Virtual Assistants: Create Videos for YouTube!...

Creating videos on YouTube can mean awesome search engine placement for you and it can also give your website visitors a different medium to interact with you on.

To create a YouTube video, follow these steps.

1. Choose a topic / content focus. Determine what you want to talk about, promote or share before you start and lightly script it.
2. Grab a camera and create a nice focal point background. For your camera, something like a Flip HD will do just fine or you can even use the built-in camera on your computer. Just make sure the quality is decent – particularly the sound. For the background, choose to sit at your desk with your office in the background or setup a pseudo space with a chair, a room divider as a background and some foliage.
3. Film your video and edit it. Talk through your content and don’t worry about screw-ups, false starts, etc. You can always edit that out later (or hire someone to edit it for you). Instead, just move through the content and speak as naturally as possible. Once done, edit it down into a 2-4 minute video with the best parts included.
4. Upload your video to YouTube. If you don’t already, create your account and have a custom background created for your channel. If this is going to house your videos over time, you want your brand to be consistent. Upload your video and be sure to use effective keywords and a good video title with keywords in it as well. Also, add a description with your URL at the very beginning so it turns into a live hyperlink.
5. Add your video to a playlist and share it! Create a playlist for your channel on specific content topics. Add it to that playlist and then share your video’s link on social media, your website and wherever else it makes sense to do so.

By doing videos, you’ll reach a different market than you did before and you’ll also benefit from high placement in the search engines on searches for the content in your video.

Social Proof: Use it to Gain New Clients...

Make some noise about your business!

How often do you let your potential clients and website visitors know what other people in the universe are saying about you? Often times, we forget to add this vital information to our websites and it can actually prevent us from converting prospects into sales.

Social proof means having feedback and testimonials from people who have raved about you via social methods – generally, social media. For example, if a client posts a very positive Tweet about you, he or she has just given you social proof.

Written testimonials posted on a website are not as powerful because there is not always a real person attached to the other end. These testimonials can appear fake and thus decrease their effectiveness. Social proof, especially unsolicited, is much more powerful.

To encourage your clients to sing your praises socially, invite them to share a few words on Twitter in exchange for a link to their website on your testimonials page. You can screenshot the testimonial from Twitter or direct people to the Tweet itself which will create a more powerful testimonial.

You can also mark Tweets as starred on Twitter which adds them to your Favorites section. You can then compile a list of positive feedback which people can go and check out at anytime. Again, this is more powerful because each testimonial or raving note is attached to a person that they can connect with.

So, if you haven’t already, begin marking positive Tweets as favorites and invite your clients to share their experience with your company on Twitter or Facebook in exchange for publicity. Remember, you have to make it a win-win or some people won’t act.

Why You Should Be Building a List for Your Virtual...

Most virtual assistants that I know do not build a list. Or, they start one a year or two into their businesses. If you aren’t yet building a list, I am going to encourage you to start today.

Building a list provides you with an audience that is interested in what you have to offer and will read what you have to write. This gives you a very powerful avenue for marketing your services and turning prospects into clients.

If you are not building a list, people could be coming to your website and leaving again without ever letting you know. By offering them a reason to input their name and e-mail address (providing a free offering of an e-book or an e-course is one way to entice them) you will have an opportunity to connect with them again in the future.

To start building your list, sign up for a free account at MailChimp.com. You can add up to a limited number of subscribers but at least you will have something in place as a starting point.

If you are already list building but find the process slow, here are some ideas to increase your list size.

• The first is to offer your free report or free giveaway on Twitter at least 2-3 times per week. Do the same thing on Facebook.
• If you have a Facebook fan page, create a custom landing page where people can opt-in to receive your information right on Facebook.
• You can also do more time consuming things like host a free teleseminar to grow your list. People will opt-in for the event and you’ll be able to market to them in the future.

Make sure to at least be directing traffic to your list. Make it obvious, accessible and interesting. Build your list and in future e-mails, we’ll discuss what to do with the list once it’s captured.