Being a mother is often referred to as a “full-time job” and with all of the responsibilities and duties that come along with this title it is unfortunate that overtime pay is not an option. In an economy where a dual income isn’t a so much additional as it is necessary income, not everyone has the luxury of “mother” being their only occupation. Many moms out there are finding that they need to go back to work but might not quite be sure how to get back into the professional world. After all, where do job searches and interviews fit in between dropping off the kids at school and rushing them to soccer practice afterward? Luckily, for the modern women, multitasking is usually not a problem and technological advances are making it easier than over to market yourself professionally without spending too much of your precious time on those efforts. 

First, if you want to be on the job market you are going to have to put yourself out on it. The quickest way to do this is by establishing a professional online presence. These days, employers like to do a little background research on potential employees, so make sure that your professional and not personal self is what initially pops up on Google searches. There are several resources you can use to quickly establish your professional online presence, but one of the best and time-efficient ones is LinkedIn. This professional networking Web site allows users to connect with other professionals in their industry for various business purposes. By creating an account with LinkedIn you are able to create an online profile that includes information about your professional experience, educational history, and portfolio work. This is a great way to get your resume information out there without taking the time to send out a bunch of resumes to potential employers.

Having a LinkedIn profile that shows up when someone enters your name into an online search engine can also save you a lot of time in the interview process. When interviewers already have some knowledge about your work experience and educational background they can cut right past the informational part of the interview and ask the most important questions that will let them know if you are the right person for the job. This saves both of you time as you won’t be called in for any interviews you are not qualified for and the ones that you are qualified for  will likely go a lot faster.

This online tool also serves as a great way to network without having to take the time out of your busy schedule to attend job fairs, hiring events, or other social functions. LinkedIn allows you to connect with other professionals you have worked with in the past and discover the inside connections you may have that can lead to future career opportunities. It also helps you to identify industry executives and other management professionals in your field that could have the power to put you in the right position. Rather than spending hours researching companies to find out who you need to contact in order to secure an interview, you can just search for professionals in your area and invited them to look at your profile to bring attention to your credentials and generate interest in your capabilities.

By-line:

Mariana Ashley is a freelance writer who particularly enjoys writing about online college. She loves receiving reader feedback, which can be directed to mariana.ashley031 @gmail.com.

15 TIPS TO GET YOUR TIME BACK -

We are all guilty aren’t we? Ever have a full day go by and you have no idea even what time it is? Have you been online for hours already today? You have no idea even where your day has gone? Your day it’s almost over. It’s so easy to do. Many of us work online as careers. Most of your day or all day is spent typing away. If your a writer, if you write a blog, if you have a website or do something similar; much of your day is spend looking at computer all day.

How do we get our lives back from spending all day on the computer?

1) Take breaks –  for meals, bathroom breaks, phone calls and errands. Many of us don’t get up enough and move around.

2) Schedule your online time, like you do with the rest of your life. Block it off on your calendar as you would any other activity. So you clearly can see how much time you spend online. You can schedule your real life around your computer time.

3) Pick up the paper and pen again. Take a break sometimes and brain storm on paper first. You would be surprised how many new ideas will flow on paper. Sometimes you can build off of the ideas when they’re all there in an outline or  a bubble map.

4) Prioritize what has to be done first. So everyday do you really need to check your hosting account or read every email. Probably not?!

5) Minimize your life how many email accounts do you really need?

6) Hire help hire or an intern, if you need it? Have someone else check your emails and lighten up the load on you.

7) Teach your children to help you with some of your responsibilities.

Use technology find the best cellphone style for you and use it wisely.

9) Multitask, you can read your emails at your child’s soccer game.  

10)  Think about what your prioritizes are for the day, before getting online. Set short term goals with your time.

11)  Set a timer, so you don’t get carried away. Some may really need reminders to stop and move onto something else.

12) Rethink which Social Sites are working for you, which ones you can skip. Your goals for why your online should help your to decide which ones are best for you. Really think on how does it benefit you by taking the time out of your day to be on it?

13) The four letter word “SPAM” This is by far my worst nightmare. I have some tips for this LARGER than life problem. Delete often, sort if by sender and mass delete and don’t make it a priority in your life. This would be a perfect job for your new intern. Don’t you think!

14) Take a vacation sometimes from being online. Tell your friends your taking a break and give them a time frame as to when you’ll be back.

15) Put your spouse to work. Have them help you with the family emails, computer banking, etc.

We all use social media and love it, right?  We use it as a great free resource for meeting new people, advertising our products or sites  and networking with others with the same interests. Can it be harmful to you and your family, by using as much as you do?

