Welcome to Virtual Assistant Forums - this is where we blog! If you'd like your OWN member blog right here on VAF just click the 'Your Blog' link to the left and get started It really IS that easy, and it's free (of course!)
Each month in 2010 we'll be giving away a free featured link in the Virtual Assistant Directory here at VAF!
It's easy to win, here's how:
Draft and publish a blog post about Virtual Assistant Forums - it can be about a resource here, your experiences here, a particular topic/thread, your thoughts on the site and community overall... whatever you wish to write about, as long as it's related to VAF in some way and includes at least one live link back to the forums and approximately 250 words or more.
Then, submit a reply here with a link to your blog post.
You can enter every month if you wish, but you must draft a NEW blog post for each entry.
We'll select the best post each month and award the author a free featured link in the VAF Virtual Assistant Directory.
Featured links display on the directory home page, rotate sitewide in the VAF sidebar, and are shown at the top of their category/search results in the directory, above regular listings. Featured listings in the VAF directory receive 400% more impressions and clicks than regular listings.
[P.S. if you haven't submitted a link to your VA business site and blog, it's free...
Posted 12-01-2009 at 09:13 PM byVAF Admin Updated 12-08-2009 at 05:08 AM byVAF Admin
On Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at 9 PM EST / 6 PM PST, Mathew Dickerson, international author will guest-host a free chat event in the Virtual Assistant Forums Chatroom.
Come join Mathew as he tells you how he successfully launched all of his businesses using his own success formula which helped to catapult him into a multi-faceted business career that has spanned several decades now.
As a special gift, one lucky community member will win a copy of Mathew’s book “Small Business Rules” and a t-shirt.
About Mathew Dickerson
Mathew Dickerson started his business life at the age of 12 creating hand-made tee shirts from his own screen prints. When he turned 21 he opened up his first IT company “AXXIS Technology”. AXXIX is recognized as a leader in the IT Industry, collecting 20 major awards over the past eight years, including the prestigious Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year for 2006. In that same year, AXXIX won the Australian Business Council Award for Innovation. Mathew is the sole Australian featured in the 2006 U.S. published book ‘Top 15 Successful SM Consultants Worldwide.
In 2008, AXXIX Technology won the Australian Small Business Champions Award for the...
Virtual Assistant Forums [VAF] welcomes Craig Cannings of VAClassroom as he shares what it takes to successfully launch a product online and discusses how Virtual Assistants can add this new service to their own practice.
As businesses across all industries function more and more in an online environment, the demand for expert assistance at managing online product launches also increases. Because Virtual Assistants are skilled at servicing and supporting businesses, entrepreneurs, and startups via the internet, a VA is the perfect collaborative partner to help support online product launches.
On Thursday, November 12, 2009 Craig Cannings of VAClassroom will guest-host a free chat event in the Virtual Assistant Forums Chatroom to help VAs learn more about how they can tap into this hot new market– bringing more profitability to their clients, as well as their own practices.
Craig says, “Information Product Marketing is one of the fastest growing industries on the Web today and many small businesses need skilled Virtual Assistants to help them manage the many pre-launch, launch, and post-launch activities associated with their web products. This is a very profitable niche to tap into as we head into...
Here's a sneak peak at the video we had produced for the new area here at VAF designed to help clients and potential clients learn more about how to hire and work with a Virtual Assistant
Posted 10-14-2009 at 01:10 PM byVAF Admin Updated 11-10-2009 at 04:02 PM byVAF Admin
This month, Christina Nelson of Virtual Office Solutions shares her expertise in WordPress in the Virtual Assistant Forums Chatroom. Nelson will show virtual assistants how to utilize the free WordPress platform to create a high-quality blog or Website.
