Five Good Habits for Reputation Management Online

More and more of our lives are on the Internet and so more and more of our reputations hinge on having a solid online presence. These are five habits that everyone who cares about their online reputation should have.

1. Think Before You Post
Before posting (or even emailing) information about yourself, including photographs and videos, consider whether you’d want your mother, your insurance provider, business partners or customers to see it. One drunken party photo or one stupid comment in a video can become fodder for the reputation slayers. So think before you post.

2. No Oversharing
This ties in with #1 and is probably the most common way that people ruin their reputations. While posting that one bad photo or one stupid comment could ruin you, continually posting banalities can be just as bad. Before you make those daily Facebook status updates and send those iPhone tweets about your current activities, think about the value they may (or may not) have. Does anyone other than you mom, sister, cousin, or wife care about your trip to the movies? Is the fact that your dog can (finally) sit on command really a life-altering event that should be enthusiastically tweeted? Don’t overshare.

3. Do Not Slam, Flame, or Attack Anyone Online
Yes, the Internet is full of people who make stupid remarks or who claim to know things they obviously know nothing about. These people probably deserve to be put in their place. But not by you. A flame or ad-hominem attack sullies you as much as it does the person you’re aiming for. Flaming quickly can become something more than cyber-bullying, stalking, or worse. Your attack on someone, no matter how innocuous, on a blog’s comment area could become a full-fledged campaign by them to post vitriol on your Facebook, YouTube, website, and other sites across the Internet. So do not slam, flame, or attack anyone online. It might feel good right now, but it can haunt you later.

4. Do An Online Purge
For most of those we talk with when discussing reputation management online, this one is often the hardest to convince them to do. During a recent keynote speech, half an hour of my question and answer period centered on this one facet of online reputation management. It’s that controversial. There are a lot of reasons why, but for space considerations, I can only skim some of them. More are covered in-depth in our book Do It Yourself Online Reputation Management.

Purging your online presence doesn’t mean removing yourself from the Internet, but rather it means streamlining your presence for better control. Are you actually utilizing that MySpace account, for instance? Should it be deleted? Maybe it has 3,000 friends, but if it’s of dubious value to your reputation and is rarely updated, it’s probably more of a liability than a help. Likewise, having 8,000 Facebook friends might seem great for your marketing, but are those people really people? How many of them do you actually interact with?

Oprah has hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers. How many of them does she actually talk to regularly? Is she the one really talking to them, or does she have a PR person just for Twitter? Can you afford to hire someone to reliably run your Twitter or Facebook accounts? Would it be worth it?

Your online presence can only work for you and keep your reputation clear if it’s well-maintained and streamlined to the task you wish it to perform. If your presence is all about marketing, then you’ll have very different goals than if it’s just about connecting with friends and family and occasional colleagues. Know your goals and keep your accounts tailored to them. This means purging the extraneous friends, information and accounts you might have.

5. Surf Like a Ninja
This last one is often the easiest for people to grasp and the fasted to adopt. Everything you do on the Internet can be tracked. That’s not paranoia, it’s just how it is. There are few regulations covering how information you might post online (including your surfing history and habits) can be used. Your photos on Facebook, your sign-up information on Gowalla, and your Web browser’s history itself might all be public information being traded between marketing groups.

So take steps to minimize your exposure and keep as much of this information as possible to yourself. The tools are all easily found and basically free. Use a good anti-virus tool, obviously, to keep your computer clear, even if you are running a supposedly a safe system like Mac or Linux. On top of that, use stealth tools to keep your browser history locked down (or cleared), your visiting information hidden (such as with an IP mask), etc. Tools for all of this are easy to install, automated, and freely available.

If you take these five steps in stride and incorporate these habits into your normal routine online, you’ll find that your reputation will not only be more in your own control, but more easily managed as well. Even if you don’t do business online, your online reputation can be important and will only become more so in the future as more and more of our lives go online.

Herbert Tabin is an author, consultant, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, merger and acquisition expert as well as noted specialist in online reputation management and monitoring. His books “Checked In”: How To Use Gowalla, Foursquare and Other Geo-Location Applications For Fun and Profit and “Do It Yourself Online Reputation Management” A Step By Step Guide to Building or Fixing Your Reputation Online” are available on Amazon.com or at http://DoItYourselfOnlineReputationManagement.com and http://CheckedInbook.com. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Herb_Tabin

Customer Feedback and Your Reputation Management are Crucial

Consumers tend to trust reviews that they read online and research shows that they especially believe the feedback when it is negative.  Even worse it is likely they will spread the work and share it with their network which has the potential to produce more negative comments.

In today’s economy consumers are more often than not doing research before they make purchases, buying services, and before they start doing business with your company.  They will be researching your products and/or services and investigate what your current customers are saying.  It is imperative that now more than ever whatever information they find is accurate, positive and leaves a good impression.

It today’s world it is not only important to maintain your reputation in your local community but you must also manage your online reputation as well.  Bad reviews in blog sites, forums and other channels such as Yelp and Four Square that use the power of the Internet can have a significant effect on the reputation of your company.  You have to be ready to quickly respond and take necessary action immediately to correct any bad publicity.