We all love social media, how could you be overwhelmed by it? Just google social media icons, how many on the list do you recognize? What are there a hundred currently, maybe there’ll be a thousand? Counting all the ones which are currently being developed and not released yet. If I see one more new icon and not recognize it, I’ll scream. I think all the letters from A to Z, have just about been all been used for the single letter icons, right? Social media is totally overwhelming to some. I’m one who finds it a tad bit overwhelming to learn to all these sites really well. Couldn’t they at least function similarly?

It’s overwhelming for the fact there are so many. You can actually have a hard time deciding which ones to sign up for, never mind keeping up with using them reguarly. Challenging isn’t it!  I guess you need to really learn more about each, find the ones which will work for you and/or your business.  There are a few, I will not mention the names, which are much more user friendly in their design layout, for non computer people. Others are harder to use, I wish they would improve their design layout.  I just don’t understand why you  would bother to use a social media site, which is very difficult to the average person to navigate? I think we will start to see some fail, because there too many flooding the web, it seems.

Have you ever been on  a social media site till 1 or 2 AM? It’s easy to do, you really loose track of time once you get on. If  your one who is on at 2 AM, you may need to take a break. Your family will thank you for taking a social media vacation! Return to the quality family time you had before social media came about. Take your children somewhere.  Just tell everyone on your favorite social media sites ahead of time. Tell them  your taking a social media vacation for the fact your kids want to see you,  not the back of your head.

Networking Mom

Networking WAHM – Circle of Moms

By DeAnna Troupe

Online networking is an awesome way to get new clients. However, it can be difficult to handle all of the invitations and manage all of the connections. Here are some steps to help you streamline the online networking process.

1. Use templates whenever possible.
There are many tasks that you do over and over again. You send invitations, thank you notes, and updates. You can save yourself time if you create a template letter in word or notepad. This way instead of having to think of what you want to write, you can just copy and paste the letter.

2. Outsource the tasks.
You can also save yourself time in your online networking by outsourcing your online networking tasks. There are virtual assistants that specialize in contact management. Since you have created templates, you can just email these files to your virtual assistant and have her send those emails out.

3. Designate a certain amount of time to spend on online networking.
Another way to save time networking is to only allot a certain amount of time per day to network. Only do your networking tasks once or twice per day.

4. Set up a separate email account that you use just for online networking.
If you belong to a lot of online networks the amount of email messages that you get can get overwhelming. I have a different email account set up that I only use for networking. This way my invitations don’t get lost among other email messages.

Online networking is a great free way to get new clients. Use the steps I mentioned above to streamline your online networking efforts.

DeAnna Troupe is a virtual assistant. Claim your free ecourse on traffic generation today by going to http://www.deannaspencer.com/list.html

“My WAHM Space” is a great new way for women who have businesses to network with each other! Each week, registered members (registration is free) of this fantastic community get together on the web forums, live chats and other fun events designed to help women showcase their businesses and talk about the challenges of owning a business. Each member gets their very own profile page where they may include information about their business including links to their personal blogs and business website(s). Then at different times throughout the week, members can hold online chats to sell their products and they offer some great deals!

Of course, there are web discussion forums and chats where Mom’s can ask questions, talk with each other, vent if needed and find a social outlet that encourages and educates all. My WAHM Space is better than other social networking sites out there because here you can find other Mom’s who can relate to and understand the unique challenges of being both a Mom and a busy business-person. Where else can you find true friends who share the same experiences, trials and successes as you?

Not only can you share ideas with other Mom’s, but you can build a blog and use the power of the Internet to write about your life, your business and any other interests you may have. Use this tool to post pictures about yourself, the products or services you offer and how other Mom’s can benefit from learning more about you. You can add a group of favorite members and get to know them through the weekly activities available, plus save time and money in your advertising efforts. Send email reminders out to your friends and family and other members to come check out what’s new. My WAHM Space is full of opportunities to use social networking to build your business and make friends at the same time, so I encourage you to check it out today.

This network marketing tool was invented to allow companies to monitor others in the Internet who are talking about their products and services in real time. That means, if you have a company, you can set up targeting tracking of how and where people are talking about you by using Twitter. Some highly respected companies like Dell and Comcast are using Twitter to monitor Internet “chatter” to find send out responses to consumers who may be interested in what they’re doing.

Twitter tracks keywords and phrases that the companies set up and can change as needed. If you own a personal website or blog, you can use Twitter to stay connected to the people who read your blogs, family and friends who may be responding to your posts and pictures on various other social networking sites.

Firstly let’s think about social networks generally and what their aims are. The best way to think about this is that they are similar to search engines where they want to make the best content available to users. However the value of the content is determined by the popularity from its members and not from a mathematical algorithm. For examples the articles with the largest number of diggs will find themselves on the front page of Digg.com.

