What it Takes to Be a Virtual Assistant:

Skills & Tools

Week three of a very informative series called: What it Takes to Be a Virtual Assistant, for all of you wanting to work from home and make real money not chump change. Rebecca Flansburg from Franticmommy.com and I have teamed up to look at a variety of Skills & Tools needed to improve your VA Business.

Some tools are free and can make your life soooo much easier. Just taking time to understand some basics can really save you tons of time in the long run AND allow you some extra skills to add to your portfolio!

Franticmommy will share insider tips about: Basecamp, Carbonite, Dropbox, PicMonkey, Skype, and Snag-it. I’m just a little giddy since I had never heard of Basecamp or Snag-it. I recently signed up with Dropbox when another blogger wanted to share her ebooks with me. This lead to me installing a WP plugin to back up my blog called: WordPress Backup to Dropbox. Yes, there are many different ways to backup your blog but I am still researching them all and found one for free that doesn’t require me contacting godaddy.com to figure out.

I will delve in and share links and tips for: Buffer, Facebook, Google+, Ipiccy, Pinterest, and Twitter. These are in now way the limit of what each of these “tools” can do for you but to let you get a glimpse of how you could possibly use them for social media, marketing, and graphic design.

BUFFER: Similar to Hootsuite to allow you to schedule tweets and facebook posts. A very convenient Chrome App to have to help streamline your time on social media. Both a free version and a pay version that can be loaded with pertinent information that you want to share with followers. You can tweak the time between tweets so you can load your Buffer every day to day and a half with the free account.

1. How to be a Twitter Ninja
2. How to Use Buffer for Quick and Easy Tweeting

FACEBOOK: No longer just for college students. Facebook has taken social media and marketing to a whole new level. You will want to create a FANPAGE from your main facebook profile for each business or blog that you own. Getting fans to “like” your fanpage will allow more people to see what you share/like/comment on which can generate more traffic or business to your site.

1. How to Make a Fan Page on Facebook
2. Reference of Dimensions for Facebook Timeline For Pages
3. 10 Ways to Viral Your Facebook Fanpage

GOOGLE+: I would say that Google+ is the new Facebook and Skype rolled into one! You can share things like facebook and you can create a hangout which is similar to skyping. With the addition of Communities, Google+ is taking over with fast moving impact.

1. How To Use Google Plus for Professional Networking [10 Smart Ways]
2. What the Plus Ebook
3. What is a Hangout?
4. Ins and Out of Google +

IPICCY: A great FREE photo and collage editing program. So easy my kids ( 8 and 10) use it to help create collages for blog posts! You can do a lot with it but it might take you a few tries to figure it out. I use Ipiccy to create collages, pinnable photos, blog buttons, banners, etc.

1. How to Make a Photo Collage
2. Photo Editing with iPiccy

PINTEREST: Yes, Pinterest can be a very useful tool for saving ideas, checking out hot trends, and marketing your business. Examples of boards could be: Office Decor, Virtual Assisting, Household or Time Management, WAHM, Graphic Tips or Tricks. Of course your can name your boards anything that suits you and is helpful. You also have 3 secret boards that ARE NOT public so if you want to surprise your family with a trip or home decor re-do you won’t spoil the secret. Say goodbye to bookmarks and hello to pinterest!

1. How To Rock Pinterest Like A Pro 
2. Marketing & Networking with Pinterest
3. Pinterest Tips and Tricks 
4. Steps to get LOTs of followers

TWITTER: I heard of twitter when it first came out and rolled my eyes. I do not own a smartphone so tweeting did not appeal to me until I became a blogger. Yes, I am on twitter and think I do quite well since I only started in July or August of 2012. I pair twitter with buffer and another WP plug-in called: Tweet Old Post. Twitter chats and Twitter parties are all ways of reaching the masses and engaging your clients customers! Tweet Deck and Tweet Chat help you view multiple twitter streams at once. I prefer Tweet Chat over Tweet Deck, but that is just because one of the homeschool blogger groups uses it.

1.  Tweetdeck
2. TweetChat
3. How to Host a Twitter Chat That Rocks
4. How to host a Tweet Chat
5. How to host a Sucessful Twitter Party
6. How to Host a Successful Twitter Party – Part One

Yes, I am a resource ADDICT and I hope that I have not overwhelmed you but gathered a nice amount of informative posts for your to pursue. Please take your time and learn all you can about ONE new TOOL that has been shared. I know that you will be so glad that you did!

WEEK 1:

What it Takes to Be a Virtual Assistant: Intro

What it Takes to Be a Virtual Assistant: A New Series

WEEK 2:

How I Became a Virtual Assistant with Rebecca Flansburg

What it Takes to Be a Virtual Assistant: How to Know When it’s Time to Hire a VA

Please leave your comments and questions below. They do not have to be about anything specifically talked about in this post but about VA in general or what you have not learned that you would like to.