Posts Tagged ‘buckeye va’

Online Women Business Owner: Are You Too Busy for Networking?

Hi There! Since you are a busy online women business owner, I’ll keep this post short!

Let me start out by asking you “Are you achieving the goals you set out to accomplish this year?”

If the answer is “Not really”, then you need to know the secret of having a successful online business: Outsource Your Marketing!

The internet has changed everything.  Not just where you work your business, but also the way you network your business. When you run an online business you have to learn how to “work” the “net” (network).

Outsourcing your business marketing  tasks such as:

  • Facebook Fan Page (creation and management)
  • Ning Forum (setup and alterations)
  • Twitter account (setup and management)
  • Article Marketing
  • Press Release Marketing
  • Squidoo Lens creation
  • Keyword and Phrase Research

These are just a few of the marketing tasks you do not know how to do, care to do on your own, or perhaps you just don’t have the time to spend doing yourself.

What type of online business owners outsource to Buckeye VA? I’m so glad you asked!

  • Authors
  • Life Coaches
  • Virtual Assistants
  • Party Planners
  • Website Designers
  • Chiropractors

I would love to hear from you! Please contact me, Stephanie, today if you are serious about your business marketing success!

Marketing Yourself in 2010-Standing Out in the Crowd with a Social Media Manager

Unique Heart
Image by WolfS?ul via Flickr

Have you ever taken the time to research your niche online? It’s an interesting and grounding experience when you do. Even though you are unique, when you are looking at your niche like the rest of your audience does. like through a Google search, you see that you are not so unique after all. That is, you are not “standing out in the crowd”. There may be one million returns on your niche or you may be on the first page of google, but how will you capture that potential clients attention? Better yet, how will you gain the trust of that person?

There are a few tried and true internet marketing techniques that the experts have been using to reach out to their potential clients, not only for marketing purposes but also to build a relationship. Perhaps, you may find some or all of these tips useful for your business as well.

1. Article Submission – Article marketing works. But make sure they are able to find your article by using your keywords/keyword phrases in your title, first paragraph and Author’s Box. Also, use an unique url in your Bio to invite your readers to a specific area on your website that pertains to that specific article.

2. Press Release Submission – Make sure your Press Release is newsworthy and submitted to only the specific newspapers that your target market readers read. Taking the time to research what your target market reads will bring you a ROI (return on investment).

3. Teleseminars – You have two choices; either host your own or you can send a request letter to some possible Joint Ventures.

4. Networking Online – Create a Facebook Fan Page and make a point to converse with your friends on a regular basis. Build those relationships.

5. Networking Offline – Join your local entrepreneur club, Chamber of Commerce, Toastmasters. Seek speaking opportunities in your community.

6. Newsletters - Share your expertise instead of selling it. Make your newsletter something that your audience wants to read every time you send it.

7. Outsourcing – Have your virtual assistant help you with a campaign, or manage some of your business tasks to help you get and stay on schedule.

8. Podcast Radio - You can host your own podcast and seek to interview others. You can create (or outsource to a virtual assistant) a letter seeking to be interviewed.

9. Video Marketing- Give a testimonial about how your services helped a client or better yet, ask one of your clients to send you a video testimonial! An upcoming event that’s sure to be seen as a must-attend for your clients. Don’t forget to add your opt in page url and perhaps your facebook and twitter connection information.

10. Volunteering- Volunteering in your local community and online gives you an opportunity to build relationships with others that you may not have met otherwise. You may be permitted to wear your business logo attire, which is a great way to market your business.

Each of the above internet marketing techniques should have a call-to-action, meaning, you need to invite your readers to take some type of action to communicate with you. Such call-to-actions can be:

  • Leave a comment on your website/blog
  • Join your forum
  • Share their thoughts about your newsletter
  • Connect with you via Social Media
  • Buy your products or use your services

The more interaction you have with your readers the more likely they will come to know and trust you enough to become a client and refer you to their colleagues.

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Stephanie Fish, owner of Buckeye V.A. is a social media marketer and online marketing assistant for small business owners who are ready to stand out in the crowd. Stephanie works with life coaches, authors, virtual assistants and work at home parents who want publicity for their online businesses. Being over worked is no fun, try outsourcing to Stephanie to know first hand how freeing it is to outsource your marketing, learn more here http://www.buckeyeva.com/services

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Social Media Marketing! Who’s Got the Time?

The Mad Hatter album cover
Image via Wikipedia

Social Media Marketing is crucial to your businesses growth, you already know this!  What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the term “social media”? I immediately think of “TIME”! Who’s got the time for more marketing??

Since marketing is a tool you use to get your products and services out to your consumer group, you really have to take the time to setup a clear marketing plan that includes your favorite social media outlet.

Just keep in mind, that although you can successfully outsource your marketing efforts to a social media marketing manager, you need to be involved on a personal level with at least one specific social media outlet on a regular basis. This is great way to build real relationships!

Marketing with personality, purpose and on a real-life level will help you with all of your marketing efforts, including:

  • Article Submissions
  • Press Release Submissions
  • Teleseminar and other online classes

If you find yourself out of “time” before you can accomplish this weeks marketing goals, then I welcome you to contact me for a free 30 minute consultation.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, please leave a great comment!

