter deveoted to Budgeting Your Time.

Selling - all the activities associated with getting more business. For me these include following up on leads, usually via e-mail; sending proposals to requests for bids on online freelance boards, such as Elance; social media marketing, including this blog; and occassional good old face-to-face networking. According to Susan Drake I should budget approximately 25% of my time to spend selling. With my part-time schedule of 20 hours weekly, that’d be 5 hours.

Administration – that’s all the work necessary to run my business. For me it’s primarily project tracking and invoicing. This require about 15% of my time or 3 hours each week.

Personal and professional development – networking falls under this category as well as reading, learning new skills and attending any teleconferences, etc. While the estimate varies depending on “the requirements of your profession”, I find that I spend roughly 1 hour each day (or 25% of my time) on it.

Working for clients – aha, the meat and potatoes of my business. After subtracting all of the above from my weekly 20 hours, I’m left with … 7 hours?! Wait, that’s like less than 50% of my time is spent actually making money!

Seems like I have two choices – either spend more time working for clients (pushing my part-time business into an almost full-time one) or resign myself to making almost no money. Neither one of these options sounds good. So let’s look for it from another angle:

Let’s bring time-tracking into the picture. Turns out that my administrative expenses (of time) are much lower than 15%. In fact, I spend only 1 hour or 5% of my time each week managing projects and invoicing clients. Things are looking up now with 9 hours weekly for working with clients.

Next task – re-evaluate the selling budget. Over the next month, I will keep track of time that I spend on all the selling-related activities as well as the ROI from each. Then I will eliminate the under-performing ones, replace them with the high-payoff strategies and consider how I can do those later ones more efficiently.

Part-Time Business Owners Need Not Apply is a post from: 1Click Virtual Assistant

January Check-in

yelena — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:00:46 +0000

With all that’s been going on in January, I am seriously questioning the idea of building a part-time business. Is it really possible? How should I adjust my goals and expectations? How should I schedule tasks and manage my time?

But first, I think I ought to report on my January progress:

Just to remind you (and myself), my business goal for the first 6 months of this year is to “Create a sustainable part-time social media support business providing sufficient supplemental/second income for the household” (and yes, there is a $ assigned to this goal).

In order to achieve it by my deadline, I chose to take several steps, including marketing on-line and offline.

Step 1 – Promote through networking groups – attend 4 networking meetings each month.

I did put 4 networking meetups on my schedule, but ended up going to only one. I missed the other three because of, as they say, circumstances beyond my control – my son was sick and I stayed home with him instead of going to one of the events. The other one got cancelled (actually, the entire meetup closed down).

Finally, I chose to not go to the forth one and instead attend a meeting that resulted in substantial (and continuous) side-income totally unrelated to my OneClickVA business.

Step 2 – Increase my blog’s visibility

At present, I use my blog as part of my content writing portfolio when I present to a potential client, along with links to the various articles I wrote for other blogs and websites. And it works!

But I also decided to use it as part of my social media specialist portfolio to show how I can help other businesses build and promote their blogs. I don’t want to go by theory alone. Instead, I want to be able to back it up by solid data.

Remember how I decided to switch gears with my blog and post only once a week and use the rest of the time to look for interesting posts on other blogs and leave substantial comments? My goal is at least 3 comments each week, but in January I managed to leave only 6 comments, falling 6 short of the goal. Still, these comments brought some traffic back to my blog and, along with my HARO-related publicity from last year, made a sizeable improvement in my blog stats.

Almost forgot to mention, but I did a guest post on a local blog, North Hills Buzz, and was invited to be one of their regular freelance contributors. This opportunity came through Twitter.

Step 3 – Start conducting regular presentations and webinars

My original goal was to get 2 requests per month by mid-June, but I’ve already got my first 2 presentations lined up for March. Stay tuned for more on this one.

The one thing I didn’t write down in my Goalbox file was to not be afraid of second chances and to expect the unexpected. Well, I am adding both now and here’s why:

If It Didn’t Work the First Time…

When I just started as a virtual assistant, I tried getting some jobs on eBay and Guru. I was very disappointed with the results – I didn’t get a single project I bid on. And so I gave up. I was understandably disappointed with employers putting such a low value on VAs’ work and their apparent disregard for quality.

Don’t get me wrong – some of the requests on eBay still disgust me (like when an employer is looking for a “top-notch SEO guru” with a budget of “under $10/hr). But I managed to find and bid on a few projects that were more fair in terms of requests and budgets. And I improved how I respond to RFQs. As a result, I won 1 project (out of 5 I replied to) which turned out to be very enjoyable and a great learning experience to boot (if you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw me mention it).

You Just Never Know…

I must admit – I have my moments of weakness, when things don’t seem to go my way and when I have serious doubts whether I can make my business work. When it happens, I start thinking about getting a “real job” again. Sometimes I even end up sending out resumes.

That’s exactly what happened late last year. I was in a funk. Things were going nowhere (or so it seemed at the time). And then I saw a job ad for a project manager at a firm that develops online language courses and language learning software. It sounded exciting, very close to what I used to do before striking out on my own.

It didn’t work out (since the company is in NH and I’m in NC). But I got an unexpected and even more exciting offer from their chief content strategist (who, by the way, mentioned that his decision to contact me with this offer was based, in part, on this blog) – to become a regular contributor for one of their blogs. Yay!

My February goals are

to find and subscribe to 5 more interesting and relevant blogs (social media, virtual assistance, small business, time management)
to continue commenting on blogs, aiming at an average 3 comments per week
write 1 guest post (do you want me to write for your blog? drop me a line at yelena@oneclickva.com)
develop a solution for my terrible time-crunch (and of course write about it)

And how are you doing with your New Year goals? Feel free to share success stories and otherwise brag.

January Check-in is a post from: 1Click Virtual Assistant