As a business professional, are you thinking of hiring a virtual assistant to help you enter the world of Social Marketing? Earlier this week Mari Smith and I had an absolutely wonderful and eye-opening conversation about the relationship between a business professional and their virtual assistant when it comes to Social Media Marketing. Mari is not only a fantastic Facebook coach and guru, but she also utilizes a virtual assistant to help her with her own social marketing strategies and provides us with the business professional's point of view. Invaluable stuff here! Check out the audio of our conversation below We discussed how important it is that the virtual assistant and the business professional work together to determine what the virtual assistant will be doing for them, and what they'll be handling themself. This 2-way communication is the foundation to a successful business relationship. It's a team effort. Yes, it's true.nbsp;The business professional willnbsp;need to have a hands-on approach on certain things, which Mari and I discuss in detail during our conversation. Without both parties working together on the social marketing strategy, it is doomed to fail. Or in the least, it will not be as successful and productive as you had hoped. Another point that was so obvious during our conversation was the fact that the virtual assistant MUST have some personal experience within the various social networks. That's why, as a virtual assistant, you really need to get a bit of training and dig into them yourself. Your clients are counting on you to be their guiding light. You don't have to be an expert, just experienced. The key topics we discussed were: 1) Things a virtual assistant can definately do on behalf their client. 2) Things a virtual assistant most definately SHOULD NOT do on behalf of their client. 3) Things that COULD be done by a virtual assistant on behalf of their client, based upon the relationship between the VA and client, and how well they know them. Our conversation was so engaging, an hour went by in a flash. It took twists and turns and new ideas unfolded on-the-fly. There are many other aspects of this topic and ideas to discuss that Mari and I both agree we'll be continuing our discussion at a later date. As a Relationship Specialist, Internet Marketing Consultant, and Facebook Coach, Mari is a wealth of information and inspiration to us all on how to effectively and properly interact with each other in our internet relationships. She is a joy to speak with and a truly genuine person. You can find out more about Mari's expertise, programs, and services at: www.marismith.com www.whyfacebook.com www.facebook4pros.com Looking for a virtual assistant? Check out these resources and submit an RFP (Request for Proposal): IVAA: www.ivaa.org VANetworking: www.vanetworking.com Check out the audio of our conversation below. Andrea Andrea Kalli Virtual Trainer and Assistant, LLC www.virtualassist.net

Widgenie = Widget + Genie. Get it! Widgenie! I interviewed Scott Rutt of LogiXML about their free product, Widgenie. His demo shows us a few examples of uses, and how easy it is to work with this tool and customize it with the easy-to-adjust settings. What makes this tool stand out is that it doesn't just create widgets, but shareable widgets with data that is automatically updated when the backend data changes, no matter where the widget is located. It could be on 20 different websites and all of them would update based on the source data. Very cool! Imagine the possibilities and business applications. I can already hear your gears a-turnin' Check out the video demo. Audio only also available, if you don't want to watch it but only listen to the interview. Andrea Andrea Kalli Virtual Trainer and Assistant, LLC www.virtualassist.net Click To Play

Here's a scenario... You are offering a time-sensitive coupon or other offer to your clients and you want to send them an email all about it. For as many versions as I can remember, Outlook has provided a way to set an expiration date on your emails, both outgoing and incoming (but we're only talking about setting it for outgoing in this demo). You don't have to be on an Exchange Server to use this feature either, which is nice. Something I didn't mention in the video demo is that you can also set a reminder flag on that same outgoing email. You're doing everything possible to let your recipients know that they've got an email from you that will be expiring and they should check it out soon. Watch the video demo. Andrea Andrea Kalli Virtual Trainer and Assistant, LLC Check out our newest video course on our E-Learning Center, "Outlook 2007 Essentials", for only $24.95. Click To Play

Email. Boring. Boring ol' email. We are all guilty of delivering the same ol, same ol' text emails. Outlook 2007 has a great new feature called SmartArt. Actually, it's in the other Office 2007 products as well, not just in Outlook. It provides a way to display information in a graphical format. Very easy to use, lots of options to customize. A way cool tool for those that deliver information via email. Sound like you? Check out the video below. Andrea Kalli Andrea Kalli Virtual Trainer and Assistant, LLC Affordable on-demand training videos for Outlook, SharePoint, and much more. www.virtualassist.net/elearning Click To Play

Twitter is such a hot topic these days in the world of social marketing. I recently held a free course for my fellow virtual assistants, called "Using Twitter for Business", and recorded it through GoToMeeting. I've also just created a new HubPage called "How To Use Twitter For Business", which includes a lot of details and links to the great Twitter tools I use and others I recommend. Andrea Andrea Kalli Virtual Trainer and Assistant, LLC Check out the video below to see Twitter and some Twitter tools in action! It's nearly an hour, so it may take awhile to download. Click To Play

In honor of Flag Day, this Outlook video tip is about the new and improved flagging features of Outlook 2007. It takes your productivity to a whole new level, what with tight integration with the new

Facebook! LinkedIn! Social Bookmarking! Blogs! Podcasting! AAARRRGGG! Are you feeling the pressure of not being able to fit social marketing into your schedule? We've built a program just for you! W

since this is Part Two, I'll just repeat what I wrote in Part One... I just love this feature! This is one of the best integration features between Office 2003/Office 2007 and SharePoint. The task

I just love this feature! This is one of the best integration features between Office 2003/Office 2007 and SharePoint. The task pane is named something different in Office 2003 than it is in Office

I know, I know...it's only been a few days since my last podcast. But I just had to try out my new Aweber Blog Broadcast feature that I've connected to this blog site. If all goes well, it will replac