During 2011 I was invited to be part of a vodcast series with Business Victoria. Here I give practical tips on how to use social media to find customers, build business credibility and generate sales.

The complete vodcast series can be viewed on the Business Victoria Youtube Channel where small business owners share the experience of starting their business, including the successes, achievements and mistakes they made along the way. Benefit from their hindsight as they give advice and tips for other small businesses on a range of problem areas from finance and employment to marketing.

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Have you heard the news? 

This presentation is different from any seminars you’ve attended in the past by anyone, as we’re giving you the skivvy in 15-minute mini-sessions. Short and simple enough for you to get inspired and ready to face 2012 with new ideas and motivation to look at your business in a whole new light!

You’re invited to join WordPress savvy  virtual assistants Tina Marie Hilton of Clerical Advantage & Girly Girl Geek; Pam Sargant of Delaney Design & Imaging, and Crystal Pina of Visions Virtual Assistance as they share their WordPress knowledge in mini-bites and show you how “WordPress can help you to learn, to adapt and to grow your business.”

You’ll also have time to ask questions, and you can share your own tips and suggestions with attendees, as well. We’re still taking names at http://bit.ly/rJjuZY, so register now.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011, 10 - 11 am (AEST) 

Check for the corresponding time in your local area.

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Join the Alliance for Virtual Businesses - Australian Chapter at our next monthly Webinar scheduled this Friday 21 October, 1-2pm.

Webinars take place on the third Friday of each month at 1.00pm Australian Eastern standard time.

Would you like to communicate more effectively with others? Do you need to present yourself more confidently when speaking to new groups? In this webinar Mark Kyte, presentation skills coach, will share with you the secrets used by the “pros”; and the tools that you can use to speak to others in a confident, assured, and engaging manner.

In this session you will receive practical advice and techniques that will help you:

1.    Know what the audience is thinking before you start speaking 2.    Look confident and assured 3.    Learn the tricks great communicators use to overcome nerves 4.    Capture your audience from the very first word 5.    Become an engaging speaker 6.    Be remembered (for the right reasons)!

You can read more and register here – www.a4vb.com.au/webinars

Don’t forget to come and join our Facebook Page!

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My gorgeous sister works part-time for a photographer ‘Lens to Life Photography’ down at Phillip Island, Victoria. The photographer, Lucas, has aligned himself with a local hair/makeup studio ‘Beachside Hair & Beauty’ to offer an additional service in makeovers for portraits and special occasions. So my sister, mother and myself, were their guinea pigs and what a fantastic job they’ve done and what a fun day we had. Check out the video below of the before and after shots! Quite a transformation!

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Another six months has passed and whilst I’m still actively using social media for networking purposes, I’m definitely not as active as I was when I first started 3 years ago. I generally have a fairly set routine and time allocations throughout the week for my social media marketing and engagement.

Nevertheless, social media continues to be the dominant source of leads and new clients for my virtual administration business and here is the 4^th part in a series of Lead Generation Statistics! Yes, I love my stats!!

What I have found, the decrease in time engaging has resulted in a decrease in the inquiries but as the network is very well established, the social media connections are now referring others.

I have also included for the first time the actual number of inquiries and conversions from each source which can be seen in the graph below. Twitter continues to be the most dominant lead source and generates the best conversion rate with quality conversions also.

Past ‘Lead Generation Statistics’ Posts:

‘Lead Generation Statistics – Part 1’

‘Lead Generation Statistics – Part 2’ 

‘Lead Generation Statistics – Part 3’

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A couple of times a month the Tweastie group meet at the Station Street Cafe in Nunawading and yesterday we met over lunch. The lunches always seem to attract quite a gathering and every one lingers for longer!

If you would like to learn more about the Tweastie Melbourne Eastern Suburbs networking Group, join us on Facebook or connect with us Twitter. You don’t have to be ‘tweep’ to be warmly welcomed to join us!
 

See the full gallery on Posterous

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When you hear the term "Summer Camp", nostalgic thoughts of campfires, canoe trips and camp fire sing-alongs might come to mind!

Well, our friends at VAClassroom with re-invented the concept with their new Summer Skill Camp designed to equip you with high-demand skills that businesses are seeking today. Sorry, no campfires, just top-notch, virtual skill-based webinars certain to give your business a much needed boost heading into the last half of 2011.

This year's Summer Skill Camp features eight high-calibre 90-minute webinars happening at specific times throughout the month of July.

Here is a sneak peek at some of the timely topics that will be covered this year:

- Success Strategies for Creating a Social Media Monitoring System
- Creating and Promoting a Compelling Facebook Contest.
- Tips and Tactics for Building an Effective Social Media Measurement System
- Discover the Fine Art of Setting Rates and Building Packages for Your Services
- Creating an Effective Mobile Marketing Campaign for Local Businesses
- Set up an Ecommerce Platform with 1ShoppingCart
- Master New Tactics for Increasing Your Search Engine Listings
- Maximize Productivity and Enhance Communications using Google Tools.

Each webinar will include practical checklists, templates and resources to ensure that you can effectively apply what you learn to your business.

Our friends at VAClassroom have established a good reputation for creating training programs that produce a very positive return on investment for their students.

