Magic Satchel, Inc. » happy clients

Twitter + Overstock= Social Media Win

Kim — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:47:22 +0000

Watching companies having to interact with customers and potential customers or run the risk of being internet hated-on has been interesting. Sites like Consumerist make it so one bad interaction with the public can be forever etched into Google Search Results.

One of my favorite things is when companies are really nice without having to be. I started following Overstock.com’s twitter feed because I like shopping and secret deals, and I got a DM from them. Confession: I almost never read DMs because they’re all generally copy-pasted. I don’t mind them or hate them or what have you, I just ignore them. This one caught my eye.

Thanks for following us! Best of luck with Magic Satchel!

Okay, that might not seem like a big deal. But in that short sentence, Overstock communicated to me that they’d taken the time to check out my Twitter feed, and crafted a personal reply.

Have I ever bought anything from Overstock? Not yet. Will I now? Like, as soon as possible.

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My Edict on Twitter Sins

Kim — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:28:46 +0000

So, I’ve been active on Twitter for an entire 50 days now. What’s that in Twitter years? And being the old Twitter salt I now am, I am entitled to list my top Twitter pet peeves. So here they are, not in any order of importance.

Excessively Retweeting Yourself: “In case you missed it.” I didn’t miss it, I ignored it the last seven times because it was boring.
Want To Know…?: Yes, I do before I open the link- you have a whopping 140 characters. Use them! I’m tired of being sent to real estate investment sites masked as something newsworthy.
Leetspeek grammar: Maybe it’s because I’m rapidly approaching 30, but my professional opinion of you drops significantly if you spell “you” as “u.”
Auto-anything: The usefulness and core premise of Twitter is greatly diminished by bots. If you don’t have the time to say it, I don’t have the time to read it. Automated anything is Twitter cheating!
Disembodied Chest Avatars: Your userpic is about 25% the size of a matchbook. Even if I wanted to check out your pecs (which I don’t) this is hardly the best medium. This is Twitter, not Hot or Not.
Secrets and Lies: I’ve seen many a tweet promising to unlock the secret of social media, Twitter, blogging, finding graphics and getting the perfect latte. Guess how many of these Tweets contained actual useful information? Zero. And besides, once you say it on Twitter it’s not a secret anymore, so quit it.
You’re Not Who You Quote: One or two inspirational quotes are fine. Culling all your content from Wikiquote? Not so much.
Dry Tweeting: In order for you not to put me to sleep in 140 characters or less, I want some dynamic content. Just as irritating as the constant updaters with little thought behind their tweets are the Twitter cold fish- it’s just as boring to only talk business on Twitter as it is in real life. Personality is important in this format- don’t be afraid to tweet something besides links to your blog or your site. Contribute!

This post would not be complete without including the “fail whale.”

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Virtual Assistants: Everything but the coffee

Kim — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 04:12:53 +0000

And with a VA, you’ll have more time to nip out to Starbucks. This article, via the Examiner, goes through some more basics of finding and using a VA.

My favorite points from the article, quoted below, address the versatility of a Virtual Assistant versus having on-site staff.

I will admit that previously visions of Sci-Fi men and women danced through my head at such a statement only months previously. So how does it work? A virtual assistant is more than just outsourced administrative help. Many assistants offer services to include; hiring, recruiting and marketing. What this means for a sole proprietor or small business is the opportunity to outsource your entire human resource or marketing department in a cost-effective manner. This person acts as an independent contractor thus avoiding payroll costs. Additionally, most virtual assistants will let you know ahead of time how much a project will cost and work with you to stay within budget. In difficult economic times, predictable expenditures and the ability to offload non-revenue producing activities is not just necessary-it’s critical for survival.

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Welcome to the age of Gigonomics

Kim — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 08:14:43 +0000

Interesting piece on Web Worker Daily on how smart talent is adapting hard and fast to the changing economy and career trajectory they inevitably face. This post dubs the phenomenon “Giganomics.”

Most of the web workers I know tend to be college educated people with reasonably good incomes, and I suspect that most of the people described in the group above are web workers. Many web workers, and I include myself in this group, would never have become freelancers or otherwise left traditional jobs to telecommute from home without the rise of ubiquitous online technology. Fifteen years ago, many of the careers that web workers now enjoy didn’t even exist or would not have been possible given the technology available prior to the early to mid-1990s. While some early versions of the technologies we now take for granted existed back then, the adoption was still very low. Many companies weren’t online at all, and email was used by some people, but not everyone.

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Via Twitter, why being a WAHM is bad

Kim — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 04:19:29 +0000

I see this a lot, in real life and online. There’s a local hair salon with a ridiculous name. I won’t mention it for obvious reasons, but every time I pass it, I think about how silly the name is. That, and their “Grand Opening” sign was misspelled and displayed for months.

While I was skimming the local paper last week, I came across the salon’s half page ad. Half of the half page ad was devoted to explaining the business name- I’m guessing they get that question a lot. Valuable ad space-paid for ad space- that could be talking up the business was instead devoted to something completely unrelated to what the business will do for you. Customers don’t care about your business name, your kids, or much outside the value and service you being to them. Which brings me to this video.

Virtual Assistants are, in my unscientific observations, largely female. Many proudly boast of being work-at-home moms, or WAHMs. Being able to juggle a life and a successful business is noteworthy, but not to your clients. If anything, it communicates to them that your priority may not be their business. And that is bad, bad, bad.

