JKVirtualOffice

I know that so many Virtual Assistants are now using Social Media and Social Networking to increase their own online visibility and connect with potential clients. I also know that more and more Virtual Assistants are assisting their clients with Social Media related tasks. As with any medium that you are using to market yourself or for your clients, there is always a need to stop every once and a while to evaluate or re-evaluate what you are doing, its effectiveness and how you might be more innovative with your current social media strategy.

So let's consider some ways you can clean-up or freshen up your social media and social networking accounts.

[Image]Twitter

~Your Following and Your Followers
Have you checked lately who are following that is now not following you? Is it time to reciprocate that non-follow by giving that Tweeter the boot? Granted, there are some folks out there worth following who do not also follow back. But it's certainly worth a check of who you are following that's now not following back. Unfortunately, there are spammer people out there who will do mass follows and then do mass unfollows...

I am happy to see so many of us on Twitter and so many more Virtual Assistants joining daily. Twitter really is a great platform for networking vitually and quickly becoming a must have tool in the toolbox for Virtual Assistants.

However, there are a couple of things that I wanted to mention which are really important when you set up your Twitter profile.

1. Upload an avatar. People are hesitant to follow other Twitterers who have the stock brown/blue Twitter avatar.

2. Do not lock your updates. This will also keep people from following you and one of the key points to Twitter is to increase your sphere of influence by increasing the number of people who are interested in following you.

3. List your real name. Your Twitter ID can be whatever you want it to be (although I recommend using something that is close to your business name or otherwise indicates what you do). But I recommend that you list your real name in the name area on your profile. As a business person, people want to know that who they are dealing with. Think about your other profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn and others. You post your real name there so it just makes sense that you list it on there.
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TwitWall is something everyone who has a Twitter account automatically has access to. It is like a blogging feature that for your Twitter Account. You can write posts, add video or pictures and once you post it to your Twitwall, it will automatically tweet the post for you. There's also a button that other people can click on if they want to re-tweet your post.

The other thing I really like about about Twitwall is over in your profile area it lists your twitter bio, your twitter grade (as determined by Hubspot) and you can post links to all your social media profiles and your website or blog. I've posted to my Twitwall a couple of times and you take a peek HERE if you're interested in what I've posted on my Twitwall.

Twitwall is yet another great way to be seen and to connect with your followers and target audience. It's an easy tool to use and the guy who runs the site is great and frequently tweets about new posts. Take a look at this image from my Twitwall:

[Link]

If look down at the bottom of the picture you'll see that today, he has chosen to give love to Virtual Assistants who are using...

This has been a crazy week...the snow, ice and freezing temps have kept the schools closed all week so far and the rumor is that they'll probably stay closed for the rest of the week. I don't mind having my son home so much, but I typically use the time he's in school to get a good chunk of my work done for the day without interruptions- and I feel guilty letting him just sit and play video games too much during the day. He also has a head cold so going outside to play hasn't been at the top of my list of things to do.

On top of that, we had no power on Monday for 6 1/2 hours while it was about 20 degrees out AND our Christmas tree fell over (again!) yesterday with ornaments flying everywhere and water pouring out of the tree holder. So, my husband took it outside last night and wrangled with it for a good hour to get it more stable...which it now is, but the hour of wrangling took it's toll on the poor tree which now looks like what I've termed "The Worst Christmas Tree Ever." So far only the lights are back on the tree as I haven't had the energy to tackle redecorating the tree for the third time. As of yet, there are no presents under the tree since the carpet is still damp from all the water that's spilled...

So I just created a thread HERE in the Social Networking area with some links to different Twitter resources to help you get started with using Twitter and with getting familiar with how Twittering works. But I thought I would use the wonderful new blog feature to write some more specifics about how Virtual Assistants can use Twitter not only for their own marketing and networking purposes, but as members of the larger Virtual Assistant industry.

I've only been using twitter for a couple of months and I will freely admit that I'm thoroughly addicted. When I get up in the morning, I check my email first and then moments later, I log into twitter. All this usually happens before I've had coffee or breakfast...(and embarrassingly sometimes even before I've made breakfast for my son. Shhh, don't tell anyone!)

In using Twitter I have:

1) received a referral from someone who saw me tweeting and referred me to a colleague

2) had two people contact me directly about working with me. One of whom will be signing on in January.

3) been asked to join a fellow twitter's online networking group.

4) been able to "converse" directly with experts...