To be honest, this is no quick and simple [...]]]> Due to our recent rebrand to BizEez Communications, this current online home (www.bizeezvirtualsolutions) no longer represents us. So in the near future we’ll be picking up stumps and moving to a new online home www.bizeez.com

To be honest, this is no quick and simple process. We don’t want to just copy and download the old website to the new home, as we don’t want to lose all that great link juice we’ve worked so hard to gain over the past few years. So we’re working on redesigning and building the new website, informing all web browsers of our new address, changing directory listings, and then redirecting each and every blog and page from this website to their counterpart on the new website. It can be a long process, but we’ve set the launch date as 14th December. No pressure!

You’re most welcome to countdown with us at www.bizeez.com

But, we don’t want you just to take a backseat and watch the proceedings. We would really appreciate your involvement via feedback on what you liked about this website i.e. certain blog topics, resources etc. and what you’d like to see more of in our new online home. We’re going to butcher a famous movie line here… “help me (us) to help you!” Sorry Jerry.  So please leave your feedback below.

Our new online home is the final phase in our rebrand and we’re really excited. Thanks everyone who has supported us, read our blogs and shared the word. Much appreciated.

Until next time…..

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Lab42 [...]]]> It’s hard to imagine an online world without the Facebook ‘Like’ button, but in fact it’s only been around for a little under 5 years. Prior to its arrival, liking something was a word to describe one’s preferences, now it’s a universal sign that means so much more.

Lab42 put together a great infographic after they surveyed 1000 social media users on how they felt about ‘Liking’ a brand on Facebook. Great to see brands are starting to realise Facebook is a place to interact with consumers and not just broadcast. Here, take a look at what people are saying.

Until next time…..

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Liking, commenting, sharing – this is where the gold’s at. Remember, to help drive [...]]]> Now you know how Edgerank works on Facebook, you know that how well each Facebook post does and how wide it spreads depends a lot on one magical little word…

Engagement.

Liking, commenting, sharing – this is where the gold’s at. Remember, to help drive those affinity and weight scores up and in turn boost your Edgerank score, you have two goals:

• Encourage more people to interact with your posts
• Encourage each person to interact with you more often

Get your Fanbase excited

Do you sometimes hit a brick wall when it comes to figuring out what to post?

We’ve got 15 quick & easy ideas to save you plenty of angst and time, and get your fans interacting with your page…

1. What do you think about…?

A great way to generate feedback and discussions is to ask your fanbase questions. It can be about your business area, industry or just general thought provoking (aka comment-inducing) questions.

Maybe you can bring in a stat that’s relevant eg “Did you know that xx% of people do xx, is this you?” (When in doubt, Google’s a great source of numbers!) Or you could post a photo that involves an either or a choice – which do you prefer? What inspires you the most?

If you’re after a Friday funny, then maybe it could be ‘Would you rather be stuck in an elevator with xx or xx?”

2. Fill in the blank

Everyone loves to put in their two cents, particularly when it’s as easy as ending a sentence for you. Again, it can be to do with your business or time-sensitive “This weekend I’d love to be…”, “All I want for Christmas is…”

You can be as fun and creative as you like!

3. Win a prize

Who doesn’t love a competition? Particularly one that makes it easy to win a great prize. And if it’s enticing enough, people will want to share.

Of course, if you need help organizing your next Facebook comp, then give us a shout, we’re experts on them!

4. Make them laugh

Whether it’s a quote, photo or video – humour connects.

Funny photos often get plenty of share action and it’s also been said that they’re 80% more likely to be ‘liked’ because of the entertainment factor!  Just remember to stay relevant to your business and industry, or at the very least bring some value to your follower’s day – you don’t want people to ‘Unlike’ you because you keep posting irrelevant content.

5. STOP Press!

Got something new and exciting happening? Use your Facebook page to announce new products, staff, special sales, industry news, trends, etc.

If your page is a timely source of company news it will keep them coming back for more.

