personal va

Social Media: A nifty way for your business

Social media is a significant facet of this digital era. Its influence is reflected by the striking metrics like over a billion audiences in popular social media sites, the annual user increment of around 11%, the remarkable engagement rate and the like. With its evolution over the last decade, social media has eventually become a reliable medium of commercial information. 65% of social media users consider information which is shared on social media while making their purchase decision. No wonder, social media has come to be an effective weapon for business professionals, especially savvy marketers. Some specifics about social media which will encourage you to use social media for your business are sorted out as follows:   Social media offers you low – cost platform for advertising: Developing a social media strategy is the best way to decrease the marketing expenses in a business. While a 30 seconds TV ad pricing $350000 reaches a national audience a Facebook ad at a lesser cost reaches the global audience. So, social media gives you a better harvest for your marketing investments. Social media offers you a wide audience reach: If your aim is a wide reach then social media is your best bet. Facebook has over 1 billion active users across different demographics, geography and cultural parameters. Twitter which is logged in by over 100 million users daily is mostly used by the age ran. The twitter users aging above 60 are also increasing. Social media enables your faster reach to audience: There is hardly anyone who does not have a social media account. More than 60% of the social media account holders use their social media accounts daily. This justifies the fact and assures you that social media has a faster and ascertained reach to your target audience. Social media offers you an intense user engagement: User generated content in social media earns sincere attention of users. Apart from this, most of the content comes off in appealing forms like engaging games, queries, video ads and the like. Social media hikes brand loyalty of your fans: Most of the content in social media is user generated and it flows in from reliable sources. Moreover social media exposes your brand to a wide audience and it enables you to interact with the audience. It’s a three tier effect: it introduces your brand to your young prospective fans, invokes curiosity about your brand and emboldens the faith of your already existing fans. All these help you to earn brand loyalty from your fans. Social media offers you the scope of better customer service: Social media helps you in understanding the sentiment of your audience for your brand. By following the social buzz and analysing social sentiment of your target audience you understand the exact needs of your customers and follow them up with the required service. While the above stated advantages of social media gives you good returns, using social media for your brand is not free from risks. One of the risks arises from the fast reach of social media. So, if it’s a positive buzz your brand may become the king of the market while if it’s a negative buzz, you brand may get affected. So, using social media requires your vigilance all the time. You have to keep an eye on the reactions of your audiences to your marketing activities and keep the buzz about your brand under control. Giving prompt responses to your audience queries, regulating negative posts with an appeasing reply and pivoting audience attention to positive posts help you to regulate the reactions of your audience. If you are infusing social media in your business strategies you must not miss out on these tips:   Learn about the behaviour of your audience: Learning audience behaviour is a mixture of quantitative and qualitative process. It requires your intent observation, social sentiment analysis, search analysis etc. Learning about audience behaviour will help you to tune in your brand with your target audience. Do not beat the drum about your brand: Over promoting your brand will hamper your brand reputation. So, social media strategies must be objectified to win the heart of your audience rather than promoting your business. It should be customer oriented. Respond to messages and queries on time: Apt response to messages and queries from your audience helps you to earn new fans and maintain the relationship with already existing fans. Do not abuse the use of hash tags: The hash tags you use must be relevant to your business and must be popular at the time you make your post. Post at optimal frequencies: Posting at optimal frequencies increases the visibility of your brand in a social site. So, learn about the optimal frequency of posting in a particular site with real time posting as well as secondary research and post accordingly. Use the right parameters to measure the success of your brand: The ROI parameters tell you how effective have been your social media strategies and how you should proceed in the future. Choose the right parameters to evaluate your social media activities and earn rich returns. GetFriday (earlier YMII or YourManInIndia) is a service that was featured and used in the NYTimes best-selling productivity and lifestyle design book ‘The 4-Hour-Workweek’ by Timothy Ferris. Sign up now!

