Virtual Buzz Assistant

You can create a lot of buzz with your employees via great customer service and great products.  But how do you create virtual buzz on the internet without distracting your employees?

Virtual Assistants can easily be trained to create virtual buzz on the web for you one a regular basis.  Not getting exactly what you want?  Great, move on and try another.  It is not like they are employees – and they know that.  Virtual Buzz Assistants want to keep you happy long term and perform better because of it.

Here are some Virtual Buzz Tasks that a Virtual Assistant can do for you.

1. Blog Writing
2. Blog Commenting
3. Blog Management
4. Website Updates
5. Affiliate Management and Recruiting
6. eBook Writing
7. White Paper Research and Writing
8. Contest Management and Promotion
9. Online Advocacy
10. Profile Management
11. Social Network Management
12. Press Release writing and submission
13. Article Marketing
14. SEO
15. eNewsletter writing and publishing
16. Link Building
17. Video development
18. Directory listings
19. Social Network Expansion
20. email followups
21. CRM Management
22. JV Development

There are more, but if you did all of these, wow, you would be well known on the web.  You can create all the virtual buzz you want with a virtual assistant.  Just don’t expect to have sales leads gushing in after only a few weeks.  These strategies take time.

It is no surprise that a virtual assistant is cost-effective.  But just for giggles, lets think through how a virtual assistant compared to an employee effect the environment.  Are Virtual Assistants Green?

#1 No commute – Your virtual assistant usually works from their home.  Not only are you saving the earth from all those emissions, you are also enabling someone to work from home that might have had to go out and get a job with a commute with someone else.  Bravo!

#2 Electronic Communications – Since everything is virtual, the need and temptation to print things is much less.

#3 Clarity – Since you do not see each other face to face, you are forced to be very specific and clear in your instructions.  This will reduce errors that could have a negative impact on the environment as well as an additional cost to redo the project.

#4 Utilities – Chances are your virtual assistant was going to have heat and utilities in their home anyway.  When you have fewer employees in an office and have more people in homes where the utility use does not change much more, you get a great environmental bonus.

#5 Sick Leave – OK, this one is more of a proficiency issue, but if you do not have everyone in one office, you cut down on illnesses getting past around.  And when people work from home, they can suffer though some issues that may have required them to call off if they were going to come into the office.

#6 Relocation – If you have a fast growing business and everyone is in an office, you will find that when you outgrow that office you lose a lot of hours moving as well as the negative impact on the environment when you need to move.

#7 Less Printing – A virtual assistant is going to be much less likely than an in-office employee to print things out.  After all, when they need to send their client something, they will usually use email.  Keeping documents and reports electronic is the only option that makes sense.

I do not know how big the GREEN impact is.  However, it is not hard to see that replacing some of your staff with virtual assistants will have a big impact on the environment and on your bottom line.

Are you worried about work at home issues?  A virtual assistant that is contracted will usually go to great lengths to achieve results for you because they want to maintain the relationship.  So hiring a virtual assistant is going to give you leverage that you may not have with work at home employees.

This is probably the best example of green also making fast financial sense.  You just have to be ready to make a shift in your thinking.

A realtor needs help marketing real estate.  Real Estate sales online can be very effective, but keeping all your information current and marketing it to the local home searchers takes time.

That is why a Virtual Buzz Assistant is a perfect match if you are a realtor looking for a Real Estate Virtual Assistant.

I have known a few realtors in my day, and let me make some broad generalizations.

1. They do not like to spend large amounts of money on the web.  (Especially in 2008)
2. They like to be able to show clients what they are doing for them.
3. They are much more effective with a good support staff.
4. They often need to write listings, update pictures or video and market homes on the web.

A Real Estate Virtual Buzz Assistant can help you in a variety of areas.  They may not help you with your calendar or scheduling, but they will really save you time on the web.  Here are some tasks to consider.

1. Updates to websites and blogs
2. Set up local housing blog and keep it updated
3. Monitor search engine traffic to improve listing performance
4. Update real estate listings
5. Optimize images and video
6. Upload images and video
7. Reach out to local housing market and try to grow email lists
8. Publish email newsletters with home listings

The biggest reason to get a real estate virtual assistant to specialize in your online marketing is because they will help you be more effective and free up your time to show homes and network.  You can start out with one small trial project and decide how you will proceed.

Marketing Real Estate on the Internet does not need to be expensive and involve marketing firms and web designers.  A virtual assistant that has solid internet marketing skills can meet the vast majority of your needs.

If your business is experiencing a slow down and you are cutting back, you should know a few things.

1. There will be less competition now for people that were spending a lot on SEO and web development. This is a perfect time to start building a higher web profile.
2. Rates are down – Many new people are becoming virtual assistants because of being downsized. You may be able to get a really great rate on a virtual assistant to write for you while you focus on sales.
3. Downsizing may be good – Even if you do not have to let people go, it may be a good time to cut positions that are not paying for themselves and hire virtual assistants and contractors to fill those positions on an as-needed basis.
4. Don’t just hire virtual assistants. Maybe the economic slowdown means it is time to become a virtual company. Imagine less utilities, no lease and a write off for your home office.
5. Monthly Performance Concerns – A contractor or virtual assistant is going to be concerned each month with demonstrating value because they want to have more work next month, and maybe even some referrals. Many employees expect to have a job until they find out otherwise.

