Virtual Assistant Blog - VIRTUAL ASSISTANCE BY ANITA

My son, Matt

October 12, 2020 By Anita M. Hicks

matt and mom Tomorrow, October 13th, 2020, will mark 6 months since my son, Matt left this world.

Matt was with me for 32 years and for a bunch of years he worked with my husband and I in Virtual Assistance by Anita and represented our company in BNI.

Since April 13th, I’ve been asked by many, how are you doing? And, so I thought I might write this blog to explain some of how I’m doing.

I miss him. First it was my birthday, May 3rd. I missed his call, Facebook Post and messages. The very next weekend was Mother’s Day… that was tough. I didn’t know what pain was before this; really. Then I thought I might be good until December, but football was one of Matt’s passions, so when football began again, once more I missed him as a part of my life.

Matt has shown me and sent me messages through people to let me know that he is ok; in fact the words come back to me over and over ‘I’m more than ok, momma’. I believe in my faith that he is in a place without pain, or loss or sadness. But, it is still difficult to walk through each day knowing that my oldest son, with that big smile and sparkling blue eyes, like his momma’s eyes, is not here. I can not talk to him; although honestly some days I still do talk to him. I just start talking to the empty room; my husband is somewhat concerned, but you know, this is new for us both; never navigated these waters before… losing our son was not in the plan.

This always makes me think about the circle of life and then, the Lion King movie. Matt loved this movie and used to sing the song as a child often; I can hear his voice now, the Circle of life… There have been moments of anger. Questions like “Why is it that I’m 57 & still here … what happened to your children outlive you?” But, I don’t get to choose; no more than Matt did. We all believe in our family that God is with us and he directs our lives. In the very first day after Matt ascended to heaven, a friend said, “Anita, God had a special job for Matt to do in heaven; he needed him now.”

Yup, I get that too. So, when the tears come, the emptiness and the “I miss my son” – I have a few new outlets. First, I thought I’d do this 6 month blog. And, I’m creating a scrapbook. It contains pictures of Matt, but more special to me and I know they would be to him, the scrapbook contains cards from friends. We have received so many! Almost everyone wrote a personal messages with lots of comforting words, memories with Matt and support. The cards are each unique and beautiful It’s therapeutic for me to do a few pages at a time when I am really missing him.

Thanks to COVID, we’ve not been able to put together a celebration of Matthew’s life ceremony. Just like thanks to the world we live in now, we could not transfer his body to the funeral home for a week and ONLY immediate family could do the viewing and say good bye. I had to lobby, email, call and fill out forms just for this. In the end, the funeral home was so special to us; they allowed Matt’s best friend for over 20 years to also be with us. That was a good moment as Ty is like a son to me.

6 months. It feels like it was yesterday sometimes, and then the next moment, like this one, it feels like a million years since I’ve hugged him, heard his sweet voice say “Momma” like only he could do, or look at his blue eyes light up. Friends and family say I’m strong, but it’s the friends and family around me that keep me going forward. It’s also the knowledge that Matt would want me to enjoy this life as we’ve learned… it is so so much shorter than we realize.

If there is a lesson to be learned and Matt and I believed learning is life; that would be it; Live your Life – don’t put off that special call, email, text, and do what you really want with your life with the people you really want to be surrounded by – as it’s shorter than we think.

My deepest heartfelt thanks to all of you for your love, kind words, support, cards, texts, emails as you are light in my life over the past 6 months.

Blending Your Print and Social Media Marketing

September 8, 2017 By Anita M. Hicks

Blending Your Print and Social Media Marketing

Have you considered adding Social Media marketing into your Print Media marketing? Do you have links to your Social Media sites/profiles on your business cards? Have you considered adding a link to your Facebook Business page on your Rack Cards or Fliers? These are all considerations when Blending Your Print and Social Media Marketing.

If you have a store front business or a physical location try adding a sign that says ‘“Like” Us at Facebook’. If you have customers waiting at your location also consider displaying a sign that reads: “Have you enjoyed your service today? Give us a 5 Star Review on Facebook!” Have this sign Prominently Displayed at your store front location.

Consider these ideas when blend your two marketing pieces together:

If you add Social Media links and Related Information into your Print Media you will get more value out of both of these marketing sources.

