Virtual Assistant and Online Marketing Advice for Petpreneurs
A couple of weeks ago Danielle Chonody from The Circle of Pet Sitting Excellence interviewed me to discuss fresh new tips that pet sitters can use to get new clients using social media. Here is what she said about our interview…
Last week I interviewed Joan Fernandez from PetBusinessVA.com and learned a lot of fresh new tips for using Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to promote a pet sitting business.
It’s funny because I think I originally connected with Joan on Twitter and we have kept in touch on Facebook.
It’s amazing how much social media is growing! Facebook now has 300 million users - and the fastest growing segment on Facebook is women aged 55-65. So it’s not just for the teens anymore. More than 1.5 million pieces of information including web links, news stories, videos, photos, blog posts, and notes, are shared on Facebook every day. You can find some other great social media tidbits in this video on Joans blog :
http://www.petbusinessva.com/social-media-revolution/
Some big advantages of using social media marketing include:
1. It’s FREE
2. You can use it to network with peers
3. You can use it to build relationships
4. You can connect with people that you otherwise wouldn’t
Social media can also help you to build closer relationships with existing clients, build credibility, and increase your website traffic.
One of the highlights of the call for me were Joans tips on using Twitter to connect with people looking for pet sitters in your local area. Joan uses keywords such as pet sitter and her city name to do twitter searches using Tweetdeck,Twellow, and LocalTweeps.com to find tweets from people in her area of Washington DC who are looking for pet sitter recommendations. A trick I’d never thought of trying before! Joan also introduced us to twitter email alerts using tweetbeep.com using these types of keywords.
At the end of the call Joan also showed us how to save time with social media by using Ping to send updates to you Twitter, Facebook and Linked In profiles. We also discussed cell phone applications that you can use on the go to post pictures of clients pets and new updates.
I want to share a little secret with you guys that makes my life so much easier when it comes to social media. Are you ready? Here it goes…Ping.fm. Ping.fm is a FREE service that makes updating your social networks a snap. You can update your status in over 35 social networks with a touch of a button. I update my status in the Ping.fm website and the same status posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, and Delicious at the same time. I don’t have to login into each account to do this. The Ping.fm website combines all my social network accounts into one. I will not be able to live without Ping.fm! Try it and let me know what you think.
Last week, I discussed the advantages and disadvantages on using a Facebook profile/fan page as your company’s webpage. Well, people can also do a search within Facebook and find your profile or fan page. Optimizing your Facebook fan page can help increase the chances of this happening. Search Engine Land gives great tips for getting your fan page found on Facebook. These tips are:
1. Use your pet biz brand for your Facebook page name.
2. Build your followers
3. Create a branded Facebook username
4. Create fresh content regularly
5. Advertise on branded “interests” - Search Enginer Land explains “While this won’t boost you into the natural Facebook search results, this will allow you to show up on selected terms. While Facebook ads still run off of “interests” rather than keywords, bidding solely on extremely targeted interests, you can boost your possibility of being found. In addition, Facebook does run select Microsoft-network ads, so advertising in adCenter could help you sneak in and steal some of that Facebook search traffic (if you know what you are doing).”
6. Fill in all information about your pet biz.
Follow these tips and your will see your pet biz fan page show up when Facebook users search by keywords or “interests”.
I read an article written by Hubspot.com about using Facebook as your company’s website and then I thought….hhhuuuummmm…it might be a good idea. But then I thought about it a little bit more and realized that it is important for a company to have a legitimate website outside of just Facebook so that you can build credibility in the cyber world. You should be able to interact with clients by all means possible ~ Facebook, company’s website, Twitter, etc. That way the client can pick their favorite choice of interaction with your pet company.
Additional points to think about on this matter…
How your pet biz handles online presence? Do you have a website and a Facebook account?
Nowadays everyone has a blog site. For this reason, you have to make sure you promote your blog effectively so that your rankings go up and people can find your website in the search engines. Darren Rowse from ProBlogger.com made a great video on how to he promote his blogs. It is a little lengthy,but is worth it. I’m sure you will learn something that you could apply to your blog.
Usually, social media networking sites have more than one purpose. I always knew Twitter had a lot to offer…more than just tweeting. Mashable’s website ~ The Social Media Guide ~ discusses things you can do on Twitter other than tweeting…
1. Share files on Twitter using www.filesocial.com ~ Files need to be smaller than 50 MB.
2. Exchange business cards ~ www.twtBizCard.com is a service that lets you create an electronic business card that you can easily tweet.
3. Share music ~ Songza (http://songza.fm/) is a music search engine that lets you tweet music you select.
4. Share videos ~ You can share videos using 12 seconds website. This is a great tool for really short videos…just 12 seconds!
5. Raise money ~ A neat website to raise money for great causes is Twitpay. Raising money using Twitter really works!
6. Find a job ~ You can even find a job using Twitter…www.tweetmyjobs.
Twitter can be used for some many things. What things do you do on Twitter besides tweeting?
I learned about the Heartselling Model from Sharla Jacobs a couple of months ago and it really works. As a always, I just want to share this information with you guys.
The 5 elements of the Heartselling Model are:
If you follow at least one of the elements described above you will turn potential clients into actual clients.
Do you still have doubts about social media sites? Well, think no more! Therese Kopwida, from PetsitUSA shared this video with her subscribers and now I want to share it with you. The stats in this video about social media are unbelievable. I saw this video last week and fell in love with it. Enjoy!
Here is a summary of the “crazy” stats.
If you want your pet business to succeed and grow you have to delegate. As business owners we like to think that we can do it all, but in reality we can’t. Delegating is a skill that every business owner should have. Keep reading if you want to learn how to delegate.
1. Make a list of business related things that you hate doing and you might want to delegate out.
2. Track your time for 7 days and identify how much time you spend on tasks you don’t like doing.
3. Make sure your define your biz mission statement and relay that information to the virtual assistant.
Virtual assistants are partners, not employees. If you are feeling overwhelmed or frustrated because you can’t get things done then you should consider hiring a virtual assistant and utilizing their expertise.
Partnering up with a virtual assistant will free your time to do other things and you will be happier. Start with baby steps and delegate one thing at a time and see how it goes. Believe me, if you find the right virtual assistant you will soon be thinking “What else can I delegate?”.
Word-of-mouth marketing is very important for a pet business. I found this great article on the Small Business Trends website ~ 16 things you can do yourself to create word-of-mouth for your business. I summarized the 15 things that are important to me when it comes to dealing with my clients and staff.
Lesson learned ~ Make sure you listen to what your clients and employees are saying. Listen first and then act! Social media and surveys could be your ears
The Pet Biz Helper is here to assist busy petpreneurs like yourself with those "annoying and tedious" tasks you would rather delegate to someone else. We specialize in online marketing and this is what the blog page is all about...free online marketing tips and more! If you would like to know more specifics about what we do at Pet Biz Helper feel free to visit our Services page.