Although it would be impossible to respond to every negative comment out there, especially for larger companies, you can address negative blog posts by building positive exposure through proactively interacting in pertinent online communities.

Reputation management in the online world includes being present and positively active on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  Depending on your business you may want to be involved in Yelp, GroupOn and FourSquare.  You will most likely want a blog.

All of this can be a daunting task, there is no doubt about it.  It is also true the good reputation it can take businesses years to build can be severely damaged in minutes.  That is more true now than ever with the Internet.  By considering the advantages of online reputation management, a business with substantial presence on the Internet can cushion itself from the effects of bad publicity.  Over the coming months we will be rolling out services to assist you with online reputation management.  We can help you set these tools up and teach you how to manage them yourself or do it for you.

Stay Tuned!

It is Vital that You Manage Your Online Image

With the emergence of the Internet and Social Media it has dramatically changed the world that we live in, and how we interact in that world. It has created a huge impact on our lives and will continue to do so in ways that we probably cannot imagine today. The opportunities that have been opened up to most of us are infinite. It has made a world that used to seem huge, seem so much smaller now. Now we can find the information we need any time of the day or night, with just a few clicks of a mouse without leaving our home. All of this information has empowered those who of us who take advantage of it.

IMPORTANT: Protect Your Online Standing

Online search engines have contributed immensely in making research easier. No longer do we have to go to the library during business hours to search through outdated books and hope they have the information that we need. There are so many references available online that are free and available to you:

Google and multiple other search engines

• Blogs
• Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn (and a plethora of other social networking sites with more cropping up what seems like daily.)
• Online consumer forums
• Company Websites
• Wikipedia

I’m sure you can think of quite a few that I haven’t listed.

If your customers and potential customers are looking for services or products that you offer they may very well go to one of these sites that we mentioned. The last thing that you want them reading are bad reviews about you or your company. These could be extremely harmful for your image and your reputation. Once you damage your image and reputation it can be very difficult to fix.

In upcoming Blog posts we will be discussing why consumer feedback is critical, how to manage your reputation and some online reputation management tools for your business.

We are excited that we will be offering new services to assist you with some of these aspects of your business in the near future. Stayed tuned for the roll out of these next services in the next four to weeks.

Have a great weekend, and enjoy the Super Bowl!

Creating a Traffic Magnet for Your Website by Re-purposing Your Content

If you are presenting teleseminars, webinars, or maybe you are hosting a radio show you can take those fantastic presentations and have them transcribed and begin transforming the audio into text and you can then instantly start generating traffic to your website. In addition, you can even develop you information into info products.

One teleseminar, webinar, or radio show can be used to create dozen of articles and even more blog posts. You can submit your articles to article directories and ezine publishers. One thing is for sure you can never get your message in too many eyes.

After you have those articles written you can repurpose them into blog posts either on your own blog or as a guest on a colleagues blog. Then you have more fresh content for the search-engines to pull up your rankings. You can break them down even further and use them for posts on Twitter.

You can also use your content to make short one to two-minute video clips for YouTube.

If you are a speaker, author, consultant, trainer, organizer, wellness professional, coach anyone who is conducting any kind of presentation and recording it, and those recordings are just sitting on your computer, you are literally sitting on a gold mine of untapped income that could be going in your pockets and adding value to your clients. AND if you are conducting presentations and not recording them you need to start now, today, with your very next presentation.

Why not take out those audio recordings and let’s dust them off and start adding to your bottom line today. Contact me today at KMStarry@gmail.com and we can discuss a plan for your specific needs.

7 Blogging Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Most of us know that blogging is an important tool for entrepreneurs. In fact, it’s one of the BEST ways to promote your online business and increase your sales.

Kim DeYoung (aka the Get It Done Girl) teaches entrepreneurs how to start blogging (or improve the blog you already have). The idea is to use your blog to create a loyal following of a targeted market who love you and are ready to BUY!

Kim said I could share with you a few mistakes she’s made so you can learn from them and begin blogging more effectively right away. Here’s what she said about 7 blogging mistakes that are easy to avoid…

1.  Publish regularly.

Often I’m asked, “how often should I blog?” Whether you post frequently or rarely is not as important and whether you publish regularly. You need to set your readers’ expectations so find a rhythm that suits you and maintain it. If you’re going to be away, write posts in advance and set them up to be posted automatically at your usual time. You need to maintain momentum.

2.  Stay focused.

Trying to speak about more than one topic in a single post will confuse your readers and will make your posts hard to categorize. Try to keep your posts as simple as possible and stick to one subject. It’s great that you have lots of ideas, but save them for future posts. Keep a swipe file or journal for all your future ideas.

3.  Connect with your readers.

To really connect with your blog, your readers will want to know something about you. Include an author biography, and preferably a photo to help you build up a relationship with your customers. Share personal stories, when appropriate, so you can build connection and rapport. Consider incorporating video into your blog.

4.  Have a point.

The headline of your post is all that will show up in search engine results and links so be sure to make it attention grabbing and relevant to your post. No one will bother to click on a link to your post if they don’t know what it is about.

5.  Pay attention.

Carried away by the success of their first blog, many authors start several more. Maintaining a blog takes time and effort and the quality of your blog will suffer if you spread yourself too thin. One high quality blog with regular postings is better than several neglected blogs.

