3 Tips to Get Your Blogging On In Half the Time...

As an online entrepreneur having a blog is a great way to get the word out about your company; blogging also helps you showcase your knowledge and at the same time answer questions that you receive from your current customers or propects. Having a blog is a great marketing strategy for an online business and this is exactly the reason why you have to blog on a regular basis and in a professional manner.

Here are some tips that can help with your blogging and also not fall off the wagon:

1.       Set up an Editorial Calendar for yourself (I can’t take credit for this, props to Erin for  teaching me about that!), set up a list of blog titles or topics and schedule those post in your calendar, if you blog every Wednesday set those topics and even a summary in bullet point form of what you want to write on for that day. This type of activity will make it easier for you when you are ready to write your post.

2.      When you have an idea or if questions come up from one of your current clients or propects, it’s a great idea to write them down in a journal or notebook that way when  you are ready to turn this idea into a blogging topic you have it all written down and ready to go into your editorial calendar.

3.      Set up Google Alerts so that you get topic based post ideas sent right into your inbox, create a google alert for a certain topic that  you would like to write about and teach about , then you will be kept in the know about that particular topic.

If you have your ideas and topics organized in advance chances are your blog post will make it to the published state and  you will waste less time looking around for  information

Making Time to Grow Your VA Business...

Guest post by Pat Romain of Vizion VA

For virtual assistants it is sometimes difficult to manage their client’s businesses and manage the growth of their own business; this is true specifically for solo-VAs although the owner of a multi-VA practice is not exempt of this situation. When you have a full VA practice (and even if you don’t) and you just can’t find the time to run your business or define strategies to implement in your business, all the while performing for your clients, these quick tips could certainly help you get started on the right track.

1. First thing you should do is batch your work. Sure, you are already doing this for your clients and if you are not, you should start now!. If you don’t know what I mean just check this blog post. You should also do it for the projects that pertain to your business, that way you can start planning and strategizing for your business just like you do for your clients.

2. Use your project management tool for your business. You are also already using this tool between you and your client and also your subcontractors if you have any. You can use this tool to plan projects and tasks for your business just like you do for your client’s projects and in turn stay organized with your planning.

3. Systemize the tasks that come up over and over in your daily or weekly business life. Systemizing and automating those tasks can actually speed up your day to day processes and even help you pass those along to someone else which in turn will help you grow your business.

While servicing your clients and attracting new prospects are definitely two of the most important aspects of your business; growing your practice while treating your business with respect it deserves is the most profitable thing you can do for your business.

How to Have a Fun (and Successful!) Tweet-Up...

Guest post today by Pat Romain of Vizion VA

If you are not familiar with the term “ tweet-up”, a tweet-up happens when a bunch of people who have initially connected through Twitter actually take it upon themselves to meet in person. A tweet-up is a fun way to meet your online friends and have a drink or a meal with them, it’s also a great way to expand your network with people who have the same interest as you; but such a meeting can actually come off very akward and highly disorganized; imagine all those online folks come out from behind their computers what would they actually talk about? (Preferably in more than 140 characters).

If you decided that you want to host a tweet-up, then kudos to you, but if you have no idea where to start, this blog post should help.  A tweet-up is just like any other meet-up; you have to plan and organize your tweet-up in advance to have a successful, and most importantly, a fun event because trust me… those people on Twitter love FUN. It also depends on what you want to achieve by hosting an event like this but let’s get clear, I don’t believe that you should go into any networking event with ulterior money making motives, it should be about the people and getting to know them.

Here are some key points that I have found to be helpful when organizing a tweet-up:

1. Plan your event in advance: I know that you are totally excited to meet your online friends if this is the first time you are doing this but don’t wait until the last minute to start organizing your tweet-up.
2. If you plan to have more than 6 people come, book a venue or at least reserve a spot at a restaurant, and go visit it beforehand, it would not be fun to get to the place on that day and discover that there is no WIFI, you know that your Twitter friends are going to tweet while at the event make it easy for them; don’t forget to think of your #hashtag for the event.
3. Be the first to arrive, you are the organizer, nothing is worse than arriving after the guests have arrived, this is not the time to make an entrance, this is your event own it!
4. Say no to open bar. PERIOD. You also want to be clear on the billing for food and drink, if you are giving one free non-alcoholic drink, what about the meal? Who pays for what? If everyone pays for their own meal and drinks , you should specify that.
5. If you are hosting an event with more than five people get good name tags and pens for them to write their Twitter name, yes their Twitter name since that is what we know them by.
6. Use a site like eventbrite.com or meetup.com to administer the details of the tweet-up: to know exactly who is going to show up but always plan for a bit more people, to list the event details for you tweeple to see like the address of the venue and the hours the tweet-up is taking place and all other services that could be available for them to get there (transportation etc..)
7. Make sure that you get your twitter followers involved in the process so that they can tell their followers who are going to be in the area that the event is coming up and where to sign up . Tweeple’s (Twitter people) are really good at spreading the word.
8. Decide on the mood that you want at your tweet-up: determine whether you want a casual-let’s-talk-about-Apple-products-over-a-glass-of-wine event or something really formal where you have booked a speaker.  Then, make sure that your Twitter friends know exactly what’s up.

Now that you have everything figured out, it’s time to have fun, meet new people and mingle!