Marketing with Virtual Assistants

November 29, 2008 | 1 Comment

If you have ever tried working with virtual assistants, you know that it is hit or miss.  You have to treat it just as carefully as hiring an actual employee.  You also have to cut the relationship if your gut tells you that things are not going to your liking and you have provided clear directions and expected outcomes.

Getting a Marketing virtual assistant - a VA that has been trained in Internet Marketing will increase your odds of success.  Here are 7 tips for better web results with a Virtual Assistant.  You will not like these, because they all involve more work for you.  But get over it and get your marketing plan done in advance of hiring your Internet Marketing Virtual Assistant.

  1. Hire 2 or 3 Virtual Marketing Assistants for small projects and test which one does the best job.
  2. Either write a detailed, step by step description of how to do the tasks you want done, or provide a video that serves as a  virtual assistant training video.  There is no arguing with clearly documented directions.
  3. Set specific deadlines.  For example, do not say you want the Virtual Assistant to write 5 unique blog posts in May.  Instead, state that each Friday the Virtual Assistant needs to mail you the link and keywords targeted for that particular blog post of the week - by noon your time.  Also include a summary of how the last weeks blog post is now ranked for the keywords targeted.
  4. Keep talking to your Virtual Assistant.  Do not set them loose and forget about them.  If you want to keep them you need to make them feel like an important part of the team.
  5. Do not believe Virtual Assistant resumes - Just like job applicants, people often exaggerate skills and likely outcomes.  If the Virtual Assistant does not live up to how they sold themselves, move on quickly.
  6. Expect to get what you pay for.  More than any other position, Virtual Assistants pay rates vary from a couple of dollars and hour to several hundred dollars an hour.  If you go for a cheap virtual assistant, be ready to do more training and management.
  7. Treat exceptional Virtual Assistants like gold.  Just like any profession, you have some people that are far and away better than average and if they are motivated, making you money and exceeding your expectations, show them you care.  Send them a gift certificate, a bonus, a card, flowers - and if you are sure you are not going to need them full time, send your exceptional virtual assistant referrals.

Find exceptional Virtual Marketing Assistants.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Buzzoodle, Employee Advocates, Marketing ROI 

Writing a Review

November 26, 2008 | 1 Comment

Today I released one of the more detailed reviews I have ever done.  See my iLearning Global Review.

There are several reasons that you want to do reviews.

  1. Sell products
  2. Generate better traffic
  3. Help your audience find good products.
  4. Help someone get publicity for a quality product.

These are all very good reasons, but you must be sure that you make your affiliation clear.  For example, in that iLearning Global Review I have a disclosure near the top stating my affiliation.

What makes a good review?

First, you should be aware of search engine results.  If you title your review xyz review, it will get much better placement in search engines instead of something more vague and clever.  When reviewing books, I like to use the title of the book and a hyphen, then the authors name.  A good example of this is my Twilight - Stephanie Meyers marketing post that shot my traffic through the roof.  (Not necessarily the traffic I am looking for, but oh well.)

Next, repeat the title fairly frequently instead of using it, the book, etc.  Not so much that it becomes annoying, but get some good keyword saturation.

Add an image or a video to make the page more interesting and appealing to the visitor.

Use tags - this can get you the great double listing in Google.

Mix it up.  Don’t just say iLearning Global Review over and over.  Also write things like, “When I was reviewing iLearning Global…”  The search engines look for this variation of language and it will see you as a more credible site.

If you follow these simple tips, your review should rank much higher in search engines and generate more traffic and interest in your website or blog.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Buzz with Blogs 

Brand Ambassador Program with Employees

November 22, 2008 | 2 Comments

How to form your Employee Brand Ambassador Program

This article is an inside look at some of the strategies we use in our Employee Ambassador Program.  The reason we are giving away our secrets is that our program is for those businesses that want an outside company with strong social media credentials to work in a collaborative environment with employees to strengthen the personal brand of key employees as well as the corporate brand.  It is not the activities that are important, but the collaborative environment and monthly assessment of progress that will make your Employee Brand Ambassador Program succeed.

Goal of an Employee Brand Ambassador Program

Your goal may vary, but generally speaking the goal of an Employee Brand Ambassador Program is to help employees become better evangelists for where they work. 

The outcome of the Brand Ambassador effort should include:

  • Employees connected with more people.
  • Positive information in many places on Internet, including search engine slots.
  • Increase in sales leads and income, as people feel more connected with your employees.
  • Much better search engine saturation for your brands
  • Increase in invitations for speaking and PR opportunities
  • Jump start online conversations about brand
  • Increased website traffic from links and search

The most important thing to keep in mind about your Employee Brand Ambassador Program is that it will compound over time.  The first month rarely results in a big, noticable outcome.  Instead, you have to think of each connection an employee ambassador makes as having value.  Each blog post adds to the content that shows up in search engines.  The Internet has a long life span and the things you do today will keep working for you in the future.