6.  Keep it all together.

Your blog is an ongoing story or conversation. You will want to refer to previous posts but you won’t want to explain to new readers the entire contents of your previous articles. Insert links to the relevant posts, and keep an easily accessible archive of your most significant articles.

7.  Respect your readers – all of them.

Receiving negative comments can be frustrating and upsetting, but don’t forget that the author has made the effort to read your post and make a comment on it that means your post has been impactful. Read your post again, keeping the negative feedback in mind. You may be surprised that you start to agree with the comments. You’ll find that all comments, whether negative or positive, give you valuable feedback that you can learn from.

Whether you’re just getting started, or have been blogging a while and you’d like to learn how to blog more effectively, you should check out Kim’s new product where she walks you through ALL the steps – Blogging ABC’s. Make sure you checkout her free blogging tips available through my special affiliate link at http://dld.bz/FzzN

A New Year – A New Me

I decided this year, is going to be the year I stop holding back. I’m going to step out there and get it done. I’m going to add new services to my business. No more putting it off. I figured if I wrote it in a blog post and then actually posted it, I couldn’t put it off again another year not after announcing it publicly.

My first step was to enter a contest to work with Alicia Rittenhouse for three months, as an intern, and learn everything she knows, and believe me it’s a lot. Alicia, along with Jessica Steward have already been an inspiration and ignited a fire in me so even if I don’t win the contest, I’m still a winner. To enter the contest you had to write an essay, do a slide show, or a video. For me, the video was the most difficult, moving me the furthest from my comfort, so that is what I chose to do. I’ve been sitting in this comfy zone too long.

This is going to be the year for me to shine. I can’t wait.

Kick Start Your New Year with the Right Projects

What are you going to do to make 2011 your BEST year in business? 

If you want crystal clear clarity on what steps you should be taking I have great news! I want to introduce you to a friend of mine, Kim DeYoung, she’s the Get it Done Girl.

This Thursday she’s going to teach you exactly how she gets so much done. She has a SIMPLE FORMULA to help you choose the RIGHT PROJECT for your business that creates real results, real fast. Since we’re just starting the New Year it’s the perfect time to share this with you.

Join me at Kim’s F*REE teleclass on January 6th at 1 pm EST where she’ll share how to Revolutionize Your New Year. How to Choose the RIGHT Projects for Your Business that Create Real Results, Real Fast. You can sign-up here and join me on the call.

http://dld.bz/DHmz

You’ll discover how to:

• Figure out whether or not your project really meets your objective (and what objectives are most important for you)
• Create a clear vision for your project that meshes with your overall business vision
• Determine if your project is big enough for you (a little extra motivation to just go for it!)
• Help you let go of the bright shiny object syndrome (the things that sound fun, but won’t really benefit your business)

Here’s that link again to reserve your spot in this complimentary teleclass –http://dld.bz/DHmz

This call will give you clarity on what steps to take…whether you want to build your list, gain credibility, expand your platform or make more money!

See you on the call!

Kim Starry
KMStarry@gmail.com

p.s. As you probably know it’s not always easy figuring out how to choose a project that will get results. Let Kim walk you through a simple formula so you can tackle your projects with confidence! Reserve your seat here  

http://dld.bz/DHmz

Cool Tool…Press This for WordPress

If you’ve never heard of the cool tool, Press This, check out the demo I recorded.  It’s an easy to use tool to gather information for your blog.

http://player.vimeo.com/video/18355014

Demo for Press This from Kim Starry on Vimeo.

Enjoy and Happy New Year!

I’m Posting Every Week in 2011!

Well, actually my goal is to post to my blog more than once a week, but I wasn’t brave enough to publicly commit to the other option of a daily post.

I have decided I want to blog more in 2011. Rather than just thinking about I am going to just do it. I am committing to it a public forum, so I hold myself accountable. I’m starting right now. I will be posting on this blog once a week for all of 2011.

I don’t feel confident about writing, so I am hoping by committing to it and following through, by the end of 2011 I will improve my writing skills and writing frequently will be enjoyable. I’m promising to make use of The DailyPost, and the community of other bloggers with similiar goals, to help me along the way, including asking for help when I need it and encouraging others when I can.

If you already read my blog, I would appreciate encouragement. If you are participating in the challenge maybe we can encourage each other through the year.

Wishing you and your family a Happy New Year.

Kim Starry

Don’t Miss The Discounts on Training at VA Classroom…just a few days left

Just a few more days left to take advantage of the discounts VA Classroom is offering on some of their training.

As 2011 is rapidly approaching, and as a Virtual Assistant, are you offering all of the services that you want to be offering to your clients? Would you like to attract new clients and more clients by offering new services? Look no further than to VA Classroom. Not only do they offer top-notch training for VA’s you can receive a discount through the end of December as their Christmas present to you. It will be the present that keeps on giving as you are able to offer more services to new and existing clients. Just click on the link below or on the sidebar to the left.

VA Classroom offers a wide variety of excellent training for the VA community ranging from certification programs to half-day clinics. As a member of VA Classroom I can attest to how valuable their training is. It is in-depth, easy to understand and they always deliver far more than you expect.