Currently, they are offering an early-bird registration and a $100 discount, making this a very affordable training program.

To join this year's Summer Skill Camp and get all the details, visit this page HERE.

Enjoy!

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I attended my first OIVAC (Online International Virtual Assistants Convention) last week. Unfortunately, due to time differences as it was co-ordinated from the States, I only managed to attend a few sessions and I will listen to the recordings of those I missed. One session I did attend was delivered by Queenslander VA Lyn Prowse-Bishop titled ‘Offshore freelancers: threat or opportunity’ and Lyn shared this video in her session. It’s worthy of sharing because the off-shore VA business you see in this video is a far-cry from the sort of Virtual Assistant business you would have supporting you from Australia. Other than the obvious lure of free beer to this workplace, what other differences jump out at you?

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You may have read it in our April Newsletter or seen it about on various social media arenas that my business has been nominated in the 2011 Telstra Business Awards. This is super exciting for this little virtual business and yes, I have made sure I shared this exciting news...with everyone!

Another component of the Awards is the people's choice Awards and I'd be thrilled if you could add your vote by visiting the link below and hit the "RECOMMEND" button. You will need to be logged into Facebook in order to complete this function.

VOTE HERE: http://tinyurl.com/3tjckc3

Thanks in advance...and wish me luck!

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I stumbled across this via a tweet on Twitter yesterday and have already shared it everywhere I can possibly share it and thought I may as well share it here!

It would have to be the most creative 404 error page I’ve seen. It’s a must view. It’s so simple but highly effective ... and silly ... and it will make you smile! Enjoy!

http://iplanwebsites.com/404

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This is the third ‘Lead Generation Statistics’ post now made. They have all been at 6 monthly intervals after monitoring and calculating where the leads have originated from.

Social media has continued to take an even larger portion of what is represented below in this graph with the majority of leads still coming from Twitter. The last ‘Lead Generation Statistics – Part 2’ post revealed, Twitter had contributed 77 of the inquiries which has now increased to 105 at the time of writing this post.

Past ‘Lead Generation Statistics’ Posts:

‘Lead Generation Statistics – Part 2’ 

‘Lead Generation Statistics – Part 1’

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With all the recent changes (and more to come!) to Facebook Pages, the ’Social Media Setup Guide‘ and ‘Social Media Support Guide‘ have now been updated to reflect yet another lot of Facebook changes. Yes, these Social Media e-books are a constant work-in-progress thanks to Facebook!

However, at Interim Business Solutions, we do make every effort to ensure these Guides remain up-to-date so the purchaser is getting the most current information. Whether it be to create their accounts to get started on social media or, if they have existing accounts but need further information as to how to best manage them.
READ MORE

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It was terrific to have some new faces come along this morning to the first Melbourne eastern suburbs Tweetup, fondly known as #tweastie! There was plenty of chatter and catching up on summer holiday news and business aspirations for 2011.

Tweastie has been running for nearly 12 months and has a core group of regulars, plus others who come along when their work commitments allow them. We have also created a Tweastie Facebook Page and anyone is welcome to join. This certainly makes it easier to notify #tweastie members of meetups or the occasional evening event which gets organised. You can also view photos of the tweetups in the Photo Albums. Of course you can also follow @tweastie for updates.

The Following Tweeps Attended Today

First timers:

@ copywritemattrs

@franpratt

@ajmckenna

@LarnaPittiglio

Regulars:

@Puggles99 

@patriciadodd

@gustodian

@Day2DayList

@hummers4hire

@drwarwick

@Chris_pinkapple

@kirsty_wilson

Feel free to join us if you are in the Nunawading or eastern suburbs of Melbourne vicinity for great conversation, collaboration, laughs, networking and good coffee!

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During November and December 2010, Rosie Shilo the owner of the virtual assistants network I am a member of, known as ‘Virtually Yours’, ran some fun Awards to celebrate the end of the year. I was fortunate to be nominated and won the highly prestigious ‘Golden Egg Award’ for the growth my business, Interim Business Solutions has had! You can see the Award below...

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Are you feeling like you’re at crossroads in either your career as an employee or within your business as a business owner? I know I am!

I’m writing this during my annual digital-detox (with pen and paper!) as all digital equipment was left behind. I’ve just finished reading the inspiring ‘Agents of Action’ published by Renee Mayne. Renee has gathered together 11 individuals who openly retell their stories of their entrepreneurial journeys – the common thread taking ACTION!

READ MORE 

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Being a keen gardener and a business owner, I really warmed to this little video from ‘Let’s Grow’ where comparisons are drawn between nurturing a garden and leaders in the workplace!

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An extremely interesting and relevant 18 minute video from the Web 2.0 Summit 2010 held in San Francisco recently.

Mary Meeker speaks of the “internet trends” for 2011 and addresses 10 Questions internet executives should be considering moving into the future:

LISTEN HERE

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A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is of course your domain and all extensions, so include a test of your additional pages to ensure your content has not been copied. To run the test, simply copy each page URL from your browser and paste it into the Copyscape field and select “GO”.

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A short, succinct, sincere and fabulous message from Kevin Spacey regarding ‘success’....

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