Social Media: A nifty way for your business Read More »

Social media is a significant facet of this digital era. Its influence is reflected by the striking metrics like over a billion audiences in popular social media sites, the annual user increment of around 11%, the remarkable engagement rate and the like. With its evolution over the last decade, social media has eventually become a reliable medium of commercial information. 65% of social media users consider information which is shared on social media while making their purchase decision. No wonder, social media has come to be an effective weapon for business professionals, especially savvy marketers. Some specifics about social media which will encourage you to use social media for your business are sorted out as follows:   Social media offers you low – cost platform for advertising: Developing a social media strategy is the best way to decrease the marketing expenses in a business. While a 30 seconds TV ad pricing $350000 reaches a national audience a Facebook ad at a lesser cost reaches the global audience. So, social media gives you a better harvest for your marketing investments. Social media offers you a wide audience reach: If your aim is a wide reach then social media is your best bet. Facebook has over 1 billion active users across different demographics, geography and cultural parameters. Twitter which is logged in by over 100 million users daily is mostly used by the age ran. The twitter users aging above 60 are also increasing. Social media enables your faster reach to audience: There is hardly anyone who does not have a social media account. More than 60% of the social media account holders use their social media accounts daily. This justifies the fact and assures you that social media has a faster and ascertained reach to your target audience. Social media offers you an intense user engagement: User generated content in social media earns sincere attention of users. Apart from this, most of the content comes off in appealing forms like engaging games, queries, video ads and the like. Social media hikes brand loyalty of your fans: Most of the content in social media is user generated and it flows in from reliable sources. Moreover social media exposes your brand to a wide audience and it enables you to interact with the audience. It’s a three tier effect: it introduces your brand to your young prospective fans, invokes curiosity about your brand and emboldens the faith of your already existing fans. All these help you to earn brand loyalty from your fans. Social media offers you the scope of better customer service: Social media helps you in understanding the sentiment of your audience for your brand. By following the social buzz and analysing social sentiment of your target audience you understand the exact needs of your customers and follow them up with the required service. While the above stated advantages of social media gives you good returns, using social media for your brand is not free from risks. One of the risks arises from the fast reach of social media. So, if it’s a positive buzz your brand may become the king of the market while if it’s a negative buzz, you brand may get affected. So, using social media requires your vigilance all the time. You have to keep an eye on the reactions of your audiences to your marketing activities and keep the buzz about your brand under control. Giving prompt responses to your audience queries, regulating negative posts with an appeasing reply and pivoting audience attention to positive posts help you to regulate the reactions of your audience. If you are infusing social media in your business strategies you must not miss out on these tips:   Learn about the behaviour of your audience: Learning audience behaviour is a mixture of quantitative and qualitative process. It requires your intent observation, social sentiment analysis, search analysis etc. Learning about audience behaviour will help you to tune in your brand with your target audience. Do not beat the drum about your brand: Over promoting your brand will hamper your brand reputation. So, social media strategies must be objectified to win the heart of your audience rather than promoting your business. It should be customer oriented. Respond to messages and queries on time: Apt response to messages and queries from your audience helps you to earn new fans and maintain the relationship with already existing fans. Do not abuse the use of hash tags: The hash tags you use must be relevant to your business and must be popular at the time you make your post. Post at optimal frequencies: Posting at optimal frequencies increases the visibility of your brand in a social site. So, learn about the optimal frequency of posting in a particular site with real time posting as well as secondary research and post accordingly. Use the right parameters to measure the success of your brand: The ROI parameters tell you how effective have been your social media strategies and how you should proceed in the future. Choose the right parameters to evaluate your social media activities and earn rich returns. GetFriday (earlier YMII or YourManInIndia) is a service that was featured and used in the NYTimes best-selling productivity and lifestyle design book ‘The 4-Hour-Workweek’ by Timothy Ferris. Sign up now!

