Virtual Employee Blogs

The success of an online marketing strategy is hugely dependent on the content used in it. The quality of blogs, articles and social media posts etc. determine whether the audience takes a liking to what they are being shown or turn it down. Hence, there are certain actionable writing tips that can be immensely helpful to improve one’s online marketing strategy, in order to achieve desirable results.

Plan, Draft and Edit

You write for your reader. Hence, even before you get started, you need to identify your audience well. Once that has been done, you must spend at least 50 percent of your time planning a business document, the document having all the details as to how you plan to proceed with things. Next comes drafting the document, which should not take more than 20 percent of your total time finally followed by editing, which will consume the remaining 30 percent of your time. This is how things must be done. If you feel you are good at doing this, then waste no time in doing it. If you feel you are not, then you must not think twice and hire the best content writers for the job.

Shorter Paragraphs Work Better

The best way to make content work online is by keeping paragraphs not longer than seven lines. Headings help organize the content and using bullets to highlight important points makes it easy for the readers to scan the content. Also, you must never start your sentences with words such as “There Is” or “There Are”. Always cut to the chase. This is one of the best content writing tips to improve online marketing. You must write and publish what the reader is most comfortable reading and not have your own say in it.

Avoid Jargons, Exclusionary Words and One-Sentence Paragraphs

People working in the same organizations parrot each other with phrases all the time. These must never be used in the content that becomes part of your online marketing strategy. Your colleagues may understand them, your readers will not. It will leave them confused and they will be put off. Neutral job titles will work better than gender specific ones. An example of this will be Chairperson, not Chairman or Chairwoman. Moreover, it is important to own your work rather than using phrases like “I Suggest” and “I Wonder”. Rather say “I Recommend”.

Active Voice Is Better Than Passive

Always write in the form of “I did this” instead of writing like “This was done by me”. “I love this dog” sounds far better than “This dog is loved by me”. The benefit of using active voice over passive voice is that you create a faster-moving narrative. This makes for easier writing and more engaging reading. This is exactly what you want in your online marketing strategy as well. Additionally, usage of active voice cleans up the sentence. It helps prevent grammatical mistakes. Sentences written in active voice have energy and directness. It has a very strong impact. Active voice ensures that the reader keeps on reading without halting anywhere. This is again one of the most useful content writing tips to improve online marketing.

Correct Punctuation is foremost important

Read this. A woman without her man is nothing. A woman: without her, man is nothing. See what a colon or comma does to a sentence. It changes the meaning completely. The first sentence emphasizes that a woman needs a man to have an identity in society. The same sentence written using punctuation reverses its meaning. Hence when you write content that will be part of your online marketing strategy, you need to be utmost careful about the meaning you are trying to convey and use the right punctuation at all the right places. Not doing this will weaken the impact of your content and not bring you desirable results. For this, you may want to hire the best content writers.

Find an Editor

An editor is an editor. He can do what a writer can fail at, that is identifying the smallest of mistakes in the content structure and fixing them to make the entire thing more readable. The job of the editor is to critique the work done by the editor and in the process help write even better. If you want your content to work with your target audience, it is highly recommended that you find someone good at editing your stuff so that it actually has a very strong impact on your reader base.

When the world is moving towards offshoring for effective business management within your budget, what is your excuse? Your inhibitions in the way to hire a virtual assistant can hold you down against the opportunity to access infinite benefits of having a virtual work platform. Out of virtual assistants available from several other countries in the market, Indian virtual assistants have been ranking on top of the charts due to their proven skills and exemplary professionalism. So, if you are also thinking of starting up a new company and want to keep operational costs down, hiring virtual assistants can be an ideal option. But remember that if you fail to establish a dependable working relationship with your virtual assistants, you will not be able to make the best of their skills, experience and workmanship. This situation can be easily curbed by acquiring some basic management skills, with which, you will be able to maximize the output from your virtual assistants and also make them feel an essential and motivated part of the family. Let’s go through some of the basic ideas to put your virtual assistants on the right road!

Never hire before interviewing

Hiring a virtual assistant is more or less same as welcoming another team member into your office. As there are a lot of outsourcing services providers out there, opting for the best must involve initial screening or interview. While interviewing prospective virtual assistants, do not forget to check whether they are comfortable with English as this gap can lead to plenty of blunders ahead. Then, you must screen their resumes to have a clear idea about their educational and professional background. In fact, you can request for their work samples or give them a mock assignment to see how well can they perform. Bring them on board, only when you are fully satisfied with their capacities and work ethics.

Always provide clear instructions

As your virtual assistants will be sitting far away and not in your own office, there can arise situations where they misinterpret tasks at hand. To avoid such circumstances, you must ensure that instructions about the task at hand are clearly communicated to the remote team. While at it, also check how much time your virtual assistants are taking to complete every project and also if it matches the universal professional standards. When you hire a virtual assistant, doing things transparently will not only lead to better resource utilization, but will also increase their productivity.

