Thursday, June 24, 2010

How to write a blog post with screenshots

by Sarah Santacroce

When writing my last post about Yahoo update changes, I realized that it would be way easier to explain the changes that Yahoo recently implemented by having some kind of visual support for my readers. As the old saying goes: “A picture is worth a thousand words”. Basically whenever you write a “how to” post, I think a screenshot of the different steps to follow will simplify your instructions and grab your reader’s attention.

The best screen shot tool I found is called Aviary. Aviary is a FREE Firefox extension that is installed in a couple of clicks. It then gives you the choice of either:

- capturing only a certain region of a page
- capturing the visible portion of a page
- or capturing the entire page

Once you made your selection you can easily save it to your desktop as a .png file. Choose a customized title for your image, this will help you with your SEO. 

Simplicity Admin Solutions Blog Screenshot

When using screen shots or any other picture on your blogs, make sure you also take advantage of the ALT attribute, using your main keywords.  One of my favorite bloggers who uses frequent screenshots is Ching Ya and her blog Social @ Blogging Tracker. Check out this post on “How to import Twitter Favorites to Facebook Page” and see for yourself how she engages her readers with a very interactive and colorful article :-)

Now it’s your turn! Do you know about an other great screen capturing tool that you want to share in the comments ?

 

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Friday, June 18, 2010

Understanding Yahoo!’s recent update changes

by Sarah Santacroce

A friend of mine recently kindly informed me that her Yahoo e-mail homepage was getting swamped with my updates. She didn’t exactly know where all these updates were coming from and neither did I, because I was sure I didn’t send her any e-mails. So I decided to investigate. Here is what I found out:

A couple of weeks ago, Yahoo expanded their “Updates” section and now also acts as a Social Media aggregator. What does that mean? It means that when you login to your Yahoo homepage, you now see your “friends” Yahoo status updates as well as updates on third party services (such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Stumble Upon etc.) that they have added to their Yahoo profile. Before, both parties had to “agree to be friends”, but in the new version the mutual follow is no longer a requirement.

So, to get back to my story: my friend received an update for each single tweet (and I tweet a lot!), each status update on Facebook and every blog post I published! Obviously she was slightly bothered by my invasion of her Yahoo account! And I’m so glad she told me so I could solve this issue! In order to avoid this situation for you, I decided to write this blog post and show you in 3 simple steps what to do:

Step 1 – Update your profile
While you’re at it, you might as well update your profile. Go to http://pulse.yahoo.com/, click on Profile and hit “Edit”

Step 2 – Manage your Settings
Go to http://pulse.yahoo.com/y/settings and you’ll find the following screen. From there you can update your Privacy settings, your Updates, your linked Accounts and your Notifications.

Yahoo Manage Settings

Step 3 – Manage your Updates
If you click on “Updates” you’ll see the following screen:

Yahoo Manage Updates

On this screen you will have to choose, which updates you want to share with your friends. If you are on Twitter, I recommend you don’t share your tweets, because you will end up swamping your friends’ homepage like I did. I decided to share my Blog posts, my Stumble Upon bookmarks and my Yahoo status updates. Up to you, which notifications you want to share…

I hope you found this post useful. Let me know your thoughts on Yahoo’s update changes…

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Thursday, June 10, 2010

2 x 10 things (a personal post)

by Sarah Santacroce

If you read my blog on a regular basis (if you don’t, consider subscribing to my RSS :-) you know that I’m moving back to Europe at the end of the month. In an earlier post I wrote about the professional implications of this big move: what it means to be a Virtual Assistant in Europe. This time I’d like to share some more personal reflections, looking back at those 3.5 years living in California. While waiting to pick up my older son from school (the younger one was sleeping in the back of the car), I came up with this list of 2 x 10 things: the first list summarizes the 10 Top things I’ll miss most about our life in California and in the second list I put down the 10 things I look most forward to when thinking about going back to Europe.

They are not in order of importance!

10 things I’ll miss the most :

  1. Sunshine !
  2. Avocados
  3. The Beach
  4. Convenience of shopping whenever I feel like it
  5. Friendliness and positive attitude of people
  6. Our community pool
  7. Eat out without spending a fortune
  8. Mexican food
  9. Calling people by their first name
  10. Did I mention the sun?

Sarah Santacroce, bilingual Virtual Assistant

10 things I look most forward to:

  1. Family and friends
  2. Mountains
  3. Grocery store and school within walking distance
  4. Home made food at dinner parties
  5. Clean air
  6. Different types of music on the radio, not just English!
  7. Weekends in Paris, Florence, Barcelona…
  8. Long summer nights (in California it get’s dark at 8 even in July)
  9. The feeling of fitting in, being home
  10. Good looking guys (sorry, Americans are just not my type :-)

view from Sarah Santacroce's office in Switzerland

There you have it :-) Feel free to comment if you agree or disagree with my list :-)

Friday, June 4, 2010

Getting to know your future Virtual Assistant

by Sarah Santacroce

A couple of weeks ago, Christine Bearse, a fellow VA and champion for the advancement of the Virtual Assistant industry, asked me a couple of questions about myself and my business and posted the interview on her blog, VAProfiles. When choosing an assistant in the “real” world, you get to meet her in person, see her style, hear her voice and discover her hobbies. In the virtual world we have to work a little harder at getting to know the human being behind the gravitar. So Christine decided to start this blog to profile VAs with a bigger focus on their styles and personalities rather than on their rates and services. So in case you are looking for a Virtual Assistant, VAProfiles is a good way to start. Browse away and get to know your future VA.

Here’s an extract of my interview:

Sarah Santacroce, bilingual Virtual Assistant Switzerland

When I first “met” Sarah, she was living in California. Since then she has moved back to Switzerland where she has taken her VA business with her! Another great benefit of running a virtual office. Sarah Santacroce is the sole proprietor of Simplicity Admin Solutions. One of her unique talents is her ability to work in three languages (French, German and English). Her niche is multi-lingual assistance such as translations (English to German or French and vice versa) and internet marketing for small businesses or individual entrepreneurs. I asked her some questions about herself and her business, please see what she told me. Also be sure to check out her blog, I found lots of great information there.

Why did you become a VA?

I loved the idea of more flexibility, being able to be available part time for my kids, choosing the people I get to work with and just running my own business.

How do you prefer to communicate with clients? Phone, email, chat, combo?

I like to work with Skype and e-mail.

How do you stay organized? Do you have any organization tips?

I’m all about lists: to-do lists, task lists, priority lists, grocery lists…

How would your friends describe you?

Positive, good listener, usually in a good mood, very Swiss (meaning: on time, reliable, organized, picky about her chocolate)

How would your clients describe you?

Efficient, innovative, always finding better and faster ways

How do you feel about social media?

A must for small businesses! Social media offers small businesses so many free marketing opportunities which didn’t exist before. I’m thinking of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. It would be a pity if a business with a small marketing budget didn’t take advantage of them! Of course Social Media requires quite some time, so sometimes it makes sense to outsource these tasks to a Virtual Assistant.

To read the rest of the interview, click here.


Christine, thanks again for this great opportunity !
If you are a Virtual Assistant and would like to be get a profile on Christine’s website, please contact her through the e-mail on her site.


Related items:
- Find out more about Sarah Santacroce
- Why rocks? - Explaining my logo
- Learn German on Twitter – Find out why I’m posting one German word per day on Twitter
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