Six Ways To Use Your Newly-Gained Time Post Outsourcing

So, you decided to take the big step and hired a Virtual Assistant to help you get through life’s challenges. Outsourcing was never your top choice, but you had to, owing to the increasing work pressures, the costs of keeping an in-house assistant and the growing responsibilities you had to shoulder at home. Now you’re glad you hired a VA, but what next? What does one do with the free time and how does one transition into the new life with the newly-gained time, effortlessly? Consider why you chose to outsource in the first place. Either you believed that a professional would do a better job than you would at a particular job, the costs of outsourcing were a lot cheaper than if you were to hire an in-house assistant or also because you realized that your children and wife were beginning to forget what you looked like. With outsourcing, you finally got those laborious tasks out of the way and earned yourself a minimum of 2-4 hours for yourself everyday. There’s so much you can do! If you are unsure of how you can use this time productively, take a look at a few of these suggestions- 1) Read A Book Keep yourself abreast with all the reading that you’ve missed out on all these years. Download an e-book if you’re running out of time or walk to the local bookstore to pick out a book you like. If you are a bookworm, there is no better way to spend your time productively than by reading. Reading can help you de-stress and can transport your mind into another world altogether, whilst also helping you sharpen your mind. 2) Prioritize Your ‘Bucket-List’ Activities 2-4 hours is a lot of time to tick at least one of the activities off your bucket-list everyday. Always wanted to sign up for a dance class? Go paragliding or volunteer at a local NGO? With the time you’ve earned from the outsourcing, you could try your hand at the activities that interest you. Finding a hobby or working on one, can help you put your job and/or life in perspective and can help you develop a new set of skills. It will also give you the chance to expand your networking opportunities and is a breath of fresh air when you feel like you’re on the verge of a total burnout. 3) Build A Better Business Ever heard of the adage, ‘Do what you do best and outsource the rest’? Now that you have outsourced all the back-end work to your Virtual Assistant, you will find more time to focus on the core competencies of your business and set better goals. If you have had to manage all the aspects of the business yourself, you will know that your life was nothing short of a nightmare! With outsourcing however, you will find that you have more time to strategize, de-clutter your mind, reorganize your business and govern its primary activities to help it grow and sustain. 4) A Healthy You, Is A Happy You Exercise well, eat healthy and meditate in your spare time. Rather than sitting at home and lazing around, go for a light jog or a long walk. Doing things that keep you feeling fit, physically or mentally can help you lose the stress you’ve been carrying around on your shoulders and will also give you the time to gather your thoughts. Furthermore, exercising regularly can help you discipline your mind, get your endorphins flowing and make you look and feel better. Need more reasons? 5) Spend Time With The Ones You Love If you live with friends or family, spending your free time with them makes absolute sense. Make some time for your children and spouse. Attend your girl’s ballet performance or your son’s big game. Imagine the joy on their faces when they find that both their parents are in attendance. If you’ve missed out on those dinners with your friends or your partner in the last couple of months, make it a point to catch up with them during your free time and show them that you care and you are not anti-social. There is nothing more relaxing than to surround yourself with the people you love and who love you during your free time. 6) Invest Some Time In Personal Care Once you find that you’ve got a flow going with outsourcing and your VA is handling all the work for you, don’t burden yourself with more work during your free time. Instead, invest this time for some personal care. Whether it is something as small as filing your nails, getting some sleep or hitting the spa, ensure that you make time for your personal needs everyday to shed those layers of stress. Though making money is important to make ends meet in today’s time and age, spending time for yourself can make you look and feel like a million bucks. Life after outsourcing can be rewarding if you choose to make it so. The time you’ve earned is precious and limited. Make use of it productively and you’ll automatically find success and will be able to strike the perfect work-life balance in the process.