6. Start a challenge

Whether it’s over 7 days, 30 days or whatever you like, start up a challenge on your page and each day post a tip that’s going to help your followers reach the goal.

7. It’s time to celebrate!

People love celebrating, so share your milestones with them. It could be about the page itself (eg when you get to 500 fans), or your business. Get creative with it! And don’t forget, you can also tie in a way to thank everyone or celebrate with them – eg giving away a free ebook or something else of value.

8. Use Facebook as a market research tool

You’ve got all of these followers who already love your business, so why not get them involved even more!

See what products your fans would like from you, what topics they’d like to learn about etc etc. Just make sure you can follow through!

9. Let your customers do the work for you

Often your customers are a great source of Facebook fodder.  Share their testimonials or the stories and experiences they’ve had with your business.

Or if you’ve got a photo of a customer using your product or service, that’s great too – visual is always good on Facebook.

Answer their burning questions – keep a note of what are some of the common queries you receive again and again.

Repost their content – eg if you’re a food business and someone has shared a recipe with you, repost that asking ‘What are you planning to make for dinner tonight? Here’s a great idea from…”

10. A word from the experts…

Post a weekly tip using your own company’s expertise, or an industry expert – this can be text, links or videos.

 Give your customers a helping hand and build your credibility at the same time with a ‘how-to’ video on something your company rocks at – put it up one YouTube and link to it.  Post a podcast or an interview with an expert – whether that’s you, one of your staff members or someone in your industry.

 11.  Hold a live discussion

Here’s an idea that not many businesses use – rather than just posting and running away, stay right where you are and hold a discussion.

Or get a “guest” to speaks from their own personal profile, whether it’s an expert in the field or a local celeb.

The key is that whoever is leading the discussion needs to be active and respond quickly to comments and questions from your fans.

It might also be a good idea to post about it in advance to create some hype.

12.  Read all about it

Already write a blog? Then don’t forget to be social and share it!

Sharing the link is a great way to create engagement on your Facebook page. But it will also help you drive more traffic to your website, and help you build your customer base and sales.

13.  Link to other parts of your marketing arsenal

Do you have an online newsletter? Do you have a Facebook tab to subscribe to it? Remind people that it’s there!

Or link to other Facebook tabs, social networking, your website, etc.

Once again, if you need help with Facebook tabs, ask us!

 14.  Plan to succeed

We’ve said it before & we’ll say it again…a great way to avoid wasting time on Social Media and have less grey hairs – plan, plan, plan!

Create a simple spreadsheet that has a list of ideas of what to post and when and you’ll make it a whole lot easier on yourself because you’re not starting from scratch every single time.

 15.  Track your success

Finally, what’s the easiest way to know what you can post that will engage your fans the most?

Keep track of what’s worked before so you can do it again!

Last tips:

Don’t forget the 80/20 rule

The golden rule with Facebook is that 80% of the time you want to add value to your visitors with non-business content and then promote your wares 20% of the time.

Remember to talk back!

Always acknowledge or respond to any comments and be sure to thank them as well. Spending that bit of time engaging in the conversation really does go a long way.

Until next time…..

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After more than 2 and a half years as BizEez Virtual Solutions, we have put the client hat on and begun the incredibly important process of rebranding and repositioning. And the first task [...]]]> That’s right folks – here at BizEez, we have taken on a project that’s particularly close to home.

After more than 2 and a half years as BizEez Virtual Solutions, we have put the client hat on and begun the incredibly important process of rebranding and repositioning. And the first task has been getting the right name that precisely represents what we do.

Step 1: What’s in a name?

A lot!

Particularly when it comes to the success of your business. There is so much power in a brand name, so deciding on it is one of the most important steps in a brand story.

Get the name right and you can instantly convey your expertise and value, and appeal to the kinds of customers you want to attract. It can communicate the key elements of your business and in some cases create an emotional connection for your customers.

Get it wrong however, and you can find yourself in the land of obscurity, confuse people or at worst, alienate.

