Ultimate guide to social media virtual assistants (tools + tips)

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Tired of spending countless hours on social media to increase brand recognition?

Building a social media presence can seem like a difficult task. And if not done right, you’ll be wasting time and other resources on it instead of growing your company!

Instead, why not hire a social media virtual assistant to do all this for you?
They have the skills and expertise to help you conquer social media websites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook quickly!

In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about social media virtual assistants. We’ll highlight why you need them, what tasks you can assign to them and how to manage them efficiently.

This article contains:

(Click on the links below to jump to a specific section)

• What Is A Social Media Virtual Assistant?
• Three Key Benefits Of Hiring A Social Media Virtual Assistant
• What Tasks Can Social Media Virtual Assistants Do?
• How To Hire A Social Media Virtual Assistant
• How To Manage Your Social Media Virtual Assistant

Let’s get started.

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What is a social media virtual assistant?

Social media virtual assistants do everything a social media manager does — except they work from a remote location. They take care of these time-intensive social media tasks so that you can focus on your core business activities.

These tasks include:

• Creating social media profiles
• Interacting with audiences on different social media channels
• Curating content and images for your posts
• Creating and managing your social media campaigns

Before we dive into why you need a social media virtual assistant, we’ll answer some basic questions most business owners have:

Why not do the job by myself?

Do you want to spend most of your work hours on mundane social media tasks and ignore the real needs of your growing business?

Let somebody else do that tedious work while you focus on core business aspects that actually need your help!

Is it expensive to hire a social media virtual assistant?

Not at all! It is a very cost-effective decision because you usually only pay them for the work they do.

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Three key benefits of hiring a social media virtual assistant

Let’s look at three key ways a social media virtual assistant can help your business:

1. Increases your business efficiency

It’s no secret that the time spent on a business’ core activities fuels its growth. Business owners should focus on these tasks instead of wasting their resources on non-core tasks, like social media.

For example, if you’re a software development company, you can’t just spend 2 hours a day on LinkedIn as it’ll result in you spending less time on product development, which is your main focus!

Instead, just hire a social media assistant to perform those non-core tasks, like:

• Replying to comments
• Researching hashtags
• Creating relevant content
• Optimizing your Facebook posts
• Sending follow-up messages

While these are essential tasks, they’re time-consuming.

If not outsourced, they will take away the crucial time your business needs to grow.

2. Minimize hiring and training costs

We all know that hiring is an expensive task!

It takes a ton of money and time for screening, interviewing and recruiting candidates. On top of that, you may also have to train them for the job.

Instead of hiring full-time employees and then training them for the job, why not hire a social media VA?

But is it easy to hire one?

Recruiting a virtual assistant is as easy as ordering a product on Amazon!

But the value doesn’t end there.

Here is how a social media assistant can save you money:

A. Lower salaries

Hiring full-time employees will usually cost you way more than hiring the best virtual assistants.

Why?

• As virtual assistants usually charge hourly rates for their work, you only need to pay them for the work they do.
• If you are on a tight budget, you can always outsource virtual assistants from countries (e.g., Philippines) where the hourly rates are much more affordable.

B. Minimal training costs

Social media assistants specialize in what they do and often have years of experience with social media management and social media audit. As this is what they do for a living, they can take care of your work with little to no training at all!

3. Free up your time

Most small business owners spend most of their time managing their company’s social media profiles.

That could force you to spend almost all your time on your business – which isn’t necessarily a good thing.

Why?

Keeping some time for yourself is proven to boost productivity, and it is good for you in the long run.

So how does a social media virtual assistant help?

Let them handle all those repetitive time killing tasks. Chances are, they’ll do it much faster than you because of their experience.

So you can lay back and enjoy your free time instead of dealing with Facebook groups, browsing LinkedIn, creating social media posts or replying to your tweets 24/7.

It’s a win-win situation!

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What tasks can social media virtual assistants do?

Let’s answer the burning question now:

What exactly can you assign to a social media assistant?

Short answer: they can do anything that has to do with social media management!

Here is a close look at some important tasks social media virtual assistants can handle:

A. Develop an effective social media strategy

The first step to building an online presence starts with an effective social media strategy.

Social media virtual assistants have tons of experience handling different social media accounts for various clients.

Even if you already have a social media marketing strategy, they can pitch new ideas and give you practical insights into the social media world.

For example, let’s say you’re spending a lot of money on Facebook ad campaigns. But your virtual assistant might find group posting to be more cost-effective from practical experience.

You change your strategy according to their feedback, and your model becomes more cost-effective in the long run!

B. Grow your social media presence

An established social media presence generates tons of brand recognition.

However, running effective social media campaigns to grow your social media presence is no easy task.

A social media VA can help you:

• Reach out to a lot of people through your posts
• Make your pages look attractive
• Know what’s trending on Google and social media platforms
• Coordinate with influencers
• Keep everything up-to-date

• Manage multiple social media accounts using social media management tools.

As your social media VA handles all of this, you get all the benefits with little to no effort from your side!

C. Create social media content

Any social media campaign needs relevant content that appeals to your target audience.

Why?

“Content is why your customers are on various social channels in the first place. They want to see something engaging and relevant to their interests!” – claims Eveline Krastyu, Head of Content at Fresh Essays.

A social media virtual assistant will help you create compelling social media content that your audiences will love. From copywriting content to scheduling posts on your social platforms using tools like Hootsuite or Buffer – they’ll take care of it all.

D. Monitor and engage in conversations

Social media doesn’t end with just creating and sharing content.

Social networking sites are a two-way communication channel — business owners get to communicate with their target audience and vice-versa.