Six Ways To Use Your Newly-Gained Time Post Outsourcing Read More »

So, you decided to take the big step and hired a Virtual Assistant to help you get through life’s challenges. Outsourcing was never your top choice, but you had to, owing to the increasing work pressures, the costs of keeping an in-house assistant and the growing responsibilities you had to shoulder at home. Now you’re glad you hired a VA, but what next? What does one do with the free time and how does one transition into the new life with the newly-gained time, effortlessly? Consider why you chose to outsource in the first place. Either you believed that a professional would do a better job than you would at a particular job, the costs of outsourcing were a lot cheaper than if you were to hire an in-house assistant or also because you realized that your children and wife were beginning to forget what you looked like. With outsourcing, you finally got those laborious tasks out of the way and earned yourself a minimum of 2-4 hours for yourself everyday. There’s so much you can do! If you are unsure of how you can use this time productively, take a look at a few of these suggestions- 1) Read A Book Keep yourself abreast with all the reading that you’ve missed out on all these years. Download an e-book if you’re running out of time or walk to the local bookstore to pick out a book you like. If you are a bookworm, there is no better way to spend your time productively than by reading. Reading can help you de-stress and can transport your mind into another world altogether, whilst also helping you sharpen your mind. 2) Prioritize Your ‘Bucket-List’ Activities 2-4 hours is a lot of time to tick at least one of the activities off your bucket-list everyday. Always wanted to sign up for a dance class? Go paragliding or volunteer at a local NGO? With the time you’ve earned from the outsourcing, you could try your hand at the activities that interest you. Finding a hobby or working on one, can help you put your job and/or life in perspective and can help you develop a new set of skills. It will also give you the chance to expand your networking opportunities and is a breath of fresh air when you feel like you’re on the verge of a total burnout. 3) Build A Better Business Ever heard of the adage, ‘Do what you do best and outsource the rest’? Now that you have outsourced all the back-end work to your Virtual Assistant, you will find more time to focus on the core competencies of your business and set better goals. If you have had to manage all the aspects of the business yourself, you will know that your life was nothing short of a nightmare! With outsourcing however, you will find that you have more time to strategize, de-clutter your mind, reorganize your business and govern its primary activities to help it grow and sustain. 4) A Healthy You, Is A Happy You Exercise well, eat healthy and meditate in your spare time. Rather than sitting at home and lazing around, go for a light jog or a long walk. Doing things that keep you feeling fit, physically or mentally can help you lose the stress you’ve been carrying around on your shoulders and will also give you the time to gather your thoughts. Furthermore, exercising regularly can help you discipline your mind, get your endorphins flowing and make you look and feel better. Need more reasons? 5) Spend Time With The Ones You Love If you live with friends or family, spending your free time with them makes absolute sense. Make some time for your children and spouse. Attend your girl’s ballet performance or your son’s big game. Imagine the joy on their faces when they find that both their parents are in attendance. If you’ve missed out on those dinners with your friends or your partner in the last couple of months, make it a point to catch up with them during your free time and show them that you care and you are not anti-social. There is nothing more relaxing than to surround yourself with the people you love and who love you during your free time. 6) Invest Some Time In Personal Care Once you find that you’ve got a flow going with outsourcing and your VA is handling all the work for you, don’t burden yourself with more work during your free time. Instead, invest this time for some personal care. Whether it is something as small as filing your nails, getting some sleep or hitting the spa, ensure that you make time for your personal needs everyday to shed those layers of stress. Though making money is important to make ends meet in today’s time and age, spending time for yourself can make you look and feel like a million bucks. Life after outsourcing can be rewarding if you choose to make it so. The time you’ve earned is precious and limited. Make use of it productively and you’ll automatically find success and will be able to strike the perfect work-life balance in the process.

