I want to share a few exciting details on our upcoming VAClassroom Summer Skill Camp this year! At VAClassroom, it has always been our commitment to create training programs within a Web 2.0 framework and I believe we have certainly done that with our new skill camp.

As some of you may know, we sent out a survey to our community regarding our upcoming Summer Skill Camp that included 32 skill-based topics that we had compiled through member feedback, VAClassroom faculty, and close business colleagues who do a LOT of outsourcing. We felt this was a very comprehensive list to build our survey from!

Well, our community has spoken and the results are in!

We received a ton of survey results and are now excited to unveil a "star-studded" selection of skill-based webinars for this year's event ranging from Facebook Pages and WordPress Design to Newsletter Creation and Social Network Management. We are very pleased that such a well-rounded and diverse base of topics have been selected for this year's camp. Based on this content,  I am quite confident this event will play a key role in boosting client and income opportunities heading into the last part of 2010!

Check out the survey results and we would love to get your feedback and comments on the ten skill-based topics that have been selected for this year's event!

Here are the ten topics:

1.   Quick Guide to Creating an "In-Demand" Facebook Page Service for Your Clients.

2.   Building a Successful Online Newsletter/Ezine.

3.   WordPress Design - Strategies for Designing a Winning WordPress Blog.

4.   WordPress Plug-In Central -  Making Sense of WP Plug-in to Ignite Traffic and Results.

5.   Answering the Big ROI Question - Success Strategies for Measuring Your Client's Results.

6.  Leveraging the Power of Free Information Products to Win New Clients.

7.  Crafting a Winning Social Media Presentation for your Clients and Community.

8.  Social Network Management Bliss - Discover Simple and Proven Strategies for Organizing your Social Networking Activities.

9.  Discover an Easy Formula for Writing Articles and Press Releases that Produces Results.

10. Develop a Winning Squeeze Page or Landing Page that Converts.

We would love to get your feedback on this line-up of topics! We have included a blog post link below - please share your comments and thoughts!

In keeping with this week’s theme of “Continual Learning,” we wanted to touch on Email List Building, an important Internet Marketing skill that requires Virtual Assistants and Online Professionals to keep up to date and informed of the latest trends and skills.

Despite the fact that other marketing channels like Social Marketing and Video Marketing have gained prominence, Email Marketing is here to stay for the foreseeable future and will continue to thrive because it is still the top converting marketing activity and is very easy to deliver and test.

However, it’s important to take note of how this type of marketing has changed and evolved in 2010 so that you can form an appropriate strategy. It’s now a very different animal from the traditional brand of Email Marketing that was used in the past. Most importantly, the new Email Marketing 2.0 is about adding value and building relationships, loyalty and trust with a niche group of subscribers rather than direct selling and building a huge generalized list of subscribers.

In the blog post “Email Marketing 2.0 Explained,” Tyler Garns from Infusionsoft compares traditional Email Marketing 1.0 with the new Email Marketing 2.0 and says that Email Marketing 1.0 is like a bad sales rep:

“A bad sales rep will typically memorize the spiel and “data dump” on the prospect regardless of what the prospect says, regardless of the person’s body language and regardless of any buying signals. They are robotic and sell much less because of their rigidness and inability to adapt the message for different people.”

On the other hand, he says the new Email Marketing 2.0 is like a good sales rep:

“A good sales rep, on the other hand, will listen (a lot) and adapt the message to the prospect’s needs. Good sales reps sell significantly more because they are always able to share something relevant to the prospect. They listen, adapt, and share the right message for every individual prospect every time.”

So, given those differences, how do you master the art of Email List Building so that you can create a targeted list and start to build relationships and trust? Here are some simple tips to get you started:

•    Brainstorm the type of audience you want on your list.

•    Develop a free offer that would entice that audience to subscribe and make sure your landing page is optimized with the right keywords that are relevant to the offer.

•    Develop valuable follow-up content that would benefit the audience and help build relationships with them (i.e. emails with lists, tips or strategies they can use in their business).

•    Figure out where to promote or display your free offer and opt-in box (i.e. post in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blog posts, Squidoo Lenses, Hubpages, targeted forums and industry websites).

•    Promote a free web event using event tools in LinkedIn, Facebook or other Social Networks.

