2018 was a good year for LinkedIn. Although it has been around since 2002, it has been steadily growing into one of the most influential social networking sites around, and last year it was as popular as ever among its core audience: business professionals.
Looking ahead to 2019, there are a number of important trends to watch out for with LinkedIn that will help you to get the most out of this important networking platform. Here are three of the most significant.
(more…)Happy Valentine’s Day! Love is in the air, and we hope that you’re taking the time today to appreciate the things that are most special to you. It could be anything – a loved one, your family, your friends… or even your job!
That’s right – here at Get Ahead VA we’re celebrating this season of love by thinking about why we love our jobs. So, we asked everyone in the Get Ahead VA team to tell us what they love about being a virtual assistant, and this is what they had to say:
(more…)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, we’re looking at telephone answering.
Why do you need telephone answering?
Phone calls can be one of the biggest distractions in the workplace. We all know the feeling of being fully immersed in a project or piece of work, only for a phone call to break our flow and add extra tasks to our to-do list. Business calls can also happen at the most inconvenient times – when you’re travelling, in a meeting, or even (horror of horrors) when you’re at home with your feet up!
If you find yourself bombarded with calls, or you just want a break from the phone while you finish an important piece of work, then a telephone answering service could be just what you need.
(more…)As the date of Brexit approaches (29th March), and with no clear deal yet on the table, it’s no wonder that there’s a strong feeling of uncertainty in the country. But although it’s impossible to predict the long-term impact of Britain leaving the EU, digital marketers Catalyst have outlined some basic steps all SMEs can take to get through this difficult period.
One solution to your Brexit woes could be to make use of virtual assistants. In uncertain times, the businesses that adapt are most likely to survive, and using VAs could be just the kind of agile, innovative approach your business needs to deal with the turbulence ahead. Here are five reasons why a virtual assistant could help you to get through Brexit.
(more…)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!
(more…)
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:
(more…)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.
(more…)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?
(more…)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.
(more…)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.
(more…)