Originally Posted by Your Virtual Wizard

Kim, Outstanding post!!!! I may quote you someday...with full attribute, of course. When you refer to reporting, do you look at Insights and Analytics for info on growth? What other reporting do you use for stats?

Aww, thanks, Janine! I'm so glad you all found my reply helpful. For reporting, it depends on the client and what our goals are and what we are tracking. For some it's about determining the reach of their Tweets or of their Twitter account (i.e. how many possible people could have seen their tweets.) Sometimes it can be about tracking how many views a video received and what is the demographic of viewers. I also look at the growth in followers in correlation to how often tweets are going out on an account, which also gives me a idea of how consistently tweets are going out. There's also some tracking of hashtags (which can also be used to measure reach on Twitter.)

In addition to the Facebook Insights data, there's also the Impressions data that Facebook provides for each of your posts. (Although this seems to be broken as of lately).

I also look at Google Analytics for their blogs or their site (if they have them installed.) Google Analytics will provide some measure of how much other social media platforms are driving traffic to their site. For one client, Facebook is the 3rd largest referrer for traffic, for another it's 2nd. But for my husband's site, Youtube is a bigger referrer than Facebook or Twitter. This is a good way to help you know where to focus your efforts for the best outcomes.

Also, tracking clicks on links that are posted using Bit.ly or some other link shortener can be useful as well for determining which types of content your community prefers.

Hi, I'm new to this site and am just getting started researching and working on my business plan. I am very interested in social media as a niche for my business but aside from a marketing degree that I got a few years ago I need a class or training to bring me up to speed on facebook and twitter. does anyone know of a good, reputable training I can take online?

I have seen too many businesses start a social media account and leave it hanging because they don't have a clue what to do next. Leaving a social media outpost hanging is the worst someone can do for their business. So this is a very good niche as business owners don't always have time to work on anything but what their business is about (also organizations and non-profits). It is not easy to keep up with the changes in social media settings - ie. facebook recently changed the way fanpage tabs are added. A good social media VA would keep up to date with changes to ensure sustainable success.

You can do well with those services, for example one of the packages I am setting up is a Blog Assistant Pkg because that's an area I'm really good at, but I also have the office administrative, executive assistance, social media management, and customer support packages to offer. I've just started to but these are areas I have decided work for me do what works for you so you bring your best to the client.