As small business solopreneurs many Virtual Assistants seek to complement their business development by taking advantage of free marketing resources. However, free doesn't always equal 'quality', especially when it comes to websites. In order to be viewed as a professional service provider, a well-presented business website is crucial. WordPress, an extremely flexible blog and CMS software, gives Virtual Assistants the opportunity to present that professional online persona and leverage the marketing potential of a high-quality business website at no cost. Developing a website in WordPress gives a website owner the freedom to control the look of their site, as well as make basic updates, without the assistance of a costly programmer.
Dubbed one of Virtual Assistant Forums' "resident WordPress gurus", community member Christina Nelson generously shares her expertise and knowledge in all things WordPress by answering other members' questions...
Your WordPress Website: Why using WordPress to create your site is a great option - the basics of creating and maintaining your own site.
About our guest hostess: While managing her VA business Christina discovered Wordpress and created her first website at http://www.vitalofficesolutions.com. While she continued to offer basic virtual assistance, the bug had bitten and Christina taught herself Wordpress from the inside out and Christina’s expertise in the program has resulted in her being consider a “Wordpress Guru”. She has recently launched a new site, the “Dear Abby" of Wordpress containing helpful information. http://www.christina-nelson.com
Be sure to join us for this informative, free chatroom event for YOUR chance to win a customized Wordpress theme by Christina [not including installation].
Posted 09-20-2009 at 04:57 PM byVAF Admin Updated 11-10-2009 at 04:03 PM byVAF Admin
Darlene Victoria Gonzalez, of D. Victoria Virtual Assistance, brings her expertise in all things multimedia to the Virtual Assistant Forums Chatroom as September's guest expert. Gonzalez will show virtual assistants how to utilize low-cost tools to create high-quality, online videos; giving them the cutting edge amongst their competition.
Did you know that more than 158 million viewers watched an average of 135 videos online during the month of July? In fact, Google Sites surpassed its all time high with 121 million unique viewers during the month, averaging 74.1 videos per viewer, according to comScore.com. With this increase in online video viewership comes a fantastic opportunity for virtual assistants to increase their exposure on the web and leverage multimedia marketing for greater business success.
Through services like YouTube.com, Vimeo, and Yahoo! Video, virtual assistants can post videos that highlight their business, a product, a service or simply a video in which they offer expert advice.
With online video, virtual assistants have the ability to create their own unique marketing message that not only showcases their brand, but is tailored towards their target...
Posted 08-14-2009 at 04:47 AM byVAF Admin Updated 08-14-2009 at 07:17 PM byVAF Admin
It's easy to embed YouTube videos in your forum posts; here's how:
Find the URL for the YouTube video you wish to embed. Find the ID of that video (whatever is after the v= in the URL. Let's say the ID is vr3x_RRJdd4 (which is the ID of a video for the Free Hugs Campaign)
Then you would enter the following into your post to embed the video:
PHP Code:
[youtube]vr3x_RRJdd4[/youtube]
and this is what you'll get:
Give it a try next time you want to reference a video from YouTube - it's a great way to enhance your post by including the video itself too!
Did you know that the VAF Chatroom is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for YOUR use? Well, it is!
Here's a quick and easy way to get your fellow member VAs in there with you for a quick social chat, right NOW (or whenever you feel like it):
Grab a link to the Chatroom and turn it into a Tweetable, TinyURL. Here, to make it super easy, we did it for you ---> http://tinyurl.com/c6a4bg [copy that]
Now log into your Twitter account and post an invite. Something like:
VAF members: join me in the Virtual Assistant Forums Chatroom for a quick social chat right now! http://tinyurl.com/c6a4bg
(feel free to copy and paste that for your own use, it's just under 140 characters )
Then, jump into the chatroom yourself, post a welcome, and see who joins you for some great conversation
Join us May 28th at 5pm PST / 8pm EST in the VAF Chatroom as the author of GET CLIENTS NOW!, C.J. Hayden, answers the question:
What's Stopping You From Getting Clients... and What To Do About It
What are the barriers that prevent talented VA's from building a thriving business? You can overcome these challenges and attract more clients with less effort by making a few simple changes. Learn how you may be sabotaging your own marketing, the three most reliable ways to build your business quickly, when Internet marketing is a useful tool and when it won't help you, and how to build a system to make marketing simple and effortless.