Another thought to consider is when you are live networking with people, ask them to connect with you on your Social Media profiles. After attending a networking event remember to do your follow-ups by inviting connections that you have made at the event to visit and follow you at your Business Social Media sites.

By blending your Print Media into your Social Media marketing you will find a larger engagement of people overall and more interaction with the content that you share. Social Media sites raise you in Search Results by the amount of engagement that you have. These ideas may help you to have a higher return on your investment for all of your combined Print and Social Media marketing efforts.

Remember if you have further questions about this Social Media subject or any other, please feel free to contact The Virtual Assistance by Anita team!

What’s New With Social Media Marketing This Summer?

July 2, 2017 By Anita M. Hicks

Summer has arrived and temperatures are on the rise as many of us see things cooling down around the office as colleagues, clients and media contacts are leaving for respective vacations, trips and other excursions. Even as these Summer days may seem like down time you can actually use the Summer to be very productive on Social Media as you market your business! Are You Ready To See What’s New With Social Media Marketing This Summer?

Please find these hints and tips helpful as you continue to create and share engaging content for potential clients and past customers to enjoy and interact with this Summer. Don’t forget to check out the articles about current happenings in Social Media found at the end of this blog.

Here are some great ways to help promote yourself, and your business on Social Media this Summer:

Take Advantage of Seasonality for Content
The Olympic Games in Rio, heatwaves, music festivals, cultural events or BBQs. The choices are endless. So use this time to maximize your Social Media efforts with what’s trending right now. School holidays are also topical over the Summer, with parents looking for ideas on how to entertain their children on Summer break.

Create New Content
Use this time to create a bank of new content that you can tap into over the coming months. This could be in the form of blogs or more engaging graphics and videos. These are great for building Social Media engagement.

Time For Good Housekeeping
Polish up your Social Media accounts. Are they all active? Are they providing useful content and you receiving good engagement? For example on LinkedIn you may want to use this time to reconnect with your followers (and maybe clear out the inactive ones).

———————————————————

While taking advantage of these great insights, also consider reviewing helpful articles found below that discuss what’s new with Social Media in Summer 2017:

How to Optimize Your Facebook Page for Product Sales

Looking to increase the amount of product sales referrals you are receiving this Summer from Facebook without having to invest in Facebook ads?

This article from Social Media Examiner online discusses organic ways to gain more followers, likes and overall interaction on Facebook with proven techniques. To read the article in full Click Here.

———————————————————

How Your Startup Can Harness The Power of Social Media

Social Media provides numerous benefits for companies and businesses that are just starting out. This is because Social Media marketing helps to increase brand awareness, create a meaningful connection with customers and more.

If you are ready to start a new company this Summer or just want to further improve your existing Social Media marketing don’t miss the chance to read this think piece from Forbes by Clicking Here.

———————————————————

The Virtual Assistance by Anita team wishes you a fantastic and productive Summer. We hope you continue to fly your business to new heights this year!!!

Enjoy And Share Live Videos With Facebook Live!

July 27, 2016 By Anita M. Hicks

Have You Heard?

Facebook wants you to enjoy live video … on Facebook! So much so that the company recently released a dedicated video space on its mobile app and online platform in the hopes that you will watch and broadcast more videos live.

Facebook Live videos are real-time video posts on Facebook. Live videos from public figures you follow and your friends will appear in your News Feed. When you’re watching a live video or a video that was live, you can tap or click Subscribe to get notified the next time that Facebook account starts a live broadcast. With Facebook Live, you can show your expertise in real time, take people behind the scenes, and much more!

Facebook’s efforts to get you to watch and broadcast live videos isn’t arbitrary. With more than 1.5 billion users worldwide, Facebook and Facebook users have a real opportunity to showcase breaking news, intimate personal moments, and behind-the-scenes stories from just about anywhere in a way that surpasses TV networks and other media outlets. All of which is pretty incredible!

Before you create the next Facebook Live video for your business, personal life, a non profit or networking group you are a part of or more, be sure to review and follow five tips for creating and promoting your video from Social Media Examiner by Clicking Here.

