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

If you’re active on Twitter, you’ve probably seen at least one reference on your own profile page to Twitter lists.

They’re a powerful way to categorize Twitter users according to their area of expertise, or the topics of their tweets and then, once the list is created, let anyone see it. They save valuable time because when you create a list, every tweet from every person on that list feeds into that particular list. You don’t have to drink from a firehose on Twitter to be able to find the tweets from people who have a particular expertise.

But don’t be fooled into thinking that that’s the only way to use Twitter lists. They’re powerful tools that can help you do valuable research, track down experts in a particular niche, find people in your target market, spy on your competitors, find journalists who cover your industry, and so much more.

They’re also an excellent way to determine how other people perceive your expertise and your brand. Here’s what I mean.

Go to your Twitter Home or Profile page and look under your photo on the upper right side. You’ll see the number of people you’re following, the number of people who are following you, and the number of lists you’re on. Click on “Listed.”

Instantly, you can look down the list and see which Twitter users have put you on one of their lists, and you can see the names of their lists. For example, I’m on a number of Twitter lists. When I click on “Listed,” a window opens and I can see that many of the lists include the words “virtual assistant”, “VAs” and “social media.”

If you aren’t on many lists, or you haven’t created your own lists yet, that’s OK. Joan Stewart, aka, The Publicity Hound is hosting a webinar  at 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, Aug. 26, called “How to Use Twitter Lists & Directories to Generate Publicity and Build Your Brand.” If the time is inconvenient for you, sign up anyway because she is recording it. You’ll get a link where you can watch the streaming video, or download the video.

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.

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.

I currently use Ping.fm to post to several of my social networking sites. Ping.fm is a simple and FREE service that makes updating your social networks a snap! It is just that, a snap.

I have also set up many of my clients to use this service as it is like one-stop shopping. It is fast and easy to use. Set up is a breeze.

You can post from anywhere to anywhere. You can use your phone, IM and from email as well.

I currently have it set up to “feed” to FriendFeed, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Delicious. I would caution you though that, depending on how many feeds you have set up on the other sites, you can end up with multiple postings. So, in other words, if you are using FriendFeed with Ping or Twitter, it could show up on the status updates on Facebook multiple times and it looks very strange.

The application that Ping.fm has recently added though, and I like very much, is you can now add your Facebook fan page to the feed. In the past, when you posted from Ping, it would only feed to your Facebook profile.

I like to use and also suggest free and easy tools in which both myself and my clients can use and this is at the top of the list.

Yes, we are.

Thanks to Joan Stewart (The Publicity Hound) and Paulette Ensign’s (Tips Products International) advice my website is getting a much needed face lift.

Jason Saeler of Saeler Enterprises will be building the new website. He has done the work on many websites and he has been extremely helpful to me with my business as well. In fact, he has made me part of his team!

We’re really excited about the new look and the professional feel it will project.

I also have a new business partner, my husband, Scott Buffaloe. His part of our business is in database maintenance, analytics and SEO.

Although Serenity Virtual Assistant Services has been around for roughly 5 years, we are broadening our list of services, to include:

• Social networking consulting
• Search engine optimization
• Database maintenance
• Video editing

Son onward and upwards we go. Thank you for all your support and your continued support.

Christine & Scott Buffaloe