Forums and online communities are the original social networks - participating in the conversation and making the most of all that your free membership at Virtual Assistant Forums has to offer is an important part of your internet marketing plan - IF you take advantage of the opportunity. Here’s how!
Stay active:
You’re an important member of the Virtual Assistant Forums community! From the research and startup phase you've seen the benefit of participation in this top-notch forum, but how important is it to remain active on the boards after you're established? There are many reasons ongoing participation at VAF is important, here are just a few:
- Visibility among your peers - "Being an active member...
Forums and online communities are the original social networks - participating in the conversation and making the most of all that your free membership at Virtual Assistant Forums has to offer is an important part of your internet marketing plan - IF you take advantage of the opportunity. Here’s how!
Get involved!:
Virtual Assistant Forums is a so much more than a message board!
- Post as if your business depends on it! Virtual Assistant Forums is highly optimized for hundreds of search terms related to the VA industry. The fact that your posts are indexed by the search engines can be very beneficial for you and your business. Your posts are a powerful marketing tool - use them to make your mark in your...
Forums and online communities are the original social networks - participating in the conversation and making the most of all that your free membership at Virtual Assistant Forums has to offer is an important part of your internet marketing plan - IF you take advantage of the opportunity. Here’s how!
Choose the best place to make your post:
Taking the time to scan the topic sections and decide where your post belongs BEFORE creating a new thread will ensure your post receives high quality responses, and more of them. Posting a question about billable hours in the marketing section only confuses the point you're trying to get across, and it makes more work for your community admin.
When you click 'New Thread' or 'New Reply' you'll find a video recorder right there beneath the text editor! Use it to add video messages of up to five minutes in length to your posts. This is a custom feature, developed specifically for Virtual Assistant Forums to help enhance your experience on the boards.
Here's how to make a VIDEO POST:
Our flash video post feature will work with your computer's own video camera to record video posts of up to five minutes in length.
-Click 'RECORD' to begin recording. Hit 'STOP' when you're done.
-To view your video click 'PLAY'.
Don't worry, you can re-record as many times as you need to before saving.
-Click 'SAVE' when you're ready to add your...
Forums and online communities are the original social networks - participating in the conversation and making the most of all that your free membership at Virtual Assistant Forums has to offer is an important part of your internet marketing plan - IF you take advantage of the opportunity. Here’s how!
Establish yourself as an expert:
You work with clients to take THEIR businesses to the next level... but what about your OWN business? It's time to establish yourself as an expert. This is much easier than it sounds, and it doesn't require a silly badge for this or that certification. What it takes is solid, working knowledge of your specialty, the ability to articulate that knowledge, and CONFIDENCE.
Forums and online communities are the original social networks - participating in the conversation and making the most of all that your free membership at Virtual Assistant Forums has to offer is an important part of your internet marketing plan - IF you take advantage of the opportunity. Here’s how!
Brand EVERYTHING:
Your VAF membership is an extension of your company brand and message. From registering to setting up your profile, signature, avatar, blog, etc. keep the following in mind.
- Branding is much more than a logo and tagline - your brand message should impact and inform your forum posts. You're not just speaking for your business you're speaking AS your business. Brand your posts by infusing them...
The Virtual Assistant Forums Calendar is open for event posting by ALL registered members - you can add your own free events, events you are aware of that you think others may benefit from, your business anniversaries, goal dates, etc. to the calendar for public viewing. It's easy to add your own listings to the calendar, simply click the 'EVENTS' link in the main menu and select 'Submit Event' - follow the steps to add your information. There is no limit to the number of calendar submissions members may submit but all listings will be moderated by the forum administration and are subject to approval.
Be sure to include ALL necessary information including:
- event title
- event date
- event time
-...
Forums and online communities are the original social networks - participating in the conversation and making the most of all that your free membership at Virtual Assistant Forums has to offer is an important part of your internet marketing plan - IF you take advantage of the opportunity. Here’s how!
Save time using the forum search tools:
The answer to your burning question may already be on VAF! Use the search features to see if there's an existing conversation on the very topic you have in mind. There's a search bar at the top of the site that will allow you to search the entire forum by keyword. There's also a 'Search this Forum' option inside every topic section - to make it easy for you to find what you're looking...
Forums and online communities are the original social networks - participating in the conversation and making the most of all that your free membership at Virtual Assistant Forums has to offer is an important part of your internet marketing plan - IF you take advantage of the opportunity. Here’s how!
Keep your audience in mind:
You might think the only people reading your posts at VAF are your fellow Virtual Assistants - but your potential clients are eavesdropping too! VAF member Kena Roth of Virtually Assisting You is just one example of a VA who was contacted (and contracted!) by a client who found her upbeat personality and informative responses at VAF to be just what he was looking for. Kena says, "A recent...
We understand that a few of you are having a hard time adjusting to the new VAF design due to the slight transparency in some parts of the site coupled with the background image.
Of course it is our goal to provide maximum usability for all members. So, in order to ensure that everyone can effectively use the site, we've created the option for members to remove the background image from your VAF experience.
If you wish to remove the background image on VAF while you are logged in, click 'SETTINGS' in the main menu.
Then choose 'Edit Options' from the menu to the left.
Scroll all the way down the page until you see 'Show Background Image' - if you wish to view the site without the background...
The Networking feature at VAF is a great way to build relationships and network with your fellow Virtual Assistants and can make it easier for you to communicate with them directly here on VAF. You can build your network by sending networking requests to other members you share common interests with, who are members of the same group, or who are particularly helpful in a thread you've started. Anyone you wish to connect with...
To add someone to your networking list, visit their Virtual Assistant Forums profile and click the 'Add to your network' link in the Network box (second box in the right-hand column in profiles).
The member will receive notice that you have requested a connection with them and much like...
Posted 08-14-2009 at 04:47 AM byVAF Admin Updated 08-14-2009 at 07:17 PM byVAF Admin
Thanks to Hamid at Codehead, LLP for his quick custom hack, it's easy now 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...
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!
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).