Foster an environment to learn

Adding up to your virtual assistants’ knowledge bank of cross-functional skills and certifications is always going to act as a sturdy back support for effective business management. Therefore, you must try to assign them creative assignments so that they can learn and grow. For instance, if you ask them about their suggestions on enhancing the work process, not only will they feel closer to the team, but this will also motivate them to go above and beyond their KRAs (Key Responsibility Areas). To further strengthen the bond with your Indian virtual assistants, you can also ask them what they want to learn and try to provide them the desired opportunities.

Working with experienced Indian virtual assistants can simply transform the way your business is progressing. By paying a little attention to the points mentioned above, you can utilize their abilities most advantageously and as soon as the process is set in place, attributes like work organization, time management and meeting deadlines will be easy to achieve. So much so, that monitoring them 24x7 will not be required for ensuring that right work with right quality is delivered at the right time. Thus, whenever you decide to hire a virtual assistant, note that with a little watchfulness and some amends here and there, you can reap the benefits of offshoring like cost effectiveness and the freedom to scale up and down, as and when you wish to.

Finding a perfect graphic designer or a team of designers who are skilled, experienced, and have a professional outlook toward workflows and deadlines no doubt becomes challenging at times. In case you are looking for someone who can see things from your vantage point or has the ability to quickly come on the same page as you are, you are indeed making your task more difficult.

However, the efforts that finding a creative designer requires should not discourage you from making the required endeavors. This is because the success of any business in today's digital world hinges on impeccable, enticing, and eye-catching designs that last long in the minds of the targeted users.

Because it's cost-effective, many try to find a graphic designer online, someone who would work remotely, rather than sit with you in your own office. Yet, the challenges in hiring a good resource are many.

This article is about 6 practical tips that will help you hire the right graphic designers who will fulfill your requirements, that too without fretting.

Let's get down to the brass tacks:

Tip #1 – Be Absolutely Clear About What You Need
"Graphic Designer" is too broad a term as it incorporates everyone including logo designers, web designers, UX designers, multimedia animators, brochure designers, and more. Hence, unless you are absolutely clear about the type of graphic designing you want from your resource, it becomes very tricky to find that perfect candidate.

Once you are sure you primarily want your resource to design logos for you or create captivating image designs for your social media marketing, look out for experts in this area. In case you need someone who is good at everything, find a flexible designer with considerable experience in every field.

Tip #2 – Always Consider Your Budget
It is true that designing is an expensive domain. But who said you only have to hire the best of the best or a regular employee who you need to pay every month?
Globalization and technological advancement have opened the door for remote employees, who besides being cost-effective, spare you the trouble of managing a full-time employee sitting in your office.

You can anytime outsource your designing work to some of the best graphic design services companies in India and get it done professionally, albeit at a significantly cheaper price.

Tip #3 – Go Through Their Earlier Works
Graphic designing is a field where a face–to-face interview will never be sufficient to judge the true worth of a resource. This is because a person may be shy or a bit diffident in expressing themselves verbally, but they may be a completely different individual when left in their own environment with their machine and allowed to let their ideas pour out freely.

Hence, it is important to consider their previous works, which will help you gain an idea of their designing style and approach to work.

Tip #4 – Cleverly Familiarize Yourself With Their Professionalism
Coming to terms with a designer's professionalism becomes more important in case you hire a remote employee compared to employing one in-house. This is because those working remotely generally have their fingers in many pies at a given point of time and it is likely they may not honor your deadlines or fail to complete your project as expected.
Hence, it is important to take into consideration their level of professionalism, right from the time you get in touch with them till the time you finalize the contract.

Tip #5 – Keep Everything Documented
It might be tempting to steer clear of unnecessary paperwork and get started straightaway. However, the benefits of avoiding signing a legal contract fall way short of the disadvantages.

In case of remote employees in particular, signing a contract binds them and forces them to deliver on time. If there is no contract, there would be no pressure on the designer and your work might suffer big time.

Hence, always get a contract documented and signed and do not let minor benefits become major hurdles in future.

Tip #6 – NDA (Non- Disclosure Agreement) a Must
One of the biggest risks generally associated with remote employees is confidentiality. Since they do not work dedicatedly for you, it is likely they may be working for your competitors as well. In such a case, if you share confidential information about your future plans and strategies, you stand the risk of having it leaked to those who certainly should not have access to the same.

Non-Disclosure Agreement comes in handy in such cases as it puts the onus of keeping all the information safe on the designer and ensures your competitors do not gain an edge over you.

If you are trying to find a graphic designer online, in other words, a remote employee or even an in-house one, following the above tips will ensure you end up getting the most perfect resource that will be an asset for you and not a liability.