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Posts Tagged ‘social media’

Last week Virtually Amazing made international news and in a very good way.  The very unexpected and fun tweet arrived from Terry Rachwalski, Front Porch Perspective (@consultingmania) in Victoria, BC.   The tweet came via my Blackberry while I was relaxing Thursday evening.  It read….

@advicescene @VirtuallyAmaz Grace – your twitter handle was on the TV along with Nancy! lol and mine too!

I was immediately intrigued and engaged Terry to understand what had happened.  It seems one of her clients had been interviewed for a TV news segment about Twitter.  Nancy Kinney, Advice Scene (@AdviceScene) was talking about Twitter and assisting the young newscaster enter “The Twitterverse”.   Nancy replied to a tweet from Terry and myself on the screen to share an example.  Which is where Virtually Amazing made it’s international news debut!

By now you are asking why this might be remarkable enough for a blog post?  So here’s the back story.  I “met”  Terry about a year ago on Twitter, she had asked a question about hashtags (#)  and I assisted her in finding one for a conference she was promoting.  We had a few fun exchanges that evening and I continued to re-tweet Terry’s tweets about the conference for the next few months to assist them in their conference marketing.  During that time Terry held a contest to win a breakfast at the conference to hear their keynote speaker: Alan Weiss.  As it happens in the Twitterverse, I didn’t see the tweets about the conference so I was pleasantly surprised when I won the drawing and happily traveled across the border to Vancouver to meet Terry in person, attend the breakfast and hear the speaker.  Terry & I continue to engage on Twitter and found ourselves at Social Media Camp Victoria in October last year.  Although we only had time for a quick chat and a hug it was great to connect again in real life.  Our continual engagement on Twitter was how I eventually ended up on the news.  Terry was congratulating Nancy for having the most followers in Victoria and so I joined in on the congratulations.

Now I have a new friend in Victoria and I’m looking forward to connecting with them later this year at Social Media Camp Victoria 2011.

The most amazing things happen when you least expect it!!

“What do Virtual Assistants do and how do they assist clients?”

“Isn’t being a virtual asst like collaboration..so few (me included) know much about it.”

The last few weeks I’ve been asked these questions several times in person and online.

What is a Virtual Assistant (VA)?

A Virtual Assistant (VA) is a highly-skilled, independent professional who remotely provides administrative, technical and/or creative business support services.

*Source: The Virtual Assistant Social Network ~ VAnetworking.com

How do we assist clients? VAs assist clients in many ways, they are skilled in communicating with the client to understand their needs and make recommendations..  It all depends upon the needs of the client which is where the collaboration comes in.

VAs have a specific skill set and resources to whom they can recommend or collaborate with to complete tasks if they don’t have that particular skill.

VAs do much more than answer your phones or schedule appointments:

Social Media	Event Planning
Travel Arrangements	Business Support
Organizing	Project Management
Presentation Development	Mass Mailings
File Conversions	Desktop Publishing
Word Processing	Podcasting
SEO (search engine optimization)	Ghostwriting
Shopping Carts	Internet Marketing
Filing	Order Fulfillment
Database Management

And so much more.

Collaboration is the name of the game when it comes to being a virtual assistant.  As work at home professionals we collaborate with our clients, with our associates, with our families and friends.

The Virtual Assistant community is worldwide and a very close knit, supportive community.  We use so many venues to stay in contact and up to date with ever changing technology.

Social media, associations, forums, live conference, newsletters, list serves, instant messaging, text chat, email, phone calls and virtual events.

Need more information??? Contact me via your favorite method of communication.

I’ve had an abundance of networking opportunities this year which I’m very grateful for.  Even though I am an extrovert (no matter what behavior style tool is used to identify me–I am what I am) and I find it easy to talk to people, connecting to new, interesting people is always a challenge.

This year I’ve taken a new tact to networking.  I find an empty table near the center of the action, choose a seat facing the room, make myself comfortable and open my energy to be welcoming, receptive and filled with positive thoughts of attracting the people I need to encounter during that event.

The results have been amazing, I have connected with the most interesting people.  Many of whom I would not have connected with otherwise.  They arrive alone or in small groups and within moments the entire table is filled with warmth, comraderie and instantaneous connections.   Sometimes the connections are formed between others and the environment of the table seemed to make that possibility happen for them.   It creates such an interesting phenomenon to watch and enjoy.

I’ve connected with new clients, new friends, new colleagues and meet business idols I’ve only known virtually all these years.  I found many cases where the degrees of separation are just one or two people away.

What’s your favorite in person networking technique?

As much as we complain about the traffic, the high prices, the smog, etc; living in a large metropolitan city does have it merits and this last month has been abundant with networking opportunities here in the Pacific Northwest.

I was able to attend several types of events for little more than some time and minimal dollar investments.   There were actual networking events, learning events, social events and I won a ticket to hear a well-known speaker, have breakfast at a conference whose attendees are my target market and was blessed to meet some incredible people at all events.   It is been an amazingly busy month but I’ve enjoyed it immensely.

Being “out there” online created the opportunity for every one of these events as each event came through a different type of social media connection.  Twitter, Linked In, RSS feeds and Facebook provide such a wonderful opportunity to meet people online and then get out and connect face to face.

Through Twitter I was able to follow a conference being held in Chicago and make a great connection retweeting their helpful information.

How are you ensuring you take advantage of the opportunities in your area?