So what are the core things to do with a group of employees to launch your Employee Brand Embassador Program?

Employee Ambassador Profiles

Good employee ambassadors need to develop great online profiles that help people find them and understand what they do.

  • Register www.YourName.com
  • Add a blog to that domain
  • Set up a LinkedIn profile.  Connect with people and answer questions.
  • Set up a twitter account
  • Your Brand Ambassador consultant can review these and help you get the most from them by customizing them and optimizing them for better search engine results.
  • Facebook.com Account
  • Set up some free blogs - Even if you have a good Wordpress blog on your personal domain, it is also valuable to set up blogs one the free sites, such as wordpress.com and blogger.com.  These will just be lightly maintained with good occasional content and links to important articles, events, etc.

Keep in mind that all of these above items are developing a personal brand.  However, within that personal brand each person should mention where they work and link to the company website or blog.

Employee Ambassador Content Creation

You then need to put together a schedule and rules for using these tools.  I’d suggest that you make it very clear what employees can do during work hours and what needs done during off hours.  Some research I have seen suggests that twitter is a big way people waist time at work.  That is why your content creation strategy for employee brand ambassador’s must spell out the terms of participation. 

In addition to the above personal branding efforts, your organization should set up a corporate blog, corporate twitter account with news updates, post video and possibly do a podcast show about the industry your clients are in.  All of these things can also be developed by your most passionate employee brand ambassadors.

To build a successful brand ambassador program, you will need:

  • Set goals and milestones for your brand ambassadors.
  • Use a project management and collaborative community to keep the team energized and involved.
  • Reward top employee ambassador performers
  • Document successes and outcomes each month and share the report with the Employee Brand Embassadors.
  • Make sure your Employee Brand Embassador’s know all the great stories, testimonials and ways that your company helps clients.  Give them positive things to talk about.
  • Ditch Bad Seeds - Not popular, but someone has to say it.  If someone is not participating, saying negative things or being negative in the group, there is no room for them in your Employee Brand Ambassador Program.

You can do all of this yourself.  If you are looking for someone that can coordinate this effort for you and develop a lot of buzz on the web with your motivated Employee Brand Ambassadors, visit our Employee Brand Ambassador website.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Branding, Employee Advocates 

iLearning Global - Structure your MLM

November 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment

As some of you may know, I joined iLearning Global and started an eLearning / iLearning Global Blog.

If you have been in business for a while, you have heard the various MLM pitches.  I have never personally done one before, and as soon as I hear MLM my eyes glaze over.

However, lets appreciate a good marketing structure when there is one.  Go over to the iLearning Global site and take a look at how they have structured their MLM compensation.  It really is brilliant.

They structure it so that your best case scenario is to have only five people below you.  Then you get paid a bigger amount if you help them build their business.  At first it seems counter intuitive.  Usually you get paid more for something you sell directly and less for the people below you.  In this case, there is a huge upside to helping the people below you build their business.

I do not know about you, but for me the idea of helping five people market their business is much better than selling like crazy to lots of people.

There is one other thing that makes this effort impressive to me.  They have attracted many high quality trainers into adding content to the online learning system.  The monthly cost for the training you get is very impressive.  Several people I have talked to already have said they will join because it will save them thousands of dollars per year and give them more diverse training.  Of course, these are people that spend money on self improvement.

This is not a sales pitch.  I recommend you look at how they have structured their payout and then rethink how you are organizing your affiliate program or MLM effort.  If it turns out this kind of opportunity interests you, contact me.  If not, at least lets appreciate a markting work of art.  Anything that made a skeptic like me join an MLM has to be great.  iLearningGlobal.tv is very interesting.

Find our more about iLearningGlobal

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Sales, Small Business, Viral Marketing 

Employee Brand Ambassadors

November 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Valse hésitation

Reprint From Chris Brogan

In writing up my visit to Gannett, I realized that I was missing something that I wanted: I went to link Jim Lenahan’s name, and then realized that he doesn’t have a blog or any kind of external web presence. I wanted to link Michael Maness, their VP of Innovation, and realized he doesn’t have an external web presence. Ditto Ken Paulson, etc.

It dawns on me that this is a missed opportunity in several ways.

  1. Links are love. If I link to them, Google values that link and helps search traffic find the site.
  2. Links encourage exploration. You click links on my site all the time. I watch you do it.
  3. Web presence gives us a public glimpse of you. It gives people backstory.
  4. Web presence provides you more opportunities to meet new people.
  5. Web presence makes a larger showing of your company’s thinkers.