If you’re looking to outsource your marketing please contact me!

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Does Your Website Need More “Back-Links”?

I need back links! That is the one statement that I hear daily, and for a good reason. Back linking to your website isn’t difficult, but it is time consuming.

Basically, back linking is when you find a website that your target market frequents, and you leave a quality comment with a link (http://www.url.com) back to your website. Finding websites with a high PR is a good strategy, but only if your target market visits.

Remember, quality over quantity works out every time!

Did you know that linking from your website to another website, helps with search engine ranking? There are 2 great ways to get backlinks and build relationships. Here’s what you do:

  1. Leave a Comment! Find a blog that you like to read and leave a ‘good’ comment. Be personable.
  2. Guest Blog! You can either invite someone to be a guest blogger on your blog OR you can request to be a guest blogger on their blog. Perhaps you can be part of a book review blog tour or even a product review blog tour.

The idea is the help your business while helping others with their business, this is really what building online relationships is all about. My friend, Nicole Dean, has a great post that goes into more details about website traffic and links. Read it here

Good Luck and please leave a comment! If you would like to guest blog here, drop me an email and I’ll see if we are a good match!

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Stephanie Fish is a Social Media Manager and Marketing Assistant. Twitter and Facebook Assistant.

Ouch! My Stretching Business

We see all kinds of products for stretch mark removal, in the physical realm, but what about the business realm? Did you know your business has stretch marks? Maybe this isnt’ a real pretty picture to paint, but it gets the point across.

Stretch marks show growth and if your business is growing there should be proof. What steps are you taking to insure that your business is growing?Think back to the first year in your business, you didn’t really have any task to outsource. You probably didn’t have a need for a bookkeeper or an accountant.Now think to your second year in business; you feel the “time crunch” on certain tasks, you can’t keep up with your own record keeping, you don’t have time to write your own articles anymore let alone submit those articles to all of the submission directories.

Now you’re into your third year of business, you find that you really need help and NOW! But where do go to find help? What do you begin to outsource?

Besides doing your basic internet research for “virtual assistant” or “virtual assistance”, why not ask fellow entrepreneurs and online business owners for their recommendations. You can visit virtual assistant forums and see what virtual assistants are frequenting the board.

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Stephanie Fish owner of Buckeye VA www.buckeyeva.com offers a one time 30 minute consultation to new prospective clients. To request your consultation to see if my services can help your business grow, please contact me by email at buckeyeva@gmail.com

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Social Media Manager? Can Your Business Benefit?

A Social Media Manager (a.k.a Social Network Manager) is a niche Virtual Assistant who specializes in managing their clients social networking accounts. No matter what business you own, if you are an internet marketer then you know how important it is to stay active on your social networks with other  business owners and your target market. Social Media outlets, such as: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Squidoo and Ning, have opened the door for you to reach more of your target market than ever before.

With this great networking opportunity also came more tasks added to your to-do list, more responsibility for running your business  in order to stay afloat with today’s fast-paced business world.

Here is a list of 5 Specific Tasks your Social Media Manager can do to promote you and your business:

  1. Create and Update your Social Account Profiles
  2. Broadcast your article, press release, teleseminar and /or classes
  3. Research  Followers
  4. Accept invitations
  5. Connect your website to your social networking accounts

The idea behind outsourcing your marketing and social network account management is to save you time on the “busy work” of working your business, but to also free up your time so you can focus in on the actual connecting of your target market. As your social media manager works behind the scenes of your social networking, they can bring to your attention possible business building opportunities such as:

  • Joint Ventures
  • Speaking
  • Blog Tours

When you decide to outsource your social media marketing, you’ll get a sense of a new freedom that you’re not used to!

To Your Success!!

I’d love to hear from you, either leave a comment below or contact me!

Stephanie Fish, Social Media Manager and Marketing Assistant. Outsourcing your social media marketing gives you more time in your schedule to focus on networking.

PLR Articles vs. Free Print Articles?

PLR vs. Free Reprint Articles: Which is Best?
by Nicole Dean

Content is always in high demand. Right now the focus seems to be on Private Label Rights (or PLR) articles. PLR articles are pre-written and sold in packages to online businesses looking for content. The big selling points of PLR articles are that you may edit the articles and that there is no author bio required (so they don’t have any outbound links).

Compare PLR articles to free reprint articles. Free reprint articles from places like ezinearticles.com or freeaffiliatearticles.com are written by people who have something they’d like to share. (Or, they are sometimes written by people just publishing junk, in the hopes that they’ll get some incoming links. But, good article directories will delete those, so we’ll focus on the good ones here.)

So, which is better? Honestly, each has its place. Sometimes you’ll find an excellent free reprint article that you’ll want to share with your readers and you won’t mind a bit having an outbound link, especially if there is an affiliate program associated with it. The free reprint article added value to your readers, and you didn’t have to write the article. That’s what free reprint articles are all about.

Other times you’ll already have an idea in mind for a topic and you’ll just want a boost getting that section of your website done. If you run across a high quality PLR package on that niche, you’re set to go.

