We recently had the honor of participating in the new tips booklet produced by Paulette Ensign of Tips Products International.

This was an esteemed group of social media experts and how they were able to use social media to their advantage. Here are just a few of the tips they shared from “Tips from a Collection of Experts”.

Susan Chodakiewitz of Booksicals. 

• Invite visitors to participate in some aspect of your product. It can be to help name a character in your book or the location for the setting of the book.

Dr. Debra Condren author of Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word

• Take the pressure off. Hire a Virtual Assistant with social media expertise.

JoAnn R. Corley-Speaker, Author, Coach

• Use a company Facebook page to indirectly advertise. Have the page show pictures, videos, and audios of customers talking about and/or using your products or services.

Jan Wallen-Selling Your Expertise LLC

• Differentiate yourself. Write your profile like a story. Tell people why you and your company are the best ones to hire so they contact you.

These are just a few excepts from the booklet. To download your free copy, you can go to http://www.serenityva.com/tipsbooklet.htm

Here’s some really bad advice that the so-called PR experts dispense: Your email pitches to journalists and bloggers should be as short as possible. No more than three or four words.

Why is it bad advice? Because it forces people to make their subject lines sound cute rather than informative.

Publicist Michelle Tennant, a master at booking her clients on top-tier TV and radio shows, often uses as many words as necessary in her subject lines so they scream, “Open me!”

And wow, do journalists ever open them!

During this webinar on “How to Tie Your Pitch to Breaking News and Make the Media Interview YOU,” Michelle dissected three email pitches that scored publicity in major media outlets. All three had the critical elements of an email pitch and made the journalist’s job incredibly easy. You can adopt them for your own use.

News is breaking all around you–and that’s the very best time to pitch. Joan recorded the webinar and you can watch it at your computer, or download it along with the MP3 file, the handouts and Michelle’s sample pitches. Read more about what she taught at http://budurl.com/pitchingthemedia

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Reprinted from “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week,” an ezine featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity. Subscribe at http://www.publicityhound.com/ and receive by email the handy cheat sheet “89 Reasons to Send a Press Release.”

News is breaking all around you.

When you’re the local angle to a national story, or you can comment on the hot topic of the day, TV producers, daily and weekly newspaper reporters, and bloggers will practically be begging to talk to you.

But too many people who want publicity don’t bother picking up the phone or emailing. They think the media are too busy. Or they don’t know what to say.

What a mistake! This is the very best time to pitch.

What if somebody gave you step-by-step directions on exactly how to piggyback your story idea onto breaking news? Publicist Michelle Tennant, who got one of her clients booked on “Dr. Phil” the very day the client signed the PR contract, will explain the exact details of what she does when she pitches a client during a breaking news event. She’ll even show you the word-for-word email pitches she sent to the media–pitches that resulted in major publicity for her clients.

Michelle will be the special guest during a webinar hosted by Joan Stewart, aka The Publicity Hound, at 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, July 21. Michelle will teach you how to use very simple email subject lines, include three important elements in every pitch, and the exact number of times to follow up.

She’ll also tell you about a free media resource website she uses, thus saving her thousands of dollars on media directories.

I currently manage and maintain several business pages for clients on Facebook.

Over the past couple of years they have seen an increase in sales and interest in their services as well.

When using this tool it is important to remember that Facebook is just that, a tool. It is one of many, but I have found it to be extraordinarily useful.

Here are just a few ways in which you can use your business page to promote:

1. Post items to your status updates that pertain to your area of expertise using keywords in the content.

2. Set up Google Alerts to find content to share with your fans. This can be from blogs and other websites.

3. Use the Events function to create events that you are hosting or promoting.

4. If you have a blog, import your blog into your “Notes” on your business page and you will have ready-made content every time you post a new entry to your blog.

5. If you know Facebook Markup Language (Facebook’s version of HTML) or know of someone that does, add your newsletter sign up box to your page. You can even add your products as well. See side bar at http://www.facebook.com/TheMusiciansGuidetoBrides

6. Create a music library of your music and share with your fans.

7. Post your videos to your page. If you are a musician, post your music videos. If you are an artist, post videos of the creation of your art.

8. Post photos and lots of them. They are a great way of showing you at your gigs, book signings or gallery openings.

There are many ways in which to use Facebook to promote. For more ideas on missed opportunities on Facebook, go to Serenity Virtual Assistant Services to receive your free tutorial on how to create a Facebook profile or purchase the CD  or transcript of “11 Ways to Avoid Missed Opportunities on Facebook”.

I received a call this morning from one of my clients, Anne Roos of Celtic Harp Music. She mentioned a radio broadcast from NPR that she had listened to. It aired on June 9, 2010.

The subject matter was very compelling and brought to light the issue of what happens to all of my email accounts, social media accounts and my clients accounts if I should happen to die.

Most of us don’t like to think of these things, at least, I don’t. It is not in the forefront of my thoughts. It is important though.

As a VA I have many clients that I have personal and financial information to. If something should happen to me, it’s important that there is something in place so that information remains private.

We back-up our computers, our websites, emails and blogs, but what about our social networking and financial information. Do our clients have something in place so if the worst happens, it is taken care of?

Anne spoke to me of setting something up on her end that would give me permission to close her social media accounts if that would happen.

What if you become sick? Debilitating sick? Would you like the word to get out that you are unable to do your job? It could end your business. Scary thought.

In today’s world of internet marketing and social media our private lives have become not so private. How do we protect the very thing that is private?

I would encourage you to talk to your clients, friends and family. You never know when the worst will happen.

