Month: January 2019

When you think about content marketing, video may not be the first thing that leaps to mind, but it is a hugely important marketing channel for businesses, and it’s on the rise.

A 2018 report by Cisco* has predicted that global video traffic will grow four times between 2017 and 2022, and video will make up 82% of internet traffic by 2022. Video has a very bright future, then, and the beauty of it is that it works for all businesses, of any size.

There are all sorts of video-making resources out there for business owners wanting to make greater use of video in their marketing. To help you narrow it down, we asked our VAs to tell us about their favourites. Here’s what they chose!

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Hashtags didn’t exist more than a decade ago. Now, they’re everywhere.

Social tech expert, Chris Messina, is said to have created the very first hashtag on Twitter. He posted #barcamp in August 2007 in this Tweet:

‘How do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]??’

Interestingly, Chris’ hashtag recommendation was turned down by Twitter amid claims they would never catch on…

Fast forward to today and hashtags are pretty much everywhere on social media, and not just on Twitter where they originated either.

But for all their popularity, there are still some common mistakes that often catch people out, which can impact the effectiveness of their hashtags. Here are three of them:

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Email is at the heart of every business – for keeping in touch with clients, managing projects and marketing to customers – but it is so easy for your email inbox to get out of hand.

According to research,* the average office worker receives about 90 emails per day, and sends about 40. That’s a staggering number of emails zipping back and forth and taking up space in your inbox. Of course, because it’s all online, it’s tempting to let the backlog build up, but if your inbox is so overflowing that you lose track of important emails, or you just feel overwhelmed every time you open it, then it’s time to do something about it.

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Do you collect data about your business? It might seem like an obvious thing to do, but for many small business owners the answer is ‘no’, even though harnessing the power of data can help you to increase your revenues, reach more customers and grow your business.

In the modern world, the most effective way to gather data is through a website. However, according to research published in 2017,* nearly two million SMEs don’t have a website, even though they stand to gain the most growth in revenue by having one. So what’s so important about gathering data, and if you don’t do it already, where should you begin?

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Get Ahead VA offers a wide range of business and marketing services. In our Service Spotlight, we take a closer look at one of these and show you how our virtual assistants can help you and your business. This month, with the aim of getting organised for the new year, we’re looking at administration.

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Happy new year, and welcome to 2019! Here at Get Ahead VA we love a new year – it’s the perfect time to look ahead and make plans, and what better plan for your business than to make sure it grows this year?

If you want to see your small business blossom, here are three tried-and-tested methods which can help to make 2019 a great year for your business.

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