•   Publish relevant articles with a call to action and a link to your free offer in the author resource box.

•    Identify the right email program for your campaign, one that will allow you to adapt autoresponders to suit your subscribers’ needs and responses.

We cover this topic in more detail in our Internet Marketing Specialist 2010 training program because it is such an important skill for Virtual Assistants to know. Remember that the important thing is to speak to the needs of your target audience and share high-quality content so that they benefit from your email communications and become part of a valued community of subscribers.

Developing that trust and relationship will help you build a niche audience that will stay tuned in to your communications and remain loyal customers as time goes by – a mutually beneficial relationship for you both!! In the new Email Marketing 2.0 world, you can even say that Email List Building becomes social too!!

Do you ever watch those home renovation shows on TV, the ones where someone is having trouble selling their home and needs some help? Often there’s nothing wrong with the house itself, just an important design element missing. A team of experts is called in and, voila, the house gets noticed and sells! The home owners are amazed and anxious to learn the skills those experts used to make such a difference.

In your work, do you wish you could optimize your website or blog so that it attracts more attention? Are your clients anxious to optimize theirs too? The initial SEO work begins in the HTML, and consequently clients are now, more than ever, requiring their Virtual Assistants to have some level of HTML knowledge and skills. For some, that’s exciting… for others, worrisome. ;-)

SEOmoz has put together an excellent blog post that summarizes best practices for “Perfecting Keyword Targeting & On-Page Optimization.” They provide a diagram of the “perfectly” optimized page and list all the elements that contribute to its ranking. Many of these elements are quite technical and require a good knowledge of HTML.

Below is a list of the important elements to optimize in on your webpage:

•    Keyword Targeted URL
•    Page Title
•    Meta Description
•    H1 Headline
•   Image File Name
•    Webpage Body Content
•    Internal links

Now, if you’re starting to break into a cold sweat at the thought of tackling such technical aspects, you’re not alone. HTML is a very important task and one that requires specialized training in order to do it well. For that reason, we recently offered a special 3-hour HTML Training for Internet Marketing Success Clinic. The Clinic was taught by our very own VAClassroom Faculty Member, Christina Greenway, who helped demystify HTML and unpacked the important skills you need for your business and your clients.

So there’s no need to call in a team of experts to optimize your website or blog! With some HTML training, you can make Google stand up and take notice, and that’s as good as a “Sold “ sign on the front lawn!

They say that timing is everything, and often success comes from recognizing the right opportunity at the right time. This is especially true in the ever changing Internet landscape. A recent Industry Report released by Michael A. Stelzner, founder of SocialMediaExaminer.com, reveals some untapped potential that bodes well for those with Social Media Marketing skills. We’d highly recommend downloading and reading the full report from the website, but for now check out this quick video summary:

When we read the report, we were struck by the following statistic:

“Social media outsourcing underemployed: Only 14% of businesses are outsourcing any aspect of their social media marketing.”

This was fascinating because on the other hand, it’s clear that an increase in benefits is directly proportional to the amount of time spent on Social Media Marketing. Here are some of the benefits that were reported:

•    Helped close business
•    Generated exposure for business
•    Resulted in new business partnerships
•    Generated qualified leads
•    Reduced overall marketing expenses
•    Helped business rise in the search rankings
•    Increased traffic/subscribers/opt-in list

However, since the concept of Social Media outsourcing is still relatively new, and many marketers are still new to Social Media Marketing itself, the report predicts it may be another year before businesses embrace the idea of seeking outside assistance.

But with at least 67% of marketers planning to increase their use of blogs, Facebook, video/YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn, the tide is definitely going to turn. How else will business owners juggle everything they need to do and still devote enough time to Social Media Marketing?

So what kinds of things will businesses need help with as they ramp up their Social Media activities?