When you hire a virtual assistant, you should pay as much attention defining their tasks and training them as you would an employee in your organization. If you do that, you are going to reap big cost savings and get more work done.

During a time of recession it is also a great time to strengthen your position on the web and gain market share and search engine dominance.

Wondering what marketing jobs a virtual assistant can do for you?

Here is a list of the top 10 marketing jobs a VA can do that will generate web results.

#1 Virtual Assistant Marketing Job – Content Creation

By creating a steady steam of articles and blog posts, you will create more traffic and more long term search engine hits.

#2 Virtual Assistant Marketing Job – Email List Development

Helping you create a compeling offer and invite people to sign up for your email list can increase your leads significanltly over time.

#3 Virtual Assistant Marketing Job – Interviews

Whether you are doing podcast interviews, blog interviews or enewsletter interviews, having your VA contact and organize the interview helps you connect with more people and create great content.

#4 Virtual Assistant Marketing Job – Online Advocacy

A virtual assistant can contact people in your target audience and solicit links, offer free trials and create awareness that can significantly increase your exposure.

#5 Virtual Assistant Marketing Job – Forums and Groups

A VA will visit forums and groups on your behalf and develop relationships and sometimes post links to products and services – but with full transparency.

#6 Virtual Assistant Marketing Job – Profile Management

Having trouble keeping up with growing your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other online accounts?  A VA can help you manage these accounts and use the tools to grow your network.

#7 Virtual Assistant Marketing Job – Social Bookmarks

A VA can maintain social bookmark accounts for you and your business to use to bookmark industry sites as well as your own sometimes.  If you only bookmark your own, you could get a penalty.

#8 Virtual Assistant Marketing Job – Web Updates

You can pay a web designer or a marketing firm, but in many cases a VA can do your website updates for you for much less.

#9 Virtual Assistant Marketing Job – Google Adword Management

If you are running Google Adwords, you can quickly train a Virtual Assistant to manage your accounts for you, track results and compile reports for you.

#10 Virtual Assistant Marketing Job -Research and SEO

VA’s can do market research and even look at Google Analytics and enhance pages to get better SEO results.

This is not even the entire list.  They can help you develop communities, manage affiliate programs, write white papers and ebooks, proof read you inhouse materials, etc.  When you need an affordable, English-fluent and internet marketing savvy person, you can submit your marketing job to our Virtual Buzz Assistant network.

You may wonder how to find out what skills are the strongest for a Virtual Assistant you are preparing to hire.  One of the key reasons we started the virtual buzz assistant network is to help virtual assistants hone in on high value skills and only offer those skills to people that need them.

Internet Marketing takes a lot of time and you cannot set it up and forget it.  A virtual assistant to help you succeed on the web is a great option for many businesses.  But how do you figure out what their skills really are?

One thing I like to do is ask them to rank their skills from high to low.  Then you cannot say you are good at all of them.  Give them a list of the 5 or 10 skills you would like them to have and ask them to rate them in order.  Let them know it is part of the hiring process, and they cannot say two are equal.

Next, in a follow up, ask why they rated a skill (if you are interested in that skill) that high.  Specifically ask for examples that you can check out.  Ask the virtual assistant how many clients have used that specific skill of theirs and ask for references.

In our virtual assistant directory you can view the profiles of virtual assistants and see what skills they list on a 1 to 5 level of experience.  This gives you a good place to start.  In our directory you will only find skills that pertain to internet marketing.

While finding the most skilled virtual assistant is important, keep in mind that your budget may not let you hire the top virtual assistant.  We have seen that the virtual assistants with extensive experience are often booked because they are such a good value.  In that case, if you have a small budget, you may have to work with a less experienced and skilled virtual assistant since they are often willing to take a lower rate in order to expand and improve their skills.

The best skill a virtual assistant can have to begin with is to listen to a client and repeat back to him exactly what he wants to have done.  Without good communication and organization, a virtual assistant lacks the most important skill to keep clients happy long-term.

What makes a good blog writer?

Blog writing is not the same as press release writing.  Blog writers have to have a different approach.  However, blog writers are also not just anyone that can write on your topic.

The key is that a blog writer understands why businesses write a blog. The technology for posting is easy, but implementing your business blogging strategy is not so easy.

One strategy is to hire a couple of virtual buzz assistants to write a few blog posts each, then review the results from google analytics, from comments and based on what you like best.  Then hire the best writers on a monthly retainer.

Here are some interview questions you will want to consider using if you are interviewing a blog writer. 

1) What makes a good blog post?

2) How do you write blog posts that are good for people AND search engines?

3) Tell me about different types of blog posts?

4) How can a blog build a community?

5) Tell me about (or send me a link to) a blog post that kept generating long term traffic.

6) What social media tools can be used to increase blog readership?

7) Have you ever written link bait?