One of the most popular training certification courses right now is VAClassroom’s Social Marketing Specialist Program. Craig Cannings, the co-founder of VAClassroom and developer of this program, has seen so many amazing testimonies on how this niche training program has helped to increase many of their graduates’ client and income opportunities!
The course includes over 30 interactive videos, supplementary resources guides, action-plan templates as well as an exclusive Social Network designed for our Social Marketing Students to connect with instructors and each other – a great learning atmosphere!

Whether you are just starting out, or have been in business for many years or fall somewhere in between, VA Classroom is a must. It is a fantastic way to build your business on a solid foundation, which makes your business much more likely to succeed. I have been a VA since, well I won’t say how many years, but let’s just say it was before we were called VA’s and VA Classroom has added tremendous value to my business.

If you are not interested in training I would at the very least highly recommend the free membership in VA Classroom, so you can see the value of what they have to offer. I consider Craig Cannings a leader in the VA training industry. He is very forward thinking and spots trends in the industry well before others. This is invaluable to you and I as a VA. I’ll quit rambling so you can go check it out for yourself. Just click, explore, and enjoy.

To find out all that they have to offer just click here and explore all of the opportunities available. http://www.vaclassroom.com/socialmarketing/cmd.asp?af=1277746

We will be rolling out a few new services during the first quarter of 2011. Stay tuned in we are very excited. Thanks so much for your support this past year.

Merry Christmas to All!

I would like to wish family, friends, clients, and colleagues a very Merry Christmas.

If we have been working together it has been an honor and a privilege working with you and providing you with high-caliber services. If we are not working together yet I hope we can correct that in 2011. I assure you, you will not be disappointed.

I love spending time with family and friends at Christmas time, and of course celebrating the reason for the season. After that one of my favorite things to do is decorate what I call our memory tree that we put up in our family room. It is filled with decorations that were made with love by our kids, family members and friends from duty stations around the country. Every time I place a decoration on the tree I remember who gave it to us, maybe made it for us, where we were living at the time, where Steve was stationed. It is such a joy to have those memories come flooding back, maybe with a little bit of sadness if we’ve lost touch with the person or they have since passed away. Facebook has taken care of some of the losing touch part.

Again thanks for being a part of my life and my business. I look forward to working with you next year. Merry Christmas to all.

Transcription and the Amazing SEO Benefit!

Do you realize that the power of having your Podcasts transcribed? How about your Webinars, Seminars, or any events that you are presenting to your clients and potential clients? If you are not having your events transcribed you are missing out on the HUGE benefits of Search Engine Optimization. You may or may not know about spiders, search engine crawlers, and bots which are little programs that “crawl” the Internet for content on Websites.

The crawlers do not see those fantastic graphics, videos, audios, wonderful widgets or buttons that you have on your Website. All they can see is code, words, and you got it…CONTENT. That is why you hear so many people saying, “Content is King!”

This is where transcription of your events comes in. Having your recordings in text and available on your website boost your Website’s ranking, because there is lots of content and it is updates regularly. The crawlers just love that. In turn you’ll love it and will reap the benefits of higher rankings. With higher rankings in the Search Engines you will have increased traffic to your site, and therefore more business. Who wouldn’t love that?

Contact us today about having your events transcribed. We can also discuss the many ways to repurpose your recordings.

Merry Christmas!

Ready to Focus on the Right Projects

I want to introduce you to a friend of mine, Kim DeYoung, she’s the Get it Done Girl.

She’s going to teach you exactly how she gets so much done. She has a SIMPLE FORMULA to help you choose the RIGHT PROJECT for your business that creates real results, real fast.

Join me at Kim’s FREE teleclass on How to Choose the Right Projects – To Build Your List, Gain Credibility, Expand Your Platform and Make More Money .

I highly recommend grabbing your seat here right now using my affiliate link: https://metromom.infusionsoft.com/go/vision/KStarry

You’ll discover how to:

Figure out whether or not your project really meets your objective (and what objectives are most important for you)
Create a clear vision for your project that meshes with your overall business vision
Determine if your project is big enough for you (a little extra motivation to just go for it!)
Help you let go of the bright shiny object syndrome (the things that sound fun, but won’t really benefit your business)

Here’s that link again to reserve your spot in this complimentary teleclass.
https://metromom.infusionsoft.com/go/vision/KStarry

This call will give you clarity on what steps to take…whether you want to build your list, gain credibility, expand your platform or make more money!

See you on the call!
Kim Starry

p.s. As you probably know it’s not always easy figuring out how to choose a project that will get results. Let Kim walk you through a simple formula so you can tackle your projects with confidence! Reserve your seat here with my link – https://metromom.infusionsoft.com/go/vision/KStarry

Calling All Virtual Assistants…Discounted Training at VA Classroom

As 2011 is rapidly approaching, and as a Virtual Assistant, are you offering all of the services that you want to be offering to your clients? Would you like to attract new clients and more clients by offering new services? Look no further than to VA Classroom. Not only do they offer top-notch training for VA’s you can receive a discount through the end of December as their Christmas present to you. It will be the present that keeps on giving as you are able to offer more services to new and existing clients. Just click on the link below or on the sidebar to the left.