Why do we need to change our name?

Because we’ve outgrown our existing one!

BizEez Virtual Solutions started back in January 2010 providing bookkeeping, typing and a range of other office support services in a virtual manner, so you didn’t need to have a person underfoot. At the time, we had an extremely small (read non-existent) marketing budget, but still needed to publicise our services.

Enter Facebook and indeed the world of social media marketing (read our first blog to see how we’ve evolved).

We soon had other businesses knocking on our door because they liked our social media strategy so much that they wanted us to help them!

By the end of 2010, we were only handling social media enquiries – all other virtual assistant requests were being outsourced to businesses we had become affiliated with on…you guessed it, social networking.

The other big change was growing from a one-woman show. By early 2012, the business started expanding so quickly that I realised more and more help was needed.

So here we are in October 2012 and we are now known as… drum roll please…

BizEez Communications. 

Why BizEez Communications? Simple – we felt this name more accurately depicts what we do. Our name may seem kinda cheesy, but also fun & quirky  – just like us! We ease (eez), business (biz) into online communications – yep, you guessed it – BizEez Communications.

The core of our business is working side by side with you to develop and execute a strong, comprehensive and effective online and digital marketing strategy. We believe that this in itself is all about communicating to your current customers, your target market and your staff.

As shown in this diagram, the four cornerstones of our business are Web Development, Search Optimisation, Training and Speaking, and of course Social Media.

What We Do

Step 2: Introducing our new direction

We are excited to announce our new direction for BizEez Communications that will fully utilise our team’s capabilities and expertise. We are a full service agency who can assist you to get the most out of your online marketing dollar, whether you have a small business or work for a major corporation.

But of course, any good rebrand doesn’t happen overnight.

In the coming months you’ll begin to see our ‘new business’ take shape as we change our online presence, social networking sites and all other marketing collateral.

It will be a gradual and organic process for us – just the way we like to assist our clients through major branding changes.

Of course, if you’ve noticed anything in our list of services that you need help with right now, don’t hesitate to contact us because we are already fully operational as BizEez Communications!

Until next time…..

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100%? 50%? 15%? Less?

The biggest mistake you can make when posting a status update is thinking that all of your fans are going to see it.

Because they won’t!

Too much and you can hurt your [...]]]> Right, so now you’ve used our top 5 tips for finding the right keywords, I bet you’re wondering what you do with them! Just like good old Goldilocks, you need to make sure that you get it just right.

Too much and you can hurt your search engine rankings. But too little, and it be equally as detrimental as the search engines won’t pay attention to you.

What is keyword density?

Keyword density is the percentage of times your keywords appear on a webpage, compared to the total number of words on the page. And for SEO purposes, keyword density is a factor used to determine if your webpage is relevant to a specified keyword or keyword phrase.

Finding the right balance

Back in the old days (aka the late 90s!), keywords were all the rage and it was all about including them as many times as you could to help your page rank well.

But that didn’t last long and nowadays, it’s a completely different ball game. Overuse your keywords and your site can be penalised.

The key to keyword density is definitely balance. You need to make sure you have valuable content that looks natural at the same time – so you want your keywords to be carefully, creatively and casually woven throughout. This not only maximizes your SEO efforts, but also makes sure you have a high level of legitimacy and creates a quality site for your customers and visitors.

While opinions amongst SEO experts vary, a good balance for keyword density is roughly 3% to 5% of your website content.

Any less than that and your ranking may fall. Any more than that, and your site may be flagged.

Here’s an example of the keyword balancing act, where a sentence effectively and naturally applies the keyword “website design” within its website content:

“Our agency specialises in quality website design with a focus on branding, SEO and customer acquisition.”

This on the other hand is a great example of well and truly overdoing it:

“Our website design agency specialises in quality website design with a focus on branding, SEO and customer acquisition for website design.”

Can you see the difference?

In the second example, the keyword is forced and overused, making it difficult to read the sentence and giving you a good chance of being red flagged by search engines for “keyword loading”.

