A few years ago blogging was all the rage, and if you were anyone online, you had to have a blog. I think the craze has settled somewhat as those useful blogs have gone from strength to strength and the bandwagon jumpers' enthusiasm has waned. I did think at the time: Yes, but what is the POINT of blogging? There's a similar argument for social networking, although I'm now beginning to see the point. We're getting 50-60 unique visitors a month being pulled in from just Twitter www.twitter.com/virtuallysorted

In a nutshell, it's about communicating with your customers on a more personal, frequent basis to build the relationship. People buy from people. And people are on those social networking sites!

After all, why do I, month after month, sit down and write our newsletter? To tell you about our products and services certainly, but also so you see the human side of what is a very virtual business in nature. I've never even met some of our clients, but they know I wear jeans to the office most days, that my boyfriend's name is Craig and that I have a mad Burmese cat - just as I know one of my clients is looking for Mr Right, that another one hates his mother in law and that there was a heatwave in Wales last week. Nothing at all to do with business, but it certainly helps build the relationship. 

So that's the "Why?" dealt with - what about the "How?" With so many social networks (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Xing, Twitter, ecademy, youtube to name but a few) how do you know that where to start and how much time it is worth investing in them?

A small admission: My Facebook page is managed by Emma as I have zero idea how it works, nor do I particularly want to spend hours trying to work it out. She also set up the Twitter account and maintains it so we get optimum exposure. And when we get a new client, I can almost guarantee that I'll know what they look like within 20 minutes, because she'll have retrieved an online picture from somewhere!

Cyber-stalking aside, social media does have a useful business application. I know a consultant who gets 90% of his work from Linked In (he's rated as a small business expert through careful profile building and interaction). And our online trafficing system, Smartsheet, even launched its newest updates through Twitter.

If you would like to build your online presence using Social Media contact emma@virtuallysorted.com

 

We've all done it - hit the "send" button and yelled "DOH!". You might have forgotten an attachment or hit "reply all" instead of just reply. If you use Outlook you can use a workaround... delaying all outgoing mails for a couple of minutes before they actually send. That gives you a bit of breathing space to capture and edit if necessary!

• In Outlook, click on Tools -> Rules and Alerts.
• Under the "E-mail Rules" tab click on "New Rule".
• Choose "Start from a blank rule" and select "Check messages after sending".
• Click the "Next" button.
• Select the condition "on this machine only" (you may have to scroll down to the bottom of the list).
• Click the "Next" button.
• Select "defer delivery by a number of minutes".
• Click "a number of" in the bottom box and change it to the length of time you want to set for delay. I use 2 minutes and find it is enough but use your own judgment here.
• Click the "Next" button.
• This screen gives you options for exclusions to the rule - just skip it by clicking the "Next" button.
• Finish the rule set up by naming the rule. "Doh-saver" is a good one!
• Be sure the box is checked to "Turn on this rule" and click "Finish".

For more formatting help, email Charlotte on info@virtuallysorted.com