Not every employee needs a blog, and not every employee should be outward facing from a web perspective (several might not want that, actually). But the folks who have jobs that put them in contact with people like me? I think you need a web presence, please.

Reprint From Chris Brogan

Visit: Employee Ambassador Program

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Buzz with Blogs, Employee Advocates 

Amazon S3 Embed Video

November 18, 2008 | 3 Comments

Official FLV icon from Adobe Systems

Sometimes I like to write a quick post on how to do something technical that I found hard to solve.

How to embed video hosted on the Amazon S3 Web Service.

First, why Amazon S3?

Amazon basically offers storage of files at a very low cost and provides very scalable and reliable storage and backup at unbeatable prices.

How to Embed a Video stored on Amazon S3

Many sites are offering courses and membership areas to help you embed video into your blog or website that is stored on Amazon S3.  I did not feel like paying for the information because I knew I could figure it out.  I am a technical guy.  But I was pulling my hair out because I kept almost getting it to work, but not quit.

Eventually I downloaded JW FLV Media Player, posted the files in the root directory of my website and used the site setup wizard to get the code just right.

Finally, I found that this works with FLV files but not the other file types I was using, so I need to make all FLV from now on.

The good news is that with this code and wizard I can now embed video into my private membership sites that are hosted on Amazon S3.

If you are looking for the best video hosting solution that will allow you to embed video into your blogs and websites, I assure you the above solution using Amazon S3 and the Free Video Player are great options.

[UPDATE Nov. 22, 2008]

When I sent to embed the code into Wordpress, I found that Wordpress has disabled the embed tag because of security issues.  Luckily, I found the Wordoress Plugin pb-embedFlash - The documentation was not great because it lacked the basic examples in a clear way.  However, I experimented with it a bit and found I could simply type [flash url] and it would replace the tag with the flash player and play the FLV file.

Once you figure it out, it is even easier than downloading the player yourself and setting things up.

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Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Buzz with Blogs, Internet Marketing 

Demonstrate Your Knowledge

November 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Blogs are a great way to Demonstrate Your Knowledge.

In fact, outside of becoming a regular guest on big TV shows and writing columns in a newspaper, I would say that it is the next best way.  And the blog can certainly land you those kinds of opportunities in the future.

Many people think they have to come up with new, creative articles for their blog every day.  Instead, you have to remember that the people that are reading your blog probably know less than you and are looking for insight into your topic.  All you need to do is demonstrate your knowledge on the topic by writing good, informative posts about thing you already know.  You may even find it a bit boring, but your readers will not.

By demonstrating your knowledge in a clear, professional manner, you will be building your visibility and personal brand.  The result will eventually be:

  • Sales
  • Invitations to speak
  • Partnerships
  • Job Offers
  • Other writing opportunities
  • And many other things

There are a huge number of opportunities to build your personal brand online.  However, if you want to build expert status, a blog is the best way to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise, coupled with email integration. (You want to build your list as well as build blog traffic)

Don’t get hung up on writing.  Just look around at what you are currently doing and write about it for someone that has never done that before.  Your blog will be packed full of valuable information in no time.  To demonstrate your knowledge you only have to be consistent writing the things you already know.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Branding, Buzz with Blogs 

Basic, No Cost Marketing

November 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment

I just did a post over at the Virtual Buzz Assistant blog.

Marketing your virtual assistant Business - This article is for virtual assistants that are trying to market their business with no money for marketing.  However, the marketing tips work well for any freelancer or independent consultant.  You may want to go over and check it out.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Get Advertising for your Blog

November 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Found on Pro blogger In this video Gary Vaynerchuk answers how to monetize your blog or video blog with a practical illustration.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Buzz with Blogs 

Measuring Success

November 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment

There are a lot of ways to measure success.  I have had three big successes this week, and thought I would share them to help you think about your successes.

#1: Alltop virtual assistant Blog

Our Virtual Buzz Assistant blog has been recognized as a leading virtual assistant Resource by Alltop.com.  This is a big success because it will generate much higher traffic and higher online respect, which translates into better SEO and a bigger audience.

#2: iLearning Global

Despite the fact that it is an MLM, I decided to join and promote this great product.  I joined Monday night, and by Wednesday I’d started appearing on Google in the #10 slot, 1st page, for the search iLearning Global.  I revamped an existing site that we were not doing much with.  Liquid Learning, which is our parent company.

#3: Marketing Mastery Advisory Board

Last night was the second meeting of my Akron area Marketing Mastery Advisory Board.  After the first meeting a month ago, one of the members went back after a discussion within the group on Google PPC and revised is campaigns to be profit oriented.  After only one meeting he is now saving over $1,000 per month and increasing his results.  I measure my success by how much I help other people succeed, and this was great to hear.

Did you have some big successes recently?  Go ahead and share them below.

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Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Buzzoodle, Small Business 

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