VA Classroom offers a wide variety of excellent training for the VA community ranging from certification programs to half-day clinics. As a member of VA Classroom I can attest to how valuable their training is. It is in-depth, easy to understand and they always deliver far more than you expect.

One of the most popular training certification courses right now is VAClassroom’s Social Marketing Specialist Program. Craig Cannings, the co-founder of VAClassroom and developer of this program, has seen so many amazing testimonies on how this niche training program has helped to increase many of their graduates’ client and income opportunities!
The course includes over 30 interactive videos, supplementary resources guides, action-plan templates as well as an exclusive Social Network designed for our Social Marketing Students to connect with instructors and each other – a great learning atmosphere!

Whether you are just starting out, or have been in business for many years or fall somewhere in between, VA Classroom is a must. It is a fantastic way to build your business on a solid foundation, which makes your business much more likely to succeed. I have been a VA since, well I won’t say how many years, but let’s just say it was before we were called VA’s and VA Classroom has added tremendous value to my business.

If you are not interested in training I would at the very least highly recommend the free membership in VA Classroom, so you can see the value of what they have to offer. I consider Craig Cannings a leader in the VA training industry. He is very forward thinking and spots trends in the industry well before others. This is invaluable to you and I as a VA. I’ll quit rambling so you can go check it out for yourself. Just click, explore, and enjoy.

To find out all that they have to offer just click here and explore all of the opportunities available.http://www.vaclassroom.com/socialmarketing/cmd.asp?af=1277746

We will be offering a few new services in 2011…stay tuned for more details.

How to Make Any Web Page Printer-Friendly

I just found a really cool tool that I love. It’s easy to use and it not only saves time, but money on paper and ink when printing. It’s called PrintFriendly.

If you love printing information from the Web but hate all of those extra pages of junk that comes with it, you’ll love this tool. Gone are 15 pages of print for maybe a 5 page document. It also has tools to allow you to print only sections of text that you want. You can remove images from the text if they are not useful to you. You can either print the text and/or images that you have chosen or get a PDF. The printer-friendly version of the page is clean and easy to read.

There are also buttons that you can add to your Website or blog for visitors to use to easily print from your sites.

The next time you are online and ready to print, check out www.printfriendly.com

Know What Your Customers are Saying About Your Products Now With ReSearch.ly

I always have my eyes open for new products and/or services that may interest my clients and colleagues. I know that many clients and colleagues would love to be a fly on the wall when their clients or consumers are talking about their products and services whether it be pro or con, good or bad. Or get inside of their head to know what they are thinking. Now they can do just that if they are willing to pay $99 a month. PeopleBrowsr a social search engine and social media analytics company based in Palo Alto, California has developed an online tool that will do just this.

ReSearch.ly was released just this week. It is a new search tool that was developed for brand managers, marketers and social media wonks. It will allow companies to find conversations on Twitter that mentions their company or branded products.

ReSearch.ly allows anyone to search a competitor, company, or product and they can instantaneously discover what people are saying and who is saying it. It can then be broken down by demographics such as sex and location. After it determines what people are tweeting about a company or brand it can then turn those comments into charts and maps that shows trends and sentiments. Once you perform a keyword search, you can then filter the stream of tweets by gender, location, and positive or negative sentiments. It even provides an overview of the number of tweets discovered in a seven-day or one month period. It will also provide you with line graphs and pie charts depicting users’ sentiments.

Everything that is said on Twitter is indexed by Research.ly and it can also search communities of interest all in real-time, providing the information that marketers need. A keyword search can be translated into an analytics platform. This provides marketers a means of instantaneously identifying influencers for their brand and market.

You can give ReSearch.ly at try for seven-days for free. After that it is $99 per month. You can find them at http://www.research.ly/

First LIVE Product Launches Powered by WordPress Clinic

It almost goes without saying that WordPress has become the most popular web platform among entrepreneurs and small businesses today. In the past, WordPress was seen as a platform for delivering blogs, but with new technology and lots of innovative plugins, WordPress is now being used in so many cool ways, including product launches!

Some high-profile Internet Entrepreneurs, including John Reese, Ryan Deiss and Eben Pagan, have been powering their latest product launches with WordPress. They have been using this platform to build their list, share content, and socialize with their audience.

On December 8th, you have an exciting opportunity to enhance your WordPress skills and specifically discover the templates, plugins and tactics for being able to launch any type of product using WordPress. Let me tell you, your clients will LOVE these newly developed skills!

This live 3-hour clinic is scheduled for Wednesday, December 8th from 12pm – 3pm (PST). Here is a quick overview of a few of the topics we will be covering in this timely session:

– Selecting the BEST WordPress templates and themes to create squeeze pages and product sales pages.

– Integrating Powerhouse Plugins for a complete product launch, including sales pages, testimonials, product countdowns and content sharing.

– Creating compelling videos for your WordPress squeeze / sales page process.

– Building a powerful WordPress mini-site to strategically use during the pre-launch process.

– Integrating the right Social Media Plugins to socialize your product launch campaign.

– Setting up eye-catching optin forms and integrating autoresponder software.

– Adding common CSS snippets to enhance your Squeeze/Sales Page templates.