CRM Investments Failure

Five Reasons Why CRM Investments Fail In E-Commerce Space

In 10 years of GetFriday’s existence, we have handled a lot of CRMs! Our insights for this blog are derived from this experience. Our clients have been at times, early adopters of these tools. We also happen to have a huge client base of entrepreneurs and small businesses. This has enabled us to have a 360 degree view of CRM usage or its lack of usage. Without doubt CRMS are useful tools for e-commerce It is true that CRM software can help e-commerce businesses provide excellent customer support by managing and storing all data related to customers and transactions. Though all this can be achieved through other online tools, the beauty of buying CRM software is to be able to utilize it in such a manner that it can take care of your business needs automatically while allowing you to focus on improving your sales conversion rates considerably. Nevertheless, majority of companies fail to benefit from CRMs and end up losing huge amounts of money. We have identified 5 reasons for the failure of CRMs in the e-commerce industry through our longstanding experience of serving e-commerce clients. This blog is also summarized in the form of Slideshare presentation. Please click on the below image for the presentation. 5 Reasons for CRM Investments Failure   1. Not utilizing full capacity of CRMs Imagine you hired an employee for your small e-commerce business, and are unable to use 40% of this person’s skill. A smart business owner should ideally be worried. But somehow, business professionals do not worry about the unused capacities of assets. Our internal data shows many entrepreneurs do not utilize as much as 40 % of CRMs capability. This is not because there is a problem with the CRM software, but because e-commerce businesses often miss out on critically analyzing the requirements of the CRM within the business at the outset. These CRMs generally have limited or no use in the business and are dead resources. This renders the CRM a misfit within the e-commerce business if not employed correctly. 2. Buying a CRM too early Define the CRM requirements first before jumping into which CRM to buy. If you are just starting out as an e-commerce company, your focus ideally be targeted towards expanding your client base, attracting as many customers as possible and achieving breakeven sales with your products online. Managing customer relations and records in an organized database is also, extremely important. But Google drives and other free tools do an equally good job. Therefore, if you are starting out, it would be wise to analyze if using a CRM at this stage can prove to be fruitful. We suggest you to start lean. 3. Not setting objectives, goals and targets for CRM One way to derive maximum from your CRM is to set a clear objective, goal and target. Treat your CRM as an asset that needs to justify its costs. With CRMs being implemented in businesses across industries in today’s world, SMEs and upcoming e-commerce companies may find it necessary to implement CRMs in their own businesses, without understanding how the features can be fully utilized to boost business efficiency. The requirement for a CRM is the result of much deliberation over difficult business truths such as dwindling sales, strained customer relations, service woes or escalating marketing issues. The mistake takes place with the first step when businesses implement CRMs without understanding its features, the metrics it has to offer and how in turn a CRM can help your e-commerce business grow. 4. Owning a CRM only as a social norm Over these years, we have seen entrepreneurs rushing to buy a CRM as a part of their initial start up infrastructure. They utilize it to supplement their daily meetings with prospects and networks and end up buying CRMs only because others in the industry have implemented them and because they assume it is necessary. Though the assumption may not be entirely wrong, we strongly suggest you ask yourself these 4 simple questions before you buy a CRM – Can it solve the problems in my business? Does it suit by budget? Can it integrate seamlessly with my existing software and systems? Is it necessary at this point of my company’s operations? CRMs should not be implemented just for the heck of it and just because every other company in the block is using a Salesforce or a Zoho. It should only be employed if an e-commerce business has the resources for it, has the ability to answer these questions and be able to present solutions for it. 5. Inefficiency in uploading the data in CRM The data you capture from your customers need to be updated in a timely manner into your CRMs. This requires your time and devotion. Typically our study shows, that the lack of time to enter data into CRMs remains the single most problem for entrepreneurs and e-commerce store owners alike. We suggest you hire a virtual assistant to handle this work seamlessly. If you want to avoid the possibility of failures, your first step should be to take care of these 5 reasons. Since investing in a CRM is a big deal, make sure you have your goals defined and its needs/requirements for the business sorted before you take the plunge. After all, CRMs are assets and like any other asset, need to be justified for its costs and employed properly for maximum benefits.