C.J. Hayden is the best-selling author of Get Clients Now!, Get Hired Now!, and The One-Person Marketing Plan Workbook. C.J. is a Master Certified Coach who has helped thousands of independent professionals to make a better living doing what they love. C.J. has taught marketing for John F. Kennedy University, Mills College, SCORE, and the U.S. Small Business Administration. Find out more about C.J. at http://www.getclientsnow.com .
Posted 02-24-2009 at 02:33 PM byVAF Admin Updated 10-11-2009 at 05:24 PM byVAF Admin
We''re certain YOU have a great idea for a social group here at VAF and this blog post is your invitation to start one up. Here's how:
Click the GROUPS link in the main menu, then choose GROUPS (<--- or just click that link right there!) Once you reach the main page where all of our current social groups are listed, scroll down to the bottom and you'll see a link to Create a New Group. Click that link and fill in the fields on the next page - give your group a NAME (something nice and descriptive so people understand what it's all about!), fill in the description, make your group public or private, and click "Save" - your group is then ready to invite people to join!
Get people to join and participate in your group by posting a link and description in the TALK section, or - if it's a business-related group, post about it in the topic section that you think makes the most sense. Send PMs to your friends on the boards, Tweet your new group, etc. and before you know it you'll have an active mini-forum of your very own right here on VAF!
If there's a forum section you'd like to subscribe to, click into the main forum section of your choosing and select 'forum tools' at the top right, then select 'subscribe' and 'instant email notification' to rec'v notice in your inbox each time a new post is made in that section!
If you subscribe but don't rec'v the notifications - please check that our emails are not going into your junk folder and add virtualassistantforums.com to your whitelist
As always, you can still subscribe to individual threads - and we've updated that feature to include instant email notification as well (you can adjust your subscription settings in your profile).
The chatroom is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to help you to connect live and network in real time with fellow members. Feel free to log into the chatroom whenever you like, invite your friends via PM to join you there, or just post a thread in the Talk section letting other members know you'd like to get the conversation started!
And of course, we're also planning some great live topic chat events in 2009 - so stay tuned!
We just turned the marketing power of your forum profiles on - and then up another notch!
Now, inside your profiles here on VAF you'll notice a 'Customize Profile' link at the top right of your information tabs [About Me, Contact Info, etc.] - use the link to change the colors, font styles, background images and more of your profiles.
And, in order to give you as much marketing leverage as possible we opened up the thousands of member profile pages to the search engines - Google, Yahoo!, MSN, they're all indexing YOUR pages right now - so be sure to take advantage of the huge SEO-positive impact of VAF and fill in your details.
We'll continue adding even more fields for you to add more of your information in the near future.
We were looking at the site menu recently and it dawned on us that not only were there so FEW of the great features here on VAF appropriately linked up in the menu, but there wasn't a *single* pixel of space left for all the great new features and pages we have planned for 2009. So we did a little remodeling
Please take a moment to check out the new (and we hope, improved) VAF main menu - there are now drop downs to help you more easily find and use the many key features here at Virtual Assistant Forums.
Use the controls at the left to create your own VA blog right here on the site! Create your blog title, enter a description, and add categories in your Blog Control Panel. Then, click 'Post to your Blog' and get started! It's that easy!!
It really IS that easy, and it's free (of course!)
)
C.J. Hayden is the best-selling author of Get Clients Now!, Get Hired Now!, and The One-Person Marketing Plan Workbook. C.J. is a Master Certified Coach who has helped thousands of independent professionals to make a better living doing what they love. C.J. has taught marketing for John F. Kennedy University, Mills College, SCORE, and the U.S. Small Business Administration. Find out more about C.J. at 
