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Business tips: How to use Word templates, PDFs and BCC properly
In this article I want to talk about a few business tips that everyone should know but I’m constantly amazed that so few do.
Firstly Word Templates, if you’re a small business owner or freelancer then you will undoubtedly be sending out the same documents on a regular basis, quotes and invoices for instance, well you could save yourself a whole lot of time if you create a proper Word Template for each one. A template in word processing terms is a document with some settings already in place.
When you first open Microsoft Word it gives you a new document. This document is an in-built template. Well you can also create your own Custom Templates which have all your styles and settings saved, the important things to note are when you save as a template your file will have a .dotx extension name and you should not save them with your documents but in their own folder. It’s important to keep them separately, you will probably already have a ‘Templates’ folder on your computer and if you keep all your templates together they won’t become corrupted. Now the joy of having all your templates at hand is when you open Word and click on ‘New’ you can select the template you wish to use, you can also insert a date that automatically updates and a table that totals amounts for you, just like an excel file. I really advise spending some time setting up your templates properly or get red desk to do it for you.
Another important point about invoices is once created you should really be saving the file as a PDF and sending your customer a .pdf not a word file. A .pdf file cannot be altered so you know the document you’ve sent cannot be changed. This is also very important if sending your C.V., if you send it as a .pdf you know all your formatting is not going to jump around the page when read by the recipient.
Finally on a slightly different note, I cannot believe how many people do not know about the BCC line on email address bar. The amount of emails I get where there are hundreds of email addresses that I have to scroll through before I get down to the message. If you add all your email addresses into the BCC ‘Blind Carbon Copy’ then the recipients cannot see everyone else’s addresses.
If you need help with any of the functions detailed above then email me at lindsay@reddesk.co.uk
Find me on Twitter @reddeskVA
Find me on Facebook Red Desk VA
What is a Social Media Dashboard?
A social media dashboard allows you to view all your social networks on one page and to post to all of them simultaneously, beyond this basic function there are other features that can help you make the most of your social media.
I’ve concentrated on 3 of the most popular dashboards, HootSuite, SocialOmph & TweetDeck.
All of these dashboards offer a free basic account which will give you the main functions you need i.e. ‘Keyword Search’,’ Direct Messages’, ‘Scheduling Tweets’, ‘Tracking Mentions’, ‘Retweets’ and ‘Replys’. Once you have been operating your social networks for a while you’ll begin to get a feel for which of these functions are really useful to you and this will determine the programme you favour.
For me the column based interface of HootSuite & TweetDeck is very user friendly. You can select the columns you wish to see such as ‘Homefeed’, ‘Mentions’, ‘Direct Messages’ & place them in the order you choose across the page. You can also have columns for your lists i.e. those you follow closely and then a second column for those you just like to keep an eye on and you can create columns for your ‘Keyword’ searches which is very useful.
The layout of SocialOomph I find much more confusing than the other two, but once you’ve become familiar with it there are some great features such as ‘Saving & Revising Drafts’ and ‘Extended Twitter Profile’ and if you upgrade to the Pro account you get the brilliant tool of ‘Automated Direct Messages’ this allows you to automatically welcome new followers, this is a brilliant tool especially as you begin to grow your followers and you just don’t have the time to reply to each one. There are some that would choose SocialOomph above the others simply for this function.
The other feature that becomes increasing important as you grow your social media is ‘Analytics’ I love HootSuite’s reporting system, it is very simple to set up and you can have a weekly report emailed to you containing the statistics that you select.
This is a basic overview to help you on your way and as I’ve said before, start small with your social media and grow it gradually learning as you go.
If you need help with your social media email me at lindsay@reddesk.co.uk
Find me on Twitter @reddeskVA
Find me on Facebook Red Desk VA
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