Written by: Matt Tyson of The Virtual Assistance by Anita Team

Reach More People with your Facebook Business Page’s Content

February 20, 2016 By Anita M. Hicks

Recently our team has been asked by multiple people for suggestions on how to have the content you post at your Facebook Business Page be seen more often and by more people in their Facebook News Feeds. This will help to increase the amount of people your Facebook Page is reaching. These people could be potential clients, could be connected to someone who may need your products or services or the people who are engaged on your Facebook Page can also help make people aware of your business.

One thing to keep in mind is that to achieve a large number of people seeing your Facebook Business Page’s posts you should focus on gaining more ‘Likes’, Comments, and Shares on the content that you are posting. The more often people are actually visiting your Facebook Business Page through the search bar and then “engaging” in your posts, the more often that your Facebook Page & it’s content will show up in their news feeds and notifications. Asking questions or taking polls are a great way to getting more people engaging with your page.

Another way to increase your visibility is to pay for a Facebook Ad, Promote or Boost a content post via a monetary amount. There are values in investing in this area of marketing, but for purposes of this writing, we are sharing how to increase your Facebook Page via organic or non-paid techniques. We’ll focus on Facebook paid advertising another time.

What we wanted to focus on here is information about the ‘See First in Your News Feed’ feature from Facebook. Once someone has ‘Liked’ a Facebook Business Page, they can then choose to see posts and receive notifications from that page more often. If you are the Admin of the Facebook Page, we suggest you do this! The way accomplish this is: Visit the Facebook Business Page & Hover over where it says ‘Liked’ as seen in the screen shot.

Next, Select ‘See First’ for News Feed and select which notifications you want to see from that page. See this completed, as shown in screen shot.

Now you will receive posts from this page at the top of your Facebook news feed and receive notifications when this page posts or shares content. This is a fantastic way to educate your customers and those who already ‘Like’ your Facebook Business Page to help them see your posts more often which you could do in person or post about this on your Facebook Business Page. Also you can now utilize this for Facebook Pages that you want to see posts from more often.

We hope that you found this helpful to you! Please let us know how we may help you with social media, email or website marketing tools! 🙂

Get More Visitors to Your Facebook Page

January 24, 2016 By Anita M. Hicks

Do you want more people to Like your Facebook Page?

Whether you are using Facebook for business, community or non-profit purposes, most of us want to get more visitors to our page. These are more visitors to read, like, comment and share our content. These are folks who may become our clients or help us with our mission.

The huge question – How? Well, as in all things, there are many ways to attract more people to your Facebook Page. Here are a few items my team and I have learned that help:

Reviews – Do you have these enabled and available? Reviews at Facebook are testimonials. They offer the visitor the opportunity to give you Stars – 1 through 5 and of course, we all want “5 Stars”! Once the visitor begins to select the stars, a new window opens where they are prompted to leave wording about the page. According to a survey by Forbes, 93% of people log into the internet to find a testimonial. How do you get Reviews on your Page at Facebook? First you must include a full address in the About tab, enable the map selection for a Place setting on Google & Bing, and as if by magic, the Reviews App will appear at the left and in the More section.
Share – By sharing posts from your Facebook Page to your personal Facebook profile, you will reach more people. Asking others to share your posts also increases the amount of people you are reaching. This will naturally attract new people that will Like your page.
Facebook Ads – In most cases, online advertising is excessively expensive and the audience you reach is small compared to your outlay of funds, however, Facebook is unique. Their ads can be run with small amounts of money and you can use a budget you set in advance, rather than per click fees. Facebook Editor tool gives the ability to target certain areas or age ranges for your advertising, giving you more value for your dollar.

Questions on how to do any of these items? Contact my team and we will help!

Want to learn more about marketing & Facebook? Read this article from The Huffington Post – CLICK HERE

Pinterest More For Business than Instagram in Social Media Marketing

July 2, 2015 By Anita M. Hicks

Pinterest and Instagram are two photo-sharing social networking sites where you can upload photos for other people to see. Although they basically have the same purpose, they are not identical. Pinterest is essentially an online bulletin board that allows you to share photos related to your business. By creating ‘boards’ that target particular topics you can attract users who are searching for topics related to your business or products. Instagram however allows users to share photos taken on a smartphone with other users but inhibits users mainly working from a computer as you cannot add photos without a smartphone.