When a post reaches a lot of people, it also receives a lot of comments!
And it’s essential to engage with these messages.

Why?

This is a very effective way to build a relationship with your audience and show them that you care about their views and opinions.

But the problem is that this takes up a lot of time.

Imagine responding to hundreds of comments for each post!

Social media virtual assistants can help you with that!

They’ll be able to:

• Reply to every message in the company’s inbox
• Answer questions in the comment sections
• Deal with negative comments
• Manage your giveaways and other social media promos

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How to hire a social media virtual assistant

You now know why you need social media virtual assistant services.

But how do you hire them?

You can hire social media VAs in two ways:

• Hire a virtual assistant through an agency
• Hire an individual virtual assistant

Here’s a closer look at each method:

A. Hiring from a virtual assistant agency

If you are a business owner who has never hired a virtual assistant before, this should be the way to go.

Why?

• You get full support from the agency in case of a problem
• They perform thorough quality checks for all the virtual assistants in their agency
• Some even offer a replacement guarantee in case it doesn’t work out with a VA

Here’s a look at some of the best agencies to hire social media VA:

1. WoodBows

WoodBows is the most reliable reputed company for social media virtual assistants. Their virtual assistants have been managing most of the successful companies’ social media accounts. They have virtual assistants based in the USA, the Philippines and India so business owners can choose the VAs based on their budget and requirements

2. Serve Team

The Serve team provides social media VAs that has ample experience in managing social media accounts. They have managed accounts of plenty of their clients. Many influencers have chosen them to manage their accounts. And have seen a considerable amount of growth in their followers. Clients can choose social media VA according to their budget.

3. The Teams Hub

TheTeamsHub provides all kinds of virtual assistance including social media VAs. These assistants are responsible for managing different social media accounts for their clients. The clients of TheTeamsHub use their services to analyze their competitors and strategize campaigns that will result in more followers. TheTeamsHub provides social media VAs to clients from different industries and countries.

4. Connect Center

Connect Center is a premium virtual assistant service provider. They have been recognized by the various esteemed portals for their quality services. Connect Center’s VAs have commendable skills and years of experience. If you are looking for a company to provide you with an excellent social media VA who can manage your accounts and generate leads. Connect Center would be the best choice.

5. Premium Help

Premium help has over 10+ years of experience in providing virtual assistants. And all of their assistants have decade-long experience. Their social media VAs are no exception. They can manage different accounts, post on them regularly, and with effective engagement, help in increasing followers. They also conduct research to provide suggestions and sometimes edit content to make it more appealing.

6.Task Bullet

Task Bullet is best suited for small businesses that need social media VAs. It is a reliable agency for business owners looking to outsource their social media management to countries like the Philippines.

7. Zirtual

Zirtual is a US-based virtual assistant company that caters to small teams and entrepreneurs. It provides skilled social media VAs who have experience with platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and more.

8. UassistME

UassistME is a business process outsourcing company with more than 10 years of experience helping small and medium companies focus on their core activities and delegating the rest. It provides creative social media virtual assistants that can help you manage and grow your social media business profiles.

B. Hiring an individual virtual assistant

This option is best suited for business owners who already have prior experience with hiring virtual assistants.

Why?

• It requires some experience to pick the right virtual assistants from the plethora of available options
• A freelancer network or marketplace won’t usually give you any guarantee or support in case something goes wrong

Let’s look at the top freelancer websites for hiring social media virtual assistants:

1. Upwork

Upwork is a popular website to find experienced freelancers. While you can hire social media VAs from Upwork, you can also find skilled freelance bloggers, real estate VAs, SEO experts and more.

2. Fiverr

Fiverr is a popular freelance marketplace where you can find social media virtual assistants of varying experience levels. They offer a wide range of services like digital marketing, social media management and more.

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How to manage your social media virtual assistant

The problem with virtual assistants is that they work remotely.

As they’re not in the same office as you are, you might struggle to:

• Communicate with them properly
• Monitor their productivity
• Ensure that they are focused on their tasks

Luckily, remote tools can help you overcome most of these challenges.

Here’s a quick look at the ones you should use:

1. Communication tools

Your social media VA might be on the other side of the world.

So how do you communicate effectively?

With communication tools!

These tools help you convey project requirements, share files and even hold meetings with your virtual assistants.

You should use:

A. Messaging tools

For effective business communication with your VAs, use online tools like Slack or Fleep.

They offer:

• Dedicated communication channels for projects
• File sharing features
• Support for quick one-on-one audio/video calls

B. Video-calling tools

Using videos is a much quicker and more effective way of explaining things in detail.

So what tools do you need to video call your social media VA?

Zoom or Skype are great tools that let you:

• Share your screen for better explanations
• Host team meetings or reviews
• Record video sessions for future reference

2. Employee monitoring tools

How do I know that my social media VA is working on my project and not wasting time watching Netflix?

When you’re dealing with remote workers, it can be hard to monitor their work and ensure that they’re productive.

Luckily, all you need for this is an employee monitoring tool like Time Doctor!

What’s Time Doctor?

Time Doctor is a powerful tool that’s used for monitoring employees by large companies like PwC and Apple as well as SMBs like Firehouse Subs.

Time Doctor lets you:

• Accurately track the time your social media VA takes to complete their tasks
• Know whether they are actively working while billing you
• Monitor the hours they spend on any website or app while working
• Pay them based on the hours they work on your project
• Help them boost their productivity by limiting distracting websites/apps

Conclusion

Hiring a social media VA helps you grow your social media presence without worrying about your core activities, taking a backseat.

Use the tips and tools we covered here to get an early start on hiring a good social media VA. Once you find the perfect fit, your social presence will be off the charts in no time!