– Keyword Research and SEO tips for getting your WordPress sites found on Google.

– And so much more!!

If you are looking to expand your services and opportunities in 2011, this clinic will certainly help you to carve out a nice WordPress niche for your business!

We have limited seats for this program, so be sure to check out the registration page below right away. I just checked there are not many seat left. You won’t want to miss out on this great training. I’m not going to.

Register here:
http://dld.bz/ks1277746

Training for Virtual Assistants for the New Year

I think for many of us in business as we are closing out one year and looking forward to the new year we reflect and re-evaluate the past year and look forward to the new one. We reflect on things that worked in our business, and maybe some things that are no longer working as well. It’s an excellent time to think about new services that we can offer our clients, and new niches that we can fulfill for existing clients, and ways to attract new clients.

If you are a Virtual Assistant, and you are looking at providing new services for your clients, look no further than to VA Classroom. They offer a wide variety of excellent training for the VA community ranging from certification programs to half-day clinics.

One of the most popular training certification courses right now is VAClassroom’s Social Marketing Specialist Program. Craig Cannings, the co-founder of VAClassroom and developer of this program, has seen so many amazing testimonies on how this niche training program has helped to increase many of their graduates’ client and income opportunities!

The course includes over 30 interactive videos, supplementary resources guides, action-plan templates as well as an exclusive Social Network designed for our Social Marketing Students to connect with instructors and each other – a great learning atmosphere!

If you are starting out in the VA business, in my opinion, VA Classroom is a must. It is a fantastic way to build your business on a solid foundation, which makes your business much more likely to succeed. I have been a VA since, well I won’t say how many years, but let’s just say it was before we were called VA’s and VA Classroom has added tremendous value to my business.

To find out all that they have to offer just click here and explore all of the opportunities available. http://www.vaclassroom.com/socialmarketing/cmd.asp?af=1277746

We will be offering a few new services in 2011…stay tuned for more details.

Happy Thanksgiving

As the Thanksgiving season is rapidly approaching, and as I take time to reflect on the many things that I have to be thankful for I want to thank my clients, my colleagues, family and friends for being an important part of my daily life. I am so thankful for each and every one of you.

We will be rolling out a few new services in early 2011 so stay tuned, I’m really excited about them. Of course we will continue to offer transcription services.

I would like to share this video link. The military holds a very special place in my heart. My husband was in the Navy for 21 years, my father a Marine, and a long list of other relatives who serve and have served. I ask that you keep our military and their families in your prayers not only during the Thanksgiving and Christmas season, but all year-long.

http://www.writebusiness.net/blog/2010/11/24/let-us-never-forget/

Thank you all for being a blessing. Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours.

New Features in WordPress: Linking, Sorting, Paging

New Features: Linking, Sorting, Paging.

For all you WordPress users if you haven’t seen the newest features of linking, sorting, and paging above is a link.

I must admit I haven’t had a chance to check them out yet, but by reading the reviews the features should definitely be awesome. I don’t think I’ve ever read such a set of collective good and positive reviews on anything before.

If anyone has tried any of the new features I’d love to hear your feedback. Hope you all are having a great weekend.

Looking for an Easy Program for Scheduling Your Appointments, and it’s Free too! Try Tungle

I am always looking for new ways to organize my time and schedule appointments. I have found a program that I think I am on my way to loving.

Have you tried Tungle yet? If not check it out. Not only is it easy to use, it’s free. It can flawlessly integrate with your Google Calendar. It’s easy to implement and use on an ongoing basis.

The sign-up page is very easy. You can sign-up using one of many programs you most likely already use. Here is a snapshot of the sign-up page.

Once you sign-up you can customize a page where your clients can come and view your availability and schedule appointments with you. Here is a page from my a week on my calendar. The clients cannot see who my appointments are with, they can just see what times I am still available for a free consultation.

(Click on screenshot to enlarge)

If you would like to schedule an appointment to discuss your next transcription project just go to http://www.tungle.me/KimStarry and you can schedule a free consultation to discuss your project.

If you are looking for a scheduling program that is easy to use, you can integrate with your Goggle calendar, and is even free, I highly recommend checking out Tungle.

5 Reasons You Should Have Your Podcasts, Webinars, Teleseminars…or Anything You Record Transcribed

We are going to talk about five of the reasons why you should be having your recordings transcribed. If you are not recording all of your presentations you should be. Even though we are going to talk about five reasons today, there are a plethora of other reasons to have your events transcribed.

1. Increase Your Online Visibility and Exposure: In my opinion, this is the most important reason. Boost your rankings in searches by having your events transcribed and then repurposing your content. Audio and video is not indexed and will not show-up when your potential clients are doing searches. You can also post the transcripts to your website making your site more search-engine friendly. Every time you add a new transcript to your site you have the opportunity to bring more traffic to your site.
2. Generate More Revenue: Another fantastic reason for having your programs transcribed? Who doesn’t want more streams of revenue? Once you have the transcripts in hand you can create a variety of informational products. You can repurpose the content into e-books, articles, reports, workbooks, blog posts, newsletters, and even tweets. Some clients give away the transcripts as a bonus, others charge a fee for the transcripts of their events.
3. Attract More Clients and Increase Your Client Base: Provide prospective clients with a copy of a transcript from your most recent webinar, seminar, or tele-class. This will give them a sample of what to expect if they hire you.
4. To Maintain Records and Save Time: You can easily search your documents to see what you’ve done in the past. It’s as simple as type in the search box and a click on your computer, instead of pouring through hours of video and audio.
5. Learn More about Your Client’s Needs: If you have a Q&A portion in your event this is fantastic to have transcribed. It may give you ideas of things your clients need and want that you are not currently offering. It can also help you tailor your future events to meet the needs of your clients and potential clients.

