28 Mar 2010

9 Ideas On How & Why A Virtual Business Card?

It's fun to have a virtual business card.
As my interest grew I wanted to have a centralised place to publish and distribute all my online stuff. But I also wanted to keep special places for special things. However, my centralised online place is not necessarily the place for you. You are not interested in my dog, my cat and my family. You may want to know more about my business and marketing coaching, or my awareness coaching, even what social media tools and applications I am using. I am even busy with talks on social media and 2012. I need to make it easy to channel you to the place you prefer to go. 

This is where a virtual business card becomes indispensable:

Let me give you a list of issues and how your virtual business card can address these:

  1. Email signature. You must have a signature that's automatically added to all your outgoing emails. It should be short and sweet. But if you have a long list of things that you do then your signature can become pretty long and boring. This is where your virtual business card can and should replace your signature. The nice thing about a virtual business card is that when you make changes your email signature updates automatically.  See my email signature that I created using dooid.com:  johanhorak
  2. I have not done all yet, but I will change my about me pages and profile links on all my blogs and social media profiles to include the address to my virtual business card. This is what the address to my virtual card looks like http://www.dooid.com/johanhorak
  3. I always suggest to the people, I coach, to have a business card for all their different niches. It makes sense. You give a business card to a person depending on her likes. The problem is that you end up with 5 or more business cards depending on what you do. Problem. Instead I plan to use one business card from now on and add, as my website, the address to my virtual business card http://www.dooid.com/johanhorak.
  4. It does not matter if you only have a Facebook page or if you are still using email exclusively. Start using a virtual business card as it will create a basis for your personal brand. 
  5. If you use a virtual business card make sure you differentiate. You are different. For example, make sure you have a nice background image. "Being remarkable is everything and it can get you to the next level, it can open doors, it can make favorable impressions. Most importantly, it can help you build trust". Mike Garr
  6. A virtual business card force you to condense what you do into a few words. That's great, because you can think of it as your elevator speech.  Agree with  Mike Garr when he said, "Be authentic and let people know what YOU want them know about you." Think and discuss your profile info with someone you can trust before you publish it. 
  7. Word of mouth: Most of you will tell me that word of mouth is your most effective way of advertising. For all I care the internet can be seen as a tool to amplify word of mouth (download a free copy of Unleasing The Idea Virus by Seth Godin). "Profiles are vital for telling other users who you are, what you are like, and what you do, all without anybody actually meeting you in person ..... and a profile is the starting point for people who might be interested in spreading this word". Read more here.
  8. When creating your virtual business card, a couple of key concepts need to be factored in: content, appearance, and audience. Read more here.
  9. Having many blogs and many social media profiles it takes me forever to update and add new things and do. Integrating your virtual business card with these site makes life a lot easier. 

Johan Horak

johanhorak