Here are some of the important roles an outsourced Social Marketing Specialist can fill:

•    Social Media Coach (very important)
•    Social Media Community Manager (set up and optimize system)
•    Company Representative (manage customer relations)
•    Social Media Eyes & Ears for Your Clients (SM Monitoring)

Most importantly, businesses need a proper Social Media Strategy, and there will be amazing client opportunities coming available for Virtual Assistants who can perform the following tasks:

•    Create a clear and measurable social media strategy (#1 priority)
•    Research & identify the right social networks
•    Build social networking presence
•    Manage & optimize social networking presence
•    Measure results of social networking activities

So if you have Social Media Marketing skills like these, get ready to catch the next wave in this very popular and profitable niche! Keep your skills current and up to date, and you’ll be in the ideal position when more and more businesses quickly realize they need to outsource their Social Media activities! In our newly updated Social Marketing 2010 course, we provide cutting-edge training to equip Virtual Assistants to deliver the key services clients desperately need and will be asking for in the near future.

Often times we’ve discussed the growing importance of Virtual Events and the undeniable fact that they’re quickly replacing offline meetings as a more economical and environmentally friendly option. But how do you choose the right Virtual Venue for your big event?

Just as you would investigate conference rooms, hotels or restaurants before booking an offline meeting, it’s important to investigate different types of Virtual Venues so that you can choose the one that’s most appropriate for the type of event you’re hosting.

One of our VAClassroom graduates, Carlana Charles, recently published a blog post entitled “Virtual Events – Why They are Hit” and featured a video that explains the different options that are available:

Let’s look more closely at the four options discussed here and see which types of events are best suited to them:

•    Webinars –Since these are typically one-way, from the speaker to the audience with little audience interaction, they work best for online teaching sessions or workshops. We’ve used Yugma or GoToWebinar in the past, which also offer the option of connecting participants via a phone line, VoIP or an online chat box.

•    Internet Live TV – This venue works great for presenting dynamic talk shows, presentations or interviews, the types of shows you would normally broadcast on television. In this case, Ustream or Livestream is used, and the presenter has a webcam on themselves and a camera on other presenters.

•   Internet Live Radio – This is a good option for events that require or invite audience participation, as people can call in live and interact with the presenter via a tool like Blog Talk Radio. Another advantage is that they are syndicated and can be listened to and subscribed to long after the event has taken place.

•    Teleseminars – Since these involve mainly audio, they work best for conference calls or group coaching sessions. Usually there is a certain period of time devoted to a presentation, followed by a question and answer session. Often online handouts will be given out for participants to refer to during the presentation. In this case, tools like GoToMeeting or Skype can be used to facilitate the event.

So there you have it – four popular Virtual Event venues to choose from! There are many factors to consider, but as the tools become more streamlined, the choices are becoming easier to make, and the emergence of Virtual Event Specialists has provided business owners with a valuable resource to draw on when planning their big events.

What Virtual Venues have worked for you or your clients in the past? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic!

If you’re a regular Facebook user, you’ve probably noticed that Facebook recently changed their “Fan a Page” to “Like a Page.”  For avid sports fans, this may have come as a bit of a disappointment, as their passionate loyalty was suddenly downgraded to a mere preference. For business owners, however, this subtle change provides huge implications for growing a bigger fan base as well as enabling deeper connection and collaboration for their Facebook audience even outside the social network.

But how? It appears that both linguistics and new functionality within the site contribute to this phenomenon.

Linguistic Differences:

•    “Become a Fan” – First of all, think for a moment about the connotations of “Fan a Page” vs. “Like a Page.” The word “fan” implies, as mentioned above, a fierce loyalty, a passion and dedication to something, a strong emotion. People think twice before they hit the “Become a Fan” button because doing so gives them a certain identity and commitment.

•   “Like” – On the other hand, it’s easy to “like” something. The word “like” connotes a slight emotional response, a preference, a fondness, or even just the immediate sensation of finding something enjoyable, agreeable or satisfactory. People are less likely to do a lot of soul-searching before hitting the “like” button.

New Facebook Functionality:

In a recent blog post by Krishna De, she tells how Facebook gave prior warning of the change to ad agencies and stated that users have been clicking the current “Like” feature almost twice as often as the “Become a Fan” button. In their memo, Facebook went on to propose that in offering this simpler, more consistent way of connecting with things, “the goal is to get the most user connections so that you can have ongoing conversations in the news feeds of as many users as possible.”