There are two ways to have your presentations and events transcribed. If you want to use the transcripts in order to evaluate your speaking skills then you would want a verbatim transcript. This will let you know if there are words or phrases that you are frequently repeating but add no value to your presentation. Do you say ah and uhm frequently, and want to curtail the overuse? If you want to use your transcripts for almost any other purpose, you will most likely what an edited version. We can also do that for you.

Email Kim today at KMStarry@gmail.com to schedule a free consultation to discuss your transcription needs.

Monthly Packages for Podcast and Webinar Transcription

Beginning November 1, 2010 we will begin offering monthly packages for your Webinar and Podcast transcription. We will offer two and three-hour packages. If you feel you need more than a two or three-hour package we can work with you to develop a package to meet your needs.

We will subscribe to your podcasts and download them once they are posted. We will transcribe the podcast and return it to you.

We will work with you to provide you with formatting that will meet your needs. You will be billed at the beginning of the month for the upcoming month for the package you choose. If you need additional time you will be billed at the time of service. You can be billed through PayPal in order to pay by credit card or by invoice to pay by check. We request that you pay by the fifth of the month. You can stop you monthly retainer package at any time and return to the higher rate and be billed at time of service.

Two hours per month prepaid $165, if paid at time of service $180
Three-hours per month prepaid $235 if paid at time of service $270

This service is available for both new and existing clients.

Email Kim at KMStarry@gmail.com today with questions, for more information, or to schedule a free consultation.

Do You Know About Our Transcription Services?

As a team of virtual transcriptionists we are here to assist you with all of your transcription needs. We have been providing transcription and administrative services to our clients for over 17-years.

We provide our Social Media clients with transcription of webinars, teleseminars, seminars, podcasts, radio shows, workshops, trainings, meetings, conferences, whatever you record we can transcribe it. Talk to us today about having your events transcribed and then repurposed in many ways to open more streams of revenue for your business.

In addition to the Social Media industry we also provide transcription services to the Market Research Industry. We can provide transcripts for your focus groups, one-on-one in-depth interviews, telephone interviews, mini-groups, quads, and dyads.

We also provide transcription services for the Education industry whether for Professors, Teachers, PhD or Master students. We can provide transcription services of your research interviews.

If you record it, we can transcribe it.

Our Clients Include:
• Coaches
• Trainers
• Market Research Companies
• Focus Group Moderators
• Professors
• Small Businesses
• Non-Profits

I would love to speak with your either through email or by a scheduled appointment regarding your transcription needs. Email today for more information or to schedule a free consultation. KMStarry@gmail.com.

Hire us and watch your business grow

Turning Webinar Content Into Transcripts = Articles = More Clients

If you are a trainer, coach, consultant, speaker, author, or anyone who presents teleseminars, webinars, workshops any events you are recording. Can I ask what are you doing with those recordings? Are they just sitting on your hard drive taking up space? Worse yet do you delete them, or never save them. If you are not having these events transcribed you are leaving so many potential clients, and money on the table and untapped for your competition to take advantage of. Today we are going to talk about using your information for articles.

The average person speaks at a rate of about 200 words-per-minute. That means in a 60-minute webinar you may create approximately 40 to 50 pages of transcript.

Breaking that transcript apart you can easily expect to get 8 to 12 articles from those pages. If you feel you are not a writer you can always hire a freelance writer to write your first few articles, but please don’t sell yourself short, I bet you are the person that wrote the information for the event that you presented. Sometimes it’s just a matter of getting started with that first article to give you the confidence to continue writing.

As you begin writing and submitting articles to article directories and ezine publishers, your messages will begin to spread. Every article you write can become a traffic magnet through Search Engine Optimization and by linking readers back to your Website and Blog.

Why not get started today and have your recordings transcribed. Let’s talk so we can get started on making that happen. We have a team of virtual transcriptionist waiting to assist you in digging into that gold mine that you have sitting there waiting to be tapped into. I’m looking forward to talking with you.

Using Your Content More Effectively…The Series

As you can see by my previous post I had planned on sharing some of the tools that I use to simplify and organize my business life. However, I’ve noticed that some of my clients have a little down time this summer, as they are not doing as many seminars and workshops.

This is the perfect time to start getting that content off your computer and getting it out there to your potential clients. No better way to do that than having it transcribed and getting it out there in the many different forms that we’ll be expanding upon. Like I recently heard someone say, “If they can’t find you on the Internet, you don’t exist.” I thought about that for a minute, and that is true. Not many people turn to the yellow pages anymore when they are looking for a product or a service, they look on the Internet. If your business isn’t getting top ranking, they won’t be contacting you. So why not spend some time this summer getting your information out there, get it Search Engine Optimized and let your ideal clients find you?