In other words, the search engines won’t trust you – they’ll most likely “think” you’re not a legitimate business and are only out to acquire site visitors rather than actual customers. Not a good idea for growing your business!

So how do you do it yourself?

Making sure your pages look natural by weaving keywords into the content in an organic way can be a bit tricky.

A good way to do this is to actually write each page first without trying to consciously include your keywords. Then after your draft is complete, go back and review it to see how many times your keywords appear.

You may be surprised at how often you’ve used your keywords. Or if you need to add more in, look for places to insert them where they will appear natural, even if they weren’t.  All in all, it’s another case of practice makes perfect – be creative and take your time with it and you’ll no doubt become an expert at keyword density.

 Remember, balance is key so if in doubt, think of Goldilocks and getting it just right!!

Until next time…..

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Well it’s one thing to build a website – but if no-one can find it then it’s useless!

But hands up if you feel like you spend way more time than [...]]]> As I wrote about in a recent blog, updating your social media can be done in as little as 20 minutes to half an hour, 3 times a week, depending on your business requirements.

But hands up if you feel like you spend way more time than that on there?

Anyone? Everyone? Thought so!

While there’s no doubt it can be incredibly beneficial to your business, it can also suck a big chunk of your precious time from your already overcrowded schedule, if you don’t use your time wisely.

Here’s 3 big ways that it can eat into your time:

• Mobile access 24/7 – does your mobile or tablet provide you with constant updates, invites, feeds, etc, etc, etc? And do you feel you just have to check it every single time?
• Failure to plan – if you don’t have a plan or a schedule, then you’re likely to spend way more time then you need to trying to figure out what you need to post, researching etc.
• Is it personal or business? – if you’re checking your personal Facebook or Twitter account or playing games when you’re supposed to be posting to your business account, you’ll notice the time really ticks away!

So what can you do about it?

Here’s 6 key ways to make sure your social media minutes are time well spent.

Plan to succeed

One of the key things I tell all of my social media clients, whether it’s those I coach or help get set up – you have to have a plan.

It can be a simple spreadsheet, but it’ll detail what types of posts and activities you need to do each week by day, and will take into account what’s happening in your overall marketing plan, your business as a whole, your industry and community.

Schedule your time

Setting up appointments throughout the week to manage your social media will get you well on your way to only spending that allotted time on it – not getting carried away with reading countless updates on other pages or playing games!

Automate

You can choose to automate and save precious time, using online services such as such as Hootsuite, TweetDeck, Seemic or Socialoomph.

But remember: don’t automate your participation in the conversations your social media posts creates!

Spending a little bit of time across the week participating in the back and forth on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter will help strengthen relationships and get the most out of your social media dollar.

Track your time & dollars

Do you know how much time you spend tweeting, updating your Facebook status, commenting on photos, uploading blogs, etc?

Or how much time you spend on social media as a whole, particularly if you’re getting sucked into combining personal with business!

If you don’t, keep track this coming week using a spreadsheet or sign up for one of the great online time trackers such as yast.com. And don’t cheat!

Then multiply your time spent by your hourly rate – it can be quite the sobering exercise!

 There’s a great quote from Rolf Nelson, in The Rational Entrepreneur,

“Putting an explicit monetary value on your time has the advantage of ironing out certain irrational habits.”

Outsource

Now it’s time for a shameless plug…there are plenty of businesses, like myself who can help you with your social media commitments, whether that’s via blogs & online articles or support, coaching and training, or managing your accounts.

And maybe you don’t need someone to do it all of it for you – but once you’ve identified where your time’s going

Turn it off

The final word on time saving – turn it off. You don’t need to be hooked in 24/7 because it’ll only distract you from other activities that will make you money or enrich your personal life.

Out of work hours, turn off your business social media and make use of other better ways to monitor your social media such as automation and RSS feeds.

Don’t forget – time is your most important asset so spend it wisely!

Until next time…..

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