Furthermore, Facebook has now introduced functionality that allows you to link your profile to Pages. In their blog post “Connecting to Everything You Care About,” Facebook explains that while some people voluntarily wrote information on their profile about their likes, interests and activities, more than three times as many connected to Facebook Pages as a way of expressing themselves. Consequently, they decided to improve Facebook profiles to make it easier for people to display their affiliations:

"Now, certain parts of your profile, including your current city, hometown, education and work, and likes and interests, will contain 'connections.' Instead of just boring text, these connections are actually Pages, so your profile will become immediately more connected to the places, things and experiences that matter to you."

Here are the main ways users can connect Pages to their profile:

•    Opt in to new connections – A box may appear when they log in, recommending certain Pages based on the interests and affiliations they previously added to their profile. They can then choose to connect to any of these Pages and link them to their profile.

•    Add connections – If they click “Like” on a Page, that connection will be automatically added to the related area of their profile’s Info section.

So if you think about it, these innovations could have a huge impact on the visibility and growth of your business and personal brand. As people start to “like” your Page, it will be added to their profile, and the activity will be seen on their friends’ news feeds, spreading awareness and prompting further engagement.

So now’s the time to embrace the power of “Liking.” And don’t worry, Sports Fans. Your teams will still know you care.

Remember the scene in the movie Star Wars IV: A New Hope where Obi-Wan Kenobi views a holographic recording that was downloaded into a droid named R2-D2?

Princess Leia had used the droid’s recording and downloading software to hide plans for the Galactic Empire’s Death Star (a space station capable of destroying an entire planet) and to create a message begging Obi-Wan to help her by taking the plans to her father so he could analyze them.

This scene seems like the stuff of science fiction, but is it really that far off from what we’re capable of today? With the advent of smartphones and iPods, we too can download and transmit important information at the touch of a button.

Although as a Virtual Assistant you may not be on a mission to save a whole planet from annihilation at the hands of Darth Vader, you might still be looking for new channels to communicate important information to the world about your clients’ businesses. One effective option is podcasting.

Check out this great video, “Podcasting in Plain English,” explaining the convenience and power of this new communication tool:

The implications for marketing are powerful and undeniable. For a low cost, businesses can build their brand and gain more visibility with podcasting than they had before using traditional media and email marketing. With more and more people buying iPhones and iPods, there is great potential to reach a large target audience of customers downloading and subscribing to their favorite podcasts.

To help you gain skills in this area and leverage podcasting as a successful marketing tool, we are offering a brand new mini-course – Podcast Marketing Success Strategies, taught by Andrea Kalli, one of our talented VAClassroom Faculty Members, who specializes in podcasting and video marketing. Grads of this innovative program will be equipped with the most up-to-date skills and tools needed to effectively set up, produce and promote podcasts for businesses.

Move over, George Lucas. You don’t need R2-D2 to get your messages across in this exciting new world of Mobile Media… The right skills and tools are right at your fingertips!

For the past few years, Social Networking has become increasingly important for businesses. So many valuable connections can be made online that would be more difficult to forge in the real world, making these social networks a great place to collaborate and share ideas and feedback between clients, customers and colleagues.

However, as Seth Godin explains in the below video, this social networking needs to be authentic to be effective:

One way to foster a greater sense of community and authenticity is through the creation of Private or Niche Social Networks. Such networks can be moderated with privacy controls that can lead to greater transparency and communication between members, while at the same time keeping sensitive information confidential and off the more public networks like Facebook and MySpace.

There are many different platforms that can be used to create Niche Social Networks, but one of the most popular is Ning.com. According to the article “Ning now supports 2 million social networks, touches up branding”,
Ning now has 41 million members across its two million networks and has added one million new communities since April of last year. These communities, populated by likeminded individuals discussing particular interests, are great for developing a company’s personal brand. The interaction and communication that happens there can have a huge impact on the success of online businesses.

In particular, Ning’s features make it a great platform for VA’s to design Private Social Networks for their clients. Below are some of the features that enhance networks designed for business:

•    Freedom to use your own branding and visual design
•    Unique profiles for each member
•    Ability to moderate members before they join and moderate photos, videos, groups, chat and events before they’re posted
•    Real-time chat between members
•    Discussion forum where forum topic creation can either be limited by you or opened up to all members
•    Ning apps like WordPress, Yelp Map and Ustream.tv to further customize your network

Given the tremendous popularity of Facebook and Twitter, it’s evident that social networking has gone mainstream. Now with the emergence of Private Social Networks, VAs and their clients have even more opportunities to leverage this trend and develop a custom network with a vibrant focused community centered around their brand.

