Back When It All Started

I started my virtual assistant business almost 18 years ago. Back then, it was called a secretarial service business. I did a lot of transcription, targeting any business that I knew generated a lot of paper documents. At that time, there was no e-mail and no Internet as we know it today. In order for me to obtain clients, they had to be located close enough to me that I could drive to them to pick up the tapes, some of which were those large standard cassette tapes. Some people may not even know what those are, so I’ve added a picture of one. I also remember at one point when I signed up for dial-up Internet access. That was pretty exciting!

Fast Forward

I am still in awe of all the changes that have occurred since then, including the Internet, social media marketing, and even digital audio files. Some of my clients today I have never even met in person. I have to admit though, that I fell behind a little bit on all this technology. I formerly had a static website, which I didn’t really pay too much attention to since initially all my clients were local and always knew how to reach me. I’ve heard more than once over the past few years that in order to get and keep my name out there, I needed to start blogging and keep up with all the social media marketing. However, I never could really think about what to blog about. What did anyone care or need to know about transcribing recorded statements and performing mail merges?

Continuous Learning

Over the past year, I’ve been working on getting my business involved in all the social media marketing venues. I find everything about it to be an exciting challenge, although it seems to be an endless impossibility to keep on top of all of it. I think about a week ago something went off in my head and I finally knew what I wanted to blog about, which will be my ongoing experiences and challenges in keeping current with all the technology. The main focus will be learning all the ins and outs of WordPress, so this website will change frequently. I’ll also be looking into Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, ConstantContact, MailChimp, HootSuite, StumbleUpon, 1ShoppingCart, Skype, Google+, and everything else that comes along.

Send me a comment to let me know what you think. Also, join my mailing list and follow along as I experiment with widgets, plugins, colors, and pictures!

Melanie