8 ) How would you find relevant news and information on our topic?

Sure there are more questions, but you are not going to ask too many.  Instead, check out their blog and their writing style.  Talk to other blog owners if they work with them.

A big issue I have found is that you need an incentive to keep the blog writer results oriented.  If you just count the number of blog posts each month, enthusiasm may wane and your quality of posts may go down.  To stop this from happening, send the blog writer some encouraging notes about their current work and possibly have a bonus if traffic increases by a certain percentage.

Don’t overlook the fact that it will be worth a little more to have the writer also spend some time promoting key blog posts on things like twitter, social bookmarking, etc.

Blog writer jobs are plentiful if you can find the many small business owners that have started a blog and let them die.  The key to getting a job as a blog writer is to find people that have started blogs and then to convince them of the following:

• Blogs are worth writing
• Blogs get results over the long term
• Blogs strengthen your relationships with your customers and the public
• Blogs can yield unexpected good results

One way to do this is to collect success stories.  Here is a blog success story as an example.

It is also important to become trained in how to write blog posts that perform well for people and for search engines.  When you can articulate your ability to write posts that will grow an audience, you will get more blog writing jobs.

You will usually need to do some education with the client that might be shopping around for the cheapest blog writer.  Let them know what the difference is between link bait, a comprehensive post and a light post that is just a short blurb to keep the blog fresh.

In order to get the blog writer project, you may have to do a small project to establish your ability and value.  Make absolutely sure there are no typos or grammar issues in your post as one mistake will stick out and make it much harder to get future blog writer jobs with that client.

Working as a blog writer can be very rewarding.  It is one of the primary jobs a virtual buzz assistant does.  As you get more familiar with the client’s industry and how to research your topics, you will be able to complete more good blog posts in less time, which will increase your hourly salary and give you more time.

Remember when you are talking with a prospective client, know in advance if you are trying to convince them that a) They need a blog b) Blogs are effective or c) They need you as a blog writer.  They do not want to hear about your blog writing service if they do not think blogs are a good way to go.

Lastly, you will get more blog writer jobs if you simplify your packages.  Price your blog writing by the post, based on the post type and by the number per month.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a low cost virtual marketing agency working for you all the time?

The virtual buzz assistant network is a group of internet marketers that will work for you from their home to help you enhance visibility.

If I were just starting out, here is what I would do to create a low cost, high impact virtual marketing agency that would help me succeed long term.

1. I would begin with a marketing plan.  Not too lengthy, but I would have clear goals, clear target audiences and clear ways to make money.
2. I would then define multiple roles I would like the members of the virtual marketing agency to do for me.  I would prioritize the list and would place different virtual buzz assistants in different roles.  Some would do PR while others did technology while others would do writing.
3. I hire one virtual assistant at a time and get each up to speed.  I would send them examples of the reports I want each month and I would send them clear instructions on the tasks I would like them to complete.
4. I would then create my own virtual marketing agency with these various virtual assistants.  Eventually I might hire one to manage the others and submit the overall monthly assessment to me.

I would NOT just take what people give me.  If you start with clarity on your part, you will achieve incredible cost savings, decreased headaches, a clear conscious if you need to fire someone and a roadmap to your success.

A DIY Virtual Marketing Agency is within your reach if you are willing to do that upfront work, or hire someone to do it for you.

A virtual assistant salary is going to be calculated on many factors.

1) Experience
2) Expertise
3) Industry Knowledge
4) Fluency
5) Value

A good virtual assistant salary needs a good salary strategy.  It is not enough for the VA to know how much per hour they would like to make.  The virtual assistant may be overlooking the time it takes to do marketing of their services, book keeping, taxes, reports and admin, etc.

Instead, a virtual assistant should decide what the monthly salary goal is and then work backwards.

For example, if the virtual assistant wants to earn an average of $5,000 per month, he will need to put together a plan that estimates how many billable hours per month he will work.  Assuming he will work about 35 hours a week, he will be charging $35.71 per hour.  But what about expenses?

Training, memberships, accounting software, health insurance and other expenses will increase the cost of business.  Figure out what those expenses add to your rate to cover them.

Next, just because you want 35 billable hours per week does not mean it will happen, at least right away.  Measure your % of open time and adjust your rate accordingly.

You are probably asking yourself how you are ever going to make a good salary as a virtual assistant.  You are competing with people in other countries that will work for far less than you.

That is where some of those other factors come in from above.  You have to increase your value by becoming a specialist.  Learning Internet Marketing techniques make you more valuable than a general virtual assistant.  And if you have knowledge in a specific industry, even that much more valuable.

Also, working for an hourly rate all the time is challenging.  You can increase your salary by becoming very proficient and charging by the item.  For example, you could write 5 blog posts per month for a set rate.  The more proficient you become at writing, the higher the hourly rate becomes.

Lastly, take into account the stability of your virtual assistant salary.

Is one customer paying you more than 25% of your income?  This can be great, but what happens if they leave?  Also, are you delivering value to clients so that they want to continue to use your services?

Your VA Salary depends on your ability to keep multiple clients coming back regularly.