[Question] Bookkeeping and Social Networking

[vballiances]

For those of you that are primarily Virtual Bookkeepers, how much Social Networking do you do? I'm not officially "open for business" yet but I will be focusing on bookkeeping/administrative services as my niche market. So many of the posts on this site, as well as others, are really touting the importance of blogging, article writing, facebook, twittering, etc. and I hate to write! How important is this to the virtual bookkeeper?

Thanks for your input!

[PamH53]

The important thing is to get clients. If you can do that without writing a blog or opening a Twitter account, good for you. But you have to come up with some way to market your business and some of these things are free. And we all like free advertising. So figure out what you need to do to get the amount of clients that you want in order to keep yourself busy, and go for it.

[vballiances]

Thanks for your post Pam. I will probably open Twitter and Facebook accounts, but I am somewhat intimidated by article writing. Maybe it will get easier as I get more into the business.

[PamH53]

Article writing does not have to be intimidating, unless you feel you need to write pages and pages. Constant Contact has a free 60 day trial. You could start slow, writing paragraphs instead of pages, and see how it feels. And it will get easier every time you do it. If you want to see a copy of my newsletter, go to my website and fill out my form and I will send you one to show you what I do. I have gotten a lot of great feedback, and I don't write long articles.

[vballiances]

I just signed up for your newsletter and am interested in what you include. Thanks again for your help.

[Office Goddess]

I, too, am a virtual bookkeeper. I have a Twitter account but rarely tweet, have a Facebook account but have never updated the profile, and don't blog. I spend the majority of my 'social media time' on a combination of a linked-in accounting forum, Intuit accounting forum, in-person local networking events, and here on VAF.

I HAVE published an article on 'working with a virtual bookkeeper' but it started out as a list of 'how to work with ME' and then got 'tweaked' into an actual article that I submitted to TVE Magazine.

[vballiances]

I'm glad to know that it's at least possible to have clients without having to tweet too much. I enjoy the QuickBooks forum but haven't yet seen the LinkedIn one. I'll have to try that too. I'm hoping that when I finally get my website finished and my business cards and brochures printed I'll get so many clients that I won't have time to tweet!!

[Raydaw]

Hi I offer bookkeeping and payroll services as part of my portfolio. So far most of my work has come from actual Networking meetings (4Networking) but I need to get into this tweeting thing - must admit I keep putting it off.

[Joyce Asante]

Hi,

If you don't like writing article to promote your services, then networking isn't a bad other alternative!

Try and join groups that are related to your services on Facebook. I'm sure this would be a great benefit to you!

Good luck,

Joyce Asante.

[harrisro]

I have really had good success with networking groups and speed networking. If you go to www.meetup.com you can find all kinds of groups to join. I join the business and networking groups. I haven't found a person yet that didn't think being a VA was a great idea!

[candacec1]

I am also on meetup.com and it is a really good and informative networking group. Lots of diverse backgrounds and companies on there and chocked full of great advise. I would definately recommend it as well!!!

[lf business]

After being in busienss for over 10 years, I am starting my new venture into the social networking area. But I do agree with Harrisro that belonging to network groups is important.

[rambookkeeping]

Thanx for this info. I need to start looking into the networking more and more also. I need a push every now and then and this just might have done it! Thanx again!!