Should-My-Company-Use-Pinterest-or-Instagram

Typically, you will find teens and millenials are the primary demographic of where in contrast 28% of adult internet users were on Pinterest as of January 2015! For businesses targeting women, or in niches commonly catering to women, Pinterest has become an absolute must. This includes businesses in the retail sector, as well as those related to food, crafts, jewelry, home-décor, blogging and more as they can provide photos of their products or services.

Where Pinterest really shines in comparison to Instagram is in its ability to drive significant amounts of website traffic: Shareaholic Online reported that in December 2014, Pinterest drove just over 5% of all webpage visits (it is second only to Facebook in terms of referral sources). An additional difference between the two is that most people use Instagram to target friends from other Social Media sites where as those who go on Pinterest are typically going to find things that interest them and that they may be interested in buying.

If you are considering listing your business on Pinterest or have a business account on Pinterest that has been inactive for a bit be sure to try these tips to increase the amount of business referrals received from Pinterest!

Build Content Rich Boards Around Your Niche. You want to build content rich boards and curate your content just as you would on any other social network. Pin your products and your content to themed boards on Pinterest with shortened links that allow you to track your Pinterest traffic.
Like Other People’s Pins. If you come across pins that you like but aren’t necessarily useful to your audience or be something that you want to pin to one of your boards, you may want to consider liking them rather than repining them. Anytime you like someone’s pin, it will show up in their activity feed. This may grab their attention and get them to follow you.
Mention Other Users. You can mention others in your Pinterest comments or pin descriptions to get their attention or to recognize someone specific. A ‘mention’ is very similar to Facebook and Twitter. Type the @ symbol before starting to type the name of the person. A drop down box will appear and your choice should be displayed there for you to select.

Written by: Matt Tyson of The Virtual Assistance by Anita Team

Gratitude List

November 27, 2013 By Anita M. Hicks

Happy Thanksgiving! Tomorrow is the day we celebrate this day of turkey, football and yes, gratitude. Thankfulness is something I take very seriously and in fact a few years ago I began a “month of Gratitude”; posting at least one item each day for the entire month of November that I am grateful for in my life at my Facebook personal profile. I have also encouraged others to share what they have to be thankful for with me as when we all begin to focus on the positive, more wonderful, positive things happen.

This is the exact reason why I have embraced an entire month of gratitude as over the past 5 or 6 years my life has had one gift upon another upon another building my health, my confidence, my business and my life into something more than I could have imagined. By focusing on the positives in my life and being grateful for them, they multiple. Just like by giving, you receive so much more! The philosophy discussed in Bob Burg & John David Mann’s book, “The Go-Giver” and the motto of BNI (Business Networking International) of “Givers Gain” are both examples that I am surely not the only one who embraces the ideals of giving without expectation of return. And that the more you give, surely without even realizing it, the more you receive.

This Thanksgiving of 2013 I have an extremely long list of gratitude items! My beautiful family – Danny, my partner in life and business for over 20 years now, who is truly my best friend; my gorgeous 3 children, who though not perfect are very special, each in their own way and truly gifts in my life! My friends who have decided that I am their family; who have supported my business and helped me and whom I know will not ever let me fail; they are my family and my inner circle here on earth. I lean on them for encouragement and they give it! My friends who are a part of my social media life as I adore you and know that I can find you in my news feeds for a smile or some inspiration, for my wonderful home which is the best one I’ve lived in for many years thanks to one of those above mentioned “family” and my awesome Realtor, my opportunities in both of my special networks – BNI and Rotary Club of Columbia. These folks have truly surrounded me with support and caring and I am so grateful.

I am thankful for the love of my pet, Shadow, my sometimes crazy black cat. And I give thanks for those special folks who give me gentle encouragement on what I need to do everyday to continue to improve my health. Big hugs to you – yes, Shari and Maxine – this means you! lol! I am listening… most of the time!

For our totally awesome and super special clients whom I have the pleasure to work with and help – I am deeply grateful to have YOU for my clients!

May the sun shine upon your face and the world be filled with gifts of joy and peace this Thanksgiving for you and your family! Hugs!!! ~Anita (Catch up with me & my family at Facebook this year for photos of the holidays!)