We continually strive to provide timely, quality service for our clients. The special relationship that we have with them is both valuable and in some cases fragile. We understand that they have choices and that we must always be vigilant to provide exceptional value for them.

What do we do when a client notifies us that they are terminating our relationship? Our first inclination is to throw our hands up into the air, rail at the gods and wonder what it is that we did wrong.

Most times it is not due to an error, but if it is, do everything within your power to correct the error, even if you have already lost the client.

If it is because of your rates, decide if you are willing to bend a little. If this is not a viable scenario, explain it to the client and see if there is another option. Such as:

–Cutting back on the amount of work that you do for them
–Offer time-saving tips that will allow them to do some of the work for themselves
–Offer coaching as an alternative

There will be clients that just aren’t a good “fit” for either of you. If this happens, be gracious, offer suggestions of other VA’s that you think may be willing to work with them.

Sometimes clients just fall off the radar. It’s through no fault of your own or the clients.

The best thing you can do in any case is to move on. Don’t dwell on what was and concentrate on how you can better your business. Never assume that all is well in the relationship between you and the client. Touch base on a regular basis and not just through email.

PICK UP THE PHONE!

The countdown has begun . . . are you going to meet the deadline? Last week I shared on Facebook with you the exciting new Stay-on-Track program recently launched by Ariane — and today I am writing this blog posting to make sure you understand what it is that she is offering . . FOR F.REE!
 
If you are anything like me, you’re a visual-experience-oriented person — who sometimes struggles with online information, especially when it’s packed full of IMPORTANT career-boosting information. I get overwhelmed to say the least, and panic at the thought that my money will be wasted because I might miss some of the crucial information provided by the speakers. Will I remember what I needed to take away from the session, will I understand what they were trying to portray to me?
 
With the Stay-on-Track program, it’s like Ariane read my mind and said… “I will prepare the Telesummit for you in CD and transcript form — AND I’ll also give you the Stay-on-Track program to make sure you succeed!” She WANTS you to get all the fruit off the tree… and she makes that possible for F.R.E.E if you purchase the Home-study program on or before midnight (Eastern Time), on April 15th!
 
The Stay-on-Track Program is a simple system to organize, prioritize, and create YOUR action plan as you hear the Telesummit presenters — so you’re immediately able to feed your energy and the wealth of information into creating and developing your first project!
 
No more feeling like you are flapping in the wind… the Stay-on-Track Program allows you to be grounded in your creative process and utilize all the valuable information from the Telesummit Home-study Program!

This is an ongoing conversation. How does one measure their ROI on Facebook?

Facebook has provided a tool in which we can measure our ROI on Facebook if you have a fan page.  I can go into my fan page and look at the “insights” section on the left hand side of your page.  This is where I can measure exactly what kind of traffic I have had. It measures everything from male/female, to where your fans are coming from.

Of late, I have had some success with clients and their fan pages. For instance, I have several clients that have a newsletter. We have now taken those newsletters and “sliced and diced” them. We have posted them as notes on their Facebook fan pages such as Joan Stewart’s, aka, The Publicity Hound. What this has shown is an increase in sales.

How do we know that? Well, when I post the note, there is always a call to action. Such as, “read more at ….” or “sign up for my newsletter at….”. We have also been “tagging” her friends in these notes. You have to be careful when “tagging’ as it can be overly promotional, but if you believe it is of value to them, by all means, do.

On social media sites, do you broadcast when you’re leaving your
home or office?

Lots of people do. And every day, their avatars and “Here’s where
I am now” messages are showing up at PleaseRobMe.com, a site that
mocks them for announcing to the world that they aren’t at home
and actually makes it easier for burglars to rob them.

You put yourself at risk when you use Foursquare.com, a social
media site that makes it easy to “check in” with your friends, in
conjunction with blasting out those messages to your Twitter and
Facebook friends.

Find out how it works and what you can do keep yourself from
showing up at this nasty site.

This post was originally written by Joan Stewart.

Last week one of my clients came to town. What a week she picked too! She is from Annapolis and her timing was impecible. We had sunny skies and they got 4 feet of snow.

She is a fairly new client and I was thrilled to actually meet her. Her name is Kristina Von Rosenvinge who specializes in self-growth and relationship skills for personal and business success. Her website is GrowWithKristina.com (I have her permission to mention her in this posting).

I have been managing her Facebook page and doing odd jobs here and there for her, but we had not really defined what my role was and how I was going to assist her outside of social media.

So, I picked her up at her hotel on a Sunday morning, we met in the lobby, shook hands (I then gave her a hug) and we proceeded to have coffee at the Hotel del Coronado foundly known as “The Del”. It is a San Diego landmark and if you have never been there and are ever in the area, it’s a must see.

We walked around the hotel for a bit as I wanted to show her the beauty of the architecture and the decor. We then ordered our coffee and sat outside to enjoy the view and the weather. It was sunny and warm. What’s not to like?

We chatted for a bit about our families, our interests and so on. Basically, we got to know each other a bit.

After about an hour, we did start to discuss business. What her goals were and how she thought I could assist her with her new projects and marketing plan.

I know, I know. Why am I writing about this? Very simple. It describes exactly what social networking is all about. This is how it should be approached. Friendly, non-invasive and certainly not promotional at all. If you are confused about social media, especially Facebook, see 11 Ways to Avoid Missed Opportunities on Facebook. I was Joan Stewart’s guest on this 70 minute teleseminar.

We had a lovely chat and I then took her back to her hotel so we could go on with our day.

Thank you Krisitina for allowing me to share this.