So before you go tagging and boxing yourself, take a look at this clip and really think about your message. Is it relevant to the service or product you offer? I’m really, really into the guacamole from Chipotle. I could eat it daily, on almost everything savory I eat. However, nowhere in my marketing materials do I mention guacamole.

Scott Stratten on Why Being a WAHM is Bad for Business from Jessica Knows on Vimeo.

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Telecommuting trumps temping

Kim — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 08:04:31 +0000

I’m still amazed corporations aren’t luring top talent like this in droves- staffing firms can serve a purpose, but focused virtual workers and virtual assistants are infinitely more economical for big and small companies in this economic flux period. And, as the writer below keenly observes, perhaps when the dust settles we’ll all be left with more efficient employment options.

If you haven’t sourced a good Virtual Assistant yet, now is a great time to find someone who truly can service the needs of your business.

It all makes me wonder: As the recession continues, might we see more telecommuters? These are talented, hard-working people flocking to temp agencies. It woudn’t be surprising to see many of them decide to go into business for themselves, and to set up their home offices. Many might turn themselves into freelancers, hiring themselves out for consultants for businesses that have already slashed their payrolls of full-time employees.

And when the recession ends, these workers might decide that they like the life of a work-at-home telecommuter. They might realize that going into a traditional office every weekday is a drag.

I certainly hope so. The more employers who understand the benefits of telecommuting and employees who work from home, the better.

via Chicago Telecommuting Examiner: Temp jobs on the rise. Will we see more telecommuters, too?.

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An efficiency that’s not possible in most physical offices…

Kim — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 02:01:08 +0000

“I had an admin assistant that wasn’t doing a very good job and wasn’t working fast enough,” Lee recalls. “To take on other projects, I needed to find other resources.”

So she started e-mailing out work for the GlobeTask team to do – PowerPoint presentations, online research requests, weekly reports on Web traffic, and a laundry list of various tasks she used to rely on her in-office administrative assistant to perform. She was soon able to offer her employee to someone else in the department and rely on GlobeTask for her daily workflow.

“Pretty much anything that could be done online or via e-mail, I farmed out to them,” Lee recalls. “There’s an efficiency that’s not possible in most physical offices.”

I read so many articles selling the concept of Virtual Assisting as a career path. What stuns me is that more articles don’t focus on the potential benefits for existing business owners who need a VA.

I’ve had the unpleasant experience of working for employers who couldn’t afford the staff they have, and would cut and rehire staff as funds fluctuate. The costs in retaining and retraining staff are high, and I empathize with employers who struggle to make payroll each week. Musical Office Chairs is no fun for anyone, and it kills morale.

A virtual assistant is a better option because not only are they generally more experienced, all you pay for is the work we do for you. Not benefits, not breaks, not staffing bounties. And when business is slow, we can help you pick it up or be waiting when you need us again.

via Firms using “virtual” office assistants worldwide to get the job done

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Virtual Assistants: Write Them Off!

Kim — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 07:57:56 +0000

Via Lifehacker, this handy post on making the most of your indie business expenses lists several tax tips to boost your yearly net. Don’t forget to write off your Virtual Assistant! (Via Lifehacker.)

Virtual assistants and other freelancers

You’ll want an invoice from whoever you work with, as well as a record of when you paid the invoice.

Subcontracting part of a project to another freelancer or hiring a virtual assistant can be an easy way for a freelancer to take on more work and make more money – and the expense to do so is tax deductible. You’ll want to document any such transactions carefully so that you can prove that your use of freelancers and virtual assistants is purely a contract arrangement, rather than employment – which you would have to pay extra taxes for. You’ll want an invoice from whoever you work with, as well as a record of when you paid the invoice.

10 Tax Deductions Freelancers Can Make – FreelanceS

witch – The Freelance Blog.

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In a Nutshell: Why Virtual Assistants Make More Sense In This Economy.

Kim — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 08:56:20 +0000

“She can work as much as I need her to and I can focus on being in front of clients rather than putting together a mailing or database,” Trull said. “It enabled me to take my business to the next level without having to hire an employee.”

via WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL.

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Why You Need a Virtual Assistant

Kim — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 16:12:05 +0000

Via Tess at the VAF comes this article about Virtual Assistants and small business.

For small businesses that are drowning in paperwork or administrative tasks, the traditional choice has been to hire a part-time or full-time assistant, or else slog through unassisted. But in these work-from-home days of the Internet, there’s a third option: hiring a virtual assistant.

I’ve worked as an Executive Assistant in a few small businesses, and the benefits of going virtual would have had a huge impact on the quality and efficiency of the work I did in all of those situations. The flexibility of a virtual assistant is indescribable for smaller companies that need a vast array of ever-changing tasks completed.

…(VAs) disseminate her weekly two-minute audio tips, improve her site’s shopping cart and search engine optimization, and write pitches. The Internet marketing work she never seems to have time for is finally getting done. And, though a Web developer might also have been able to improve her SEO and shopping cart, working with a VA has a different quality, she notes. “A Web developer wouldn’t do some of the stuff my assistant does,” she says. “Plus a Web developer might not always be available or have the same mentality about getting things done that a virtual assistant does.”

via Why You Need to Hire a Virtual Assistant — virtual assistants — internetGIRLfriday –.

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