I hear you asking, how can this benefit my business? Well let’s think about what social networks can bring you, firstly they can bring valuable exposure and so increasing traffic to your site. They also can bring more back links to your site and so helping to improve your search engine ranking which in turn will bring more traffic to your site, which is the aim of the game.

Now I bet your thinking, how can I take advantage of these opportunities? Well it is very simple really and below are the main steps to using social networks to improve the profile of your business:

1.Research the sites you want to use. There are the obvious ones in MySpace, Facebook and Digg but there may also be some that are business specific and industry specific.

2.Once you have decided on your sites then you will need to set up a profile. Make sure this includes as much interesting information on your company as possible and includes a link back to your website.

3.Now you need to make connections. Firstly start by finding old friends from school, university and previous jobs. It is also a good idea to search for people that are interested in areas that are related to your business and try and build relationships with them.

4.Get yourself seen. A good way to do this is to go to Forums on your selected sites and join in discussions. If people are having problems that you can help with make every effort to help them, remember to include a link to your site. This will not only increase the validity of you and your business but will also increase your connections on these sites.

5.Update your profile regularly. Many social networking sites will send a notice to your friends if your profile has been updated and as people are naturally nosey many will come to see what you have done which will increase the coverage you get.

6.Send out announcements to your friends. If you have some company news or you have a special offer it might be worth letting all your friends know about it, this may bring you valuable business. Remember though be reasonable with this, if you are continually sending out notices and leaving information for friends they will rapidly become annoyed and disinterested which may undo all the hard work you have done.

Conclusion

Social networking is a vital component to any online marketing campaign and it should be included but not overused. The best thing about using social networking is that you get advertising for free so if only 1% of the people in your network use your services or buy your products you will still have an amazing return on investment. Forget the power of social networking at your peril.

If you have found this article useful then you can get more information from Dazines – search engine optimization, London UK.

Dazines – a href=”http://www.dazines.co.uk”>website design and webdevelopment company London UK

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com

Networking is something a business owner needs to do. It’s really important when you run a business solely on the internet. When you don’t have an actual store for people to come and visit, it is a little different and that’s where networking comes in to play.

Networking online is done differently than it is in a person to person, face to face event. I feel networking online is harder to do. Some people have a harder time feeling comfortable using a person online because they never talk to them over the phone or meet them face to face.

Networking online can be a little tricky. In this article you will learn some tips on how to network online successfully.

To network online you need to join networking groups. One group that I use all the time is Ryze.com. Ryze is free to join or you can pay for more options. Either way will work just fine. Ryze is full of groups that you can join that pertain to your field or business. Joining these groups and making posts is how you network.

The best way to network is to post answers to questions people ask, post your own questions and respond to those that answer, follow the daily posting guidelines and post as often as you can with regards to those guidelines, and if you write articles, post those when they fit in.

When you are a member of a network such as Ryze, you are given a page that is yours to do what you want with. I recommend you add a little about yourself and then get into your business. Make sure you give a clickable website link to your business. You can also add a button or two, but don’t get carried away.

Once you have this page in place, you are ready to visit other pages. At the bottom of each group you are apart of you will see the names of people that have recently joined that group. You can click on those to visit other pages or you can click on posts and visit the page of the people that post replies to those posts. Each page that belongs to a person that is apart of Ryze has a guestbook. One of the best ways to meet new people and find out what they are all about is to stop by and say hi in their guestbook. Do not list your business name or website. People will visit your page if they are interested in checking out what you have to offer. A lot of people will go to your page and sign your guestbook in return. You can also sign the guestbook of those that sign yours first.

When you network in person you get business cards from people. When you network online you don’t have that ability. So you make note of their site and what it is about. When you get to a point where the networking is going strong, you can ask the three questions below.

1.    What type of business do they run
2.    What type of person is an ideal customer or client
3.    How will these people benefit from their service or product

The best way to keep all of this information straight is to either create a spreadsheet or use a rolodex.

Now that you have this information, you are ready to start referring people. You do this the same way as you do in person. You can also watch the posts in the groups you are apart of. If someone is asking for a referral, go to your spreadsheet or rolodex and see if you have met someone that can help them with their need. Either send the information to the person asking directly or if you are telling the person that can help them, tell that person to tell the other person that you referred them. The other option is to tell them both.

If you continue this process on a regular basis, you will meet a lot of great people and you will start to see an increase in referrals from other people. Networking is a great thing to do, so jump in and get started today!

Corrie Petersen runs a successful Virtual Assistant and Advertising business. She also has a free advertising tips newsletter that she creates to help others. Check out her website at http://www.virtualfreedom4you.com.

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com