Five Reasons Why CRM Investments Fail In E-Commerce Space Read More »

In 10 years of GetFriday’s existence, we have handled a lot of CRMs! Our insights for this blog are derived from this experience. Our clients have been at times, early adopters of these tools. We also happen to have a huge client base of entrepreneurs and small businesses. This has enabled us to have a 360 degree view of CRM usage or its lack of usage. Without doubt CRMS are useful tools for e-commerce It is true that CRM software can help e-commerce businesses provide excellent customer support by managing and storing all data related to customers and transactions. Though all this can be achieved through other online tools, the beauty of buying CRM software is to be able to utilize it in such a manner that it can take care of your business needs automatically while allowing you to focus on improving your sales conversion rates considerably. Nevertheless, majority of companies fail to benefit from CRMs and end up losing huge amounts of money. We have identified 5 reasons for the failure of CRMs in the e-commerce industry through our longstanding experience of serving e-commerce clients. This blog is also summarized in the form of Slideshare presentation. Please click on the below image for the presentation. 5 Reasons for CRM Investments Failure   1. Not utilizing full capacity of CRMs Imagine you hired an employee for your small e-commerce business, and are unable to use 40% of this person’s skill. A smart business owner should ideally be worried. But somehow, business professionals do not worry about the unused capacities of assets. Our internal data shows many entrepreneurs do not utilize as much as 40 % of CRMs capability. This is not because there is a problem with the CRM software, but because e-commerce businesses often miss out on critically analyzing the requirements of the CRM within the business at the outset. These CRMs generally have limited or no use in the business and are dead resources. This renders the CRM a misfit within the e-commerce business if not employed correctly. 2. Buying a CRM too early Define the CRM requirements first before jumping into which CRM to buy. If you are just starting out as an e-commerce company, your focus ideally be targeted towards expanding your client base, attracting as many customers as possible and achieving breakeven sales with your products online. Managing customer relations and records in an organized database is also, extremely important. But Google drives and other free tools do an equally good job. Therefore, if you are starting out, it would be wise to analyze if using a CRM at this stage can prove to be fruitful. We suggest you to start lean. 3. Not setting objectives, goals and targets for CRM One way to derive maximum from your CRM is to set a clear objective, goal and target. Treat your CRM as an asset that needs to justify its costs. With CRMs being implemented in businesses across industries in today’s world, SMEs and upcoming e-commerce companies may find it necessary to implement CRMs in their own businesses, without understanding how the features can be fully utilized to boost business efficiency. The requirement for a CRM is the result of much deliberation over difficult business truths such as dwindling sales, strained customer relations, service woes or escalating marketing issues. The mistake takes place with the first step when businesses implement CRMs without understanding its features, the metrics it has to offer and how in turn a CRM can help your e-commerce business grow. 4. Owning a CRM only as a social norm Over these years, we have seen entrepreneurs rushing to buy a CRM as a part of their initial start up infrastructure. They utilize it to supplement their daily meetings with prospects and networks and end up buying CRMs only because others in the industry have implemented them and because they assume it is necessary. Though the assumption may not be entirely wrong, we strongly suggest you ask yourself these 4 simple questions before you buy a CRM – Can it solve the problems in my business? Does it suit by budget? Can it integrate seamlessly with my existing software and systems? Is it necessary at this point of my company’s operations? CRMs should not be implemented just for the heck of it and just because every other company in the block is using a Salesforce or a Zoho. It should only be employed if an e-commerce business has the resources for it, has the ability to answer these questions and be able to present solutions for it. 5. Inefficiency in uploading the data in CRM The data you capture from your customers need to be updated in a timely manner into your CRMs. This requires your time and devotion. Typically our study shows, that the lack of time to enter data into CRMs remains the single most problem for entrepreneurs and e-commerce store owners alike. We suggest you hire a virtual assistant to handle this work seamlessly. If you want to avoid the possibility of failures, your first step should be to take care of these 5 reasons. Since investing in a CRM is a big deal, make sure you have your goals defined and its needs/requirements for the business sorted before you take the plunge. After all, CRMs are assets and like any other asset, need to be justified for its costs and employed properly for maximum benefits.

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