So, how do you know which PLR service or membership to choose? Here are some guidelines to follow:

1. Some PLR sites offer a monthly membership where you receive a grab-bag of articles – on any topic. If you already know what you need, this may be a waste of money. Other PLR sites will list topics and you can buy the articles in a shopping cart. That ensures you receive the articles you need when you need them.

2. Are the articles written by professional writers with experience? Or are they outsourced to the cheapest overseas help they can find – no matter the quality? If the articles are going to be a reflection of your business, you’ll want to ensure that the articles are well-written.

3. Who’s running this thing? Is the PLR site run by someone who knows about content or someone who thinks they can ride the content wave and make a quick buck? Make sure you’re hitching your wagon to someone who knows what they’re doing.

Those are just a few tips to keep you from wasting money on a PLR site that you can’t use. Continue to use free reprint articles, but look into PLR articles as well. They can both benefit your website and your business.

Nicole Dean invites you to check out EasyPLR.com – where you’ll find high-quality PLR articles on niches sold in very limited quantities.

I, personally, recommend this site for all your PLR article needs.
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Stephanie Fish, owner of Buckeye V.A. enjoys assisting online business owners with their social media and article marketing business tasks. If you’re looking for a virtual marketing assistant, please contact Stephanie at Buckeye V.A.

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Article Marketing Challenge? Or Is It Challenging?

First off, let me say “HAPPY NEW YEAR“! Did you make any business resolutions? Instead of resolutions, how about making a business goal with action steps? One of the most important business goals an internet marketer (like yourself) should include is article marketing. Article Marketing can be a challenge when you look at it as an “extra” business chore, but it doesn’t need to be seen that way. Instead of making article marketing a challenging business task, why not outsource it to your virtual marketing assistant?

There are basically 4 steps you could take this new year that will help you with your article marketing challenge:

  1. Write your own articles.
  2. Find a Ghost Writer who knows you and your business, who will help you come up with a article writing plan. Once you determine  how many articles per week or month you want to have written.
  3. Send those written articles to your virtual marketing assistant, who will create a marketing plan that fits with your business goals.
  4. Request that your ghost writer send the articles directly to your virtual marketing assistant, so they can immediately begin your article marketing campaign.

You may be asking “how many articles should I be submitting”? I’m glad you asked! As a virtual marketing assistant, I would recommend a minimum of 1 article every week, to a minimum of 10 article directories that your target market frequents. On a consistent, monthly basis, you should see a ROI (return on investment) either by increased webvisitors, ezine sign-ups, product sales, speaking opportunities or even blog comments (think SEO).

You are not limited to article directories only, oh no, you also can mix some social network marketing also. By spending a minimum of 1.5 hours a week on your article marketing business campaign, for Article marketing shouldn’t be seen as “challenging”, instead it should be seen as a positive business “challenge”, one that will help increase your business exposure and help you become the expert in  your chosen business field.

Let’s work together by making 2010 the year that your business sees the success in growth that you desire!

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Stephanie Fish, owner of Buckeye V.A. helps business internet marketers create a social media and article marketing plan that fits their business goals. You are invited to connect with Stephanie by visiting her website http://www.buckeyeva.com to sign-up for her marketing ezine and social networking groups.

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Day 9: Free Advertising Space?

Today is Day #9 of a 10 day series entitled :

“10 Reasons to Market Your Business with Articles”

Outsourcing (delegating) a minimum of 5 hours of article marketing per month can benefit your business.  Perhaps if you have a better understanding behind the “why” you should be marketing your business with articles, then this task will never see the end of your to-do list again.

Day 9: Free Advertising Space?

shareOnce your article is published by an article directory, it should be seen as a living piece. In other words, once a target client reads what you have to say, that person may copy it into their ezine or on their website for their readers to read, that equals to free advertising!

So basically, once you submit that article, its “out there” for all the world to see..over and over and over again! Take this one step further and let your readers know that they can use your article but they have to leave it “as is” and not change it in anyway (this info can go in your resource box.)

Oh, and if you are contacted by someone that has used one of your articles to educate their market, make sure to thank them! Virtual hand shakes can go far.

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Please contact me, today, for a free 30 minute consultation to see which service your business needs

Day 8: Pre-Sell Your Services or Products

Today is Day # 8 of a 10 day series entitled :

“10 Reasons to Market Your Business with Articles”

Outsourcing (delegating) a minimum of 5 hours of article marketing per month can benefit your business.  Perhaps if you have a better understanding behind the “why” you should be marketing your business with articles, then this task will never see the end of your to-do list again.

Day 8: Pre-Sell Your Services or Products

faceArticle marketing allows you to pre-sell your products or services. You don’t even have to meet face-to-face in order to sell your business. By article marketing on a consistent basis, your message will be read by your potential clients. Those potential clients then follow the link in your resource box, come to your website and hopefully sign-up for your mailing list. Maybe they will also contact you for more information about your product or service and want to place an order. You never know who is going to pick-up your article!

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Please contact me, today, for a free 30 minute consultation to see which service your business needs!