In this way, you can create a boardroom that stretches from one corner of the world to the other, and there’s no limit to what this meeting of the minds can accomplish!

February 28, 2010 – final day of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver…

Gold medal semifinal in men’s hockey between Team Canada and Team USA…

Seven minutes into overtime, Jarome Iginla is knocked down in the corner. On his knees, he passes the puck to Sidney Crosby, who deftly, with Gretzky-like instincts, shoots the puck from an angle, past Team USA’s goalie and into the net.

The Golden Goal…

And with that, Team Canada wins its 14th gold medal in these 2010 Olympic games and its first gold medal in hockey since the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002.

Throughout the streets of Vancouver, a loud roar went up as crowds cheered and celebrated. Car horns honked, ship horns blared and, according to one Vancouver resident, the noise continued for hours.

The cheering also continued on Social Networks like Twitter and Facebook. Within minutes of the Golden Goal, jubilant Tweets and Facebook status updates appeared. Within two hours, the newly created “Crosby’s Olympic Goal <3” Facebook Fan Page had 95,000 fans.

After the Closing Ceremonies, a Facebook Fan Page called “2010 Olympic Closing Ceremonies were REALLY BAD” was also created, but it wasn’t nearly as popular. As of this writing, only 23 fans have joined this page and embraced the description: “Bad bands, and awful floating beavers.”

Actually, throughout the Olympics, Social Media played a huge role in recording people’s reactions to events and athletes. The athletes themselves even participated.

According to the blog post “So long to 2010 Olympics, we’ll tweet ya later,” American short track speed skater @ApoloOhno “shared his ever infectious and magnetic positivity to stand tall and be proud of who you are and your accomplishments.”

Alternatively, @JuliaMancuso, alpine ski racer for Team USA, fueled the fire of an alleged rivalry with lifelong competitor @LindseyVonn by posting and quickly removing comments after her first run on the giant slalom.

The Sysomos blog reports that the Vancouver Olympics attracted four million tweets and 300,000 blog posts and had a 91% positive sentiment rating according to Sysomos MAP.

That’s great news for Olympic organizers, who may have been concerned about how this unprecedented Social Media activity would affect their personal branding and online reputation.

This is a new age, where Social Media activity will continue to grow, even as the roar of the crowd fades and the streets of Vancouver return to normal. Online Reputation Management for Virtual Assistants and their clients will be key in the years to come, and certified Social Marketing Specialists are the ones who will be armed and ready to face the challenges of this new Social Media landscape.

This is something Olympic organizers might also want to think about as they look towards the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

There’s a new kid on the block in the world of Social Networks, and if you use Gmail, he’s already living on your street! Google recently unveiled Google Buzz, a Social Network that’s built right into Gmail. If you have a Gmail account, you might have noticed a colorful balloon that showed up on the left-hand side of the page – that’s Buzz!

Google had some great ideas when they unveiled Buzz. Check out this YouTube video posted on the Official Google Blog to introduce Buzz:

Unfortunately, despite these good intentions, Buzz has caused some frustration among loyal Gmail users. For example, the blog post “Buzz off, Google: Social networks should always be opt-in, not opt-out” highlights the fact that all Gmail users were enrolled in Buzz without being asked first. Furthermore, Google automatically made a social graph of your most-emailed people and made sharing of that graph opt-out instead of opt-in. As this article explains, “it’s super easy to miss the check box, and the default should always be the safest choice.”

In Google’s defense, they listened to users’ feedback and have introduced some improvements. The Official Gmail Blog reports that the following changes have been made to Buzz:

1. There is a more visible option to not show followers/people you follow on your public profile.

2. You have the ability to block anyone who starts following you.

3. There is more clarity on which of your followers/people you follow can appear on your public profile.

Given Google’s popularity and history of creating quality products, there is definitely the possibility that Google Buzz could someday rival Facebook and Twitter.

What do you think? Are you ready to tell Google Buzz to buzz off, or do you think Google can rise to the challenge of making Buzz the best Social Network around?