Declutter Your Computer Desktop

I hate clutter! It doesn’t matter if it is clutter in my home, my car, my office or on my desktop. I found this tool that I love. It’s called Fences. It’s brought to you by Stardock, and best of all it is easy to use and it is FREE!

Fences cleans and organizes your desktop by creating shaded areas which you can move and size.

I divided my desktop up into five areas, you can divide yours in whatever way works best for your style. I have one for my programs, one for all business related items. I have a fence that contains folders for all of the clients I am currently working on projects for, and one for the subcontractors I am currently working with. Then I have a miscellaneous fence for anything else. It has made items on my desktop so much more organized. I now know where to look on my desktop for what it is I need. Windows hasn’t moved it somewhere else since the last time I used it. Love It!

If you want more options, there is a pro version for a one-time fee of $9.99

You can find the program at http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/.

Powerful Tools to Organize Your Business, Thoughts, and Ideas

Are you like me? Do you feel like you could always get more accomplished in your day no matter how much you check off of your To Do List? Are you always on the lookout for new ways to organize your office, your desktop, your thoughts, your time? In my next few blog posts, I will share some tools that I have found some you may like, some you may not. I hope you enjoy the series.

Ready, Set…Repurpose Your Content

Think of all of your juicy rich content and how you can use it to positively impact your clients and potential clients to assist them in solving their problems, improving their businesses, bringing balance to their lives, and just making their lives go from okay to fantastic. Now that your wheels are churning with all of those ideas on how you can repurpose your content, here are a few more ideas that maybe you haven’t thought of:

Articles: You can be post articles on your Website. It is best to keep your articles between 5 and 700 words. You don’t want to lose your reader’s interest. If the article cannot be shortened that much you can write two, three, or even more articles, then you will have a series of articles. A reason to keep your readers coming back to your Website.

Another way to get your name out in front of potential clients is to submit your articles to article submission sites. This will put your articles/name in front of a content-hungry ezine publishing audiences. You can typically pull eight to twelve articles out of a 60-minute teleseminar. While I am sure there are others, here are two sites that you can submit your articles to:

www.ezinearticles.com

www.goarticles.com

Blogs: In your blog you can post text, embed audio, video, slideshows. It seems like there are new options every day. If you don’t already have a blog it’s a must have in today’s social media world, yes even if you have a website. The reason a blog is so important is that each and every time you post to your blog that post is indexed as a separate page in the search engines. People can also subscribe to your blog, and this helps you build your list.

Live Presentations: Take your content and make a live presentation. Instead of condensing materials expand it. You can include exercises, and handouts with contact information. You may be surprised at how many groups would love to hear your presentation. Maybe start with your local Chamber of Commerce.

Newsletters: You can rewrite your information for your newsletter. You can include the full article or maybe just a brief summary with a link to the article on your website. This will again drive traffic to your website, and after all that is one of your goals.

Online Slide Shows: You can create a PowerPoint presentation, Keynote if you have a Mac, or use the free program called OpenOffice. This is a nice way to present your information in both video and audio. Use lots of pictures and images. You can upload the slideshow to your website or to http://www.Slideshare.net which is the YouTube for slide shows.

Video: Record and edit video using your information. You can post it to YouTube. YouTube has a ten-minute limit for length of video. Google video can be longer than ten-minutes. Did you know that more content is uploaded to YouTube in 24-days than ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC have broadcast in 24-years. That is almost impossible to grasp the magnitude of the potential audience for your videos.

Now, what are you waiting for…get out there and start repurposing your content. If you need assistance feel free to contact me @ KMStarry@gmail.com.

Content is King…Are You Making the Most of It?

Many well-known speakers, educators and coaches have learned the importance of repurposing their content. They have learned that it enables them to have a wider reach and gives them greater professional recognition. Well recognized authors do this all of the time. Authors and speakers such as Stephen Covey and Suze Orman are experts at repurposing and repackaging their information and you can be too. Often times these individuals aren’t saying anything that hasn’t been said before by themselves or others, they are just packaging and presenting it in a different way reflecting their personality.
The first step to repurposing your content is having your speaking engagements and events transcribed. If you are not having your seminars, webinars, classes, and any time you speak in front of an audience transcribed, you should be. Not only is it an added bonus to the attendees to receive a transcript of the session they attended, you can also find many ways to repurpose and repackage the valuable information once it is transcribed. By doing so you can either build new revenue streams, or more importantly, you can use them as marketing tools to build your business and your list, in this case you provide the information for free.
Think of your content as a sample of what you offer in terms of helping clients solve their problems. Below is a list of a few ways to repurpose your content. We will dig in just a little bit deeper into it in the next blog.

• Articles
• Blogs
• Live Presentations
• Newsletters
• Online slide shows
• Podcasts
• Video

If you would like to discuss further the benefits of transcripts and how they can help you repurpose your content, please contact me at KMStarry@gmail.com.

This blog has moved

Thank you for visiting this blog.  This blog has been inactive for some time and has moved to:

www.starrynightsocialmedia.com.  I hope you visit us there.

Thanks,

Kim Starry