10 Tasks You Should Hire a Social Media Virtual Assistant For

“Social media is about the people, not about your business! Provide for the people, and the people will provide for you.” Matt Goulart

In today’s digital world, we live and breathe social media. With 4.55B active social media platform users, you cannot overlook its power. 

However, how do you tap into this vast user base with limited resources as a newly incorporated business?

Social Media Virtual Assistants.

These people have the skill set you need and work at relatively lower prices, making them a great thing to use today. In addition, post-COVID-19, many businesses realized the importance of off-shore or remote employment. So if you want to have such flexibility, or have a second job as a virtual assistant, then here’s how you can go about it. 

What is a Virtual Assistant for Social Media?

A virtual assistant is an off-shore employee who works remotely for you in crude terms. For example, a social media virtual assistant is responsible for conducting tasks related to social media for your business. The only difference is that a virtual assistant is not paid like a full-time employee and does not enjoy the same benefits that a full-time employee of your company does. Since they are paid only for the number of hours they dedicate to your business, they are paid on a pro-rata basis only. No vacations or off-days are payable.

Top 3 Benefits of a Virtual Assistant

Aside from having the obvious benefit of having a person taking care of the social media for your business without everyday meddling, virtual assistants also have other benefits. The biggest ones are:

1. Increases Your Business Efficiency

For a business, the product or its services matter the most. If they spend time marketing the services on social media and do not work to improve them to benefit the customer, all the efforts are in vain. Furthermore, the time spent doing mundane tasks that they don’t have expertise in will cause a downfall in all aspects of the business. 

Hence, using a virtual social media assistant helps increase the company’s overall efficiency as they take care of all the social media tasks and even draw up plans on how to improve the brand’s presence online in the right way. 

2. Minimize Hiring And Training Costs

Social media virtual assistants are usually trained people offering their services to people for an hourly rate. This means they are paid only for the number of hours they are dedicating to your business within the designated period. 

Therefore, the hourly pay rate for a trained professional is usually quite affordable compared to a full-time employee who has to be trained on the job. Furthermore, you can make it more affordable by outsourcing the work to virtual assistants from countries like the Philippines or India, where the hourly rates are much lower.

3. Free Up Your Time

According to a survey conducted by BIC Agency, 63% of business owners spend 1-5 hours on social media, while some spend more than 20 hours on it. With a social media virtual assistant, you can use those hours to make your products or services better. This can help boost productivity both for you and your employees who have to dedicate time out of their daily tasks to devote to social media.

Top 10 Tasks for a Social Media Virtual Assistant

Now that you are well aware of the benefits of a social media virtual assistant, you should know how to use their skills properly. The top 10 tasks that a social media virtual assistant can do for your business are:

1. Help develop a social media strategy

A social media strategy is a must for any brand to appeal to prospective users. Besides the product itself, they need to see the value through every channel that comes out of your business. Hence, a virtual assistant can be tasked to build a social media strategy that resonates with your business practices and your product segmentation. 

2. Set up and organize your social media presence

Once they have set up a social media strategy, it is time to register on those social media platforms to reach your prospective user base. For this, a virtual assistant comes in handy since they are well versed with what channels to use, what bio to provide to gain traction, and how to segment your social media presence. 

3. Research and Create Content

Social media is all about creating value-driven content for the users to consume. For this, deep research is required to understand a user’s intent to use your product. The content can then cater to answering those questions and probable queries. A virtual assistant is perfect for doing this since they have developed their skills in this domain. 

4. Create a content calendar and schedule and manage posts

Instead of haphazardly posting the same thing on several social media channels, a virtual assistant can draw up a content calendar and use a scheduling tool to get work done more efficiently. They can even manage which posts are going on which platform and maximize the reach and engagement.

5. Find and edit images for social media posts

Sometimes, images work much better than captions or posts ever do. For this purpose, a social media virtual assistant can find and edit photos as per your brand identity to resonate with your follower base.

6. Curate posts from other blogs and social media channels

Social media is not just about tooting your own horn but also about commenting others. In this regard, many businesses are skeptical since they are scared that their customers might leave them for the competitors that their business applauds. 

However, when you do that, you are showing your customers that you are open to appreciating the efforts of others, open to healthy competition, and are more human. This trait alone can drive more business towards you. A social media virtual assistant can look out for such posts and publish them on your channels to make you seem like the bigger man.

7. Publish blog posts

Blog posts on business niche-specific topics are another way of garnering audiences. While you or your staff may not be fully available for such tasks, a social media virtual assistant definitely would be. They can write blog posts on topics around your business practices or other parts that can help drive conversions. 

8. Write copy for social media posts

A good copy can get great sales. However, you seldom find a good copy on social media posts. Expecting that from an amateur social media professional may not be the best bet. A social media virtual assistant is meant for doing these tasks. With the experience, they should be able to convert business goals into saleable copy for social media posts. 

9. Monitor conversations, comments, and engagements

Social media is all about developing a rapport with your audience. However, you cannot do that if you have a robotic presence of only posting and never responding. Social media conversations, engagements, and comments can all be handled with a virtual assistant.

You can give them a brief about the type of answers they should provide for FAQs and what is needed for other conversions. This helps drive conversions at a staggering rate if the brand is susceptible and empathetic towards their customers’ needs. 

10. Generate reports

One of the most important tasks of a social media virtual assistant is generating reports after a fixed interval about the channel they are handling. A virtual assistant generates insightful reports about campaigns and posts on various social media platforms. 

Conclusion: Is a Social Media Virtual Assistant Worth It?

Absolutely! With the hybrid working model becoming the new normal and remote working the new way of working, outsourcing your social media tasks to a virtual assistant can be the hidden weapon in your arsenal. It is reasonably inexpensive, easy to train, and reliable to get all social media work done. 

Additionally, you also minimize your costs for hiring and training and get more bang for the buck you spend, which makes it an excellent asset for any business.

Find a Virtual Assistant

ClearDesk – one of our top-rated VA companies, may the right fit for you!

For a more budget friendly option, check out Remote CoWorker and Virtual Latinos.

Top Rated Virtual Assistant Companies, schedule a consultation call to discuss your needs and take a look at the Become a Virtual Assistant or Virtual Assistant Job pages for opportunities!

Author: Bhavik Soni is a Creative Writer at Auto Monkey. We provide an original analysis of the latest happenings in the social media industry. Connect with Latest Social Media Trends and News plus tips on Twitter, Facebook and other social tools on the web.