Using a Virtual Assistant for Social Media
In the last 12 months the biggest growth area for Virtual Assistant Services has undoubtedly been in Social Media strategy, content creation and management.
In January this year I did a video about New Year’s resolutions for business owners and it struck me how many were pledging to spend more time and effort on social media, or at least putting it on their wish list of "things I should be doing this year”. It was also absolutely in keeping with what I was seeing from the point of view of our own customers.
The most common request we get from clients is can we get a Social Media Virtual Assistant to help us manage our online presence, expand the channels we cover and optimise the way our brand is viewed from Facebook to Instagram, Twitter to Pinterest. The answer is of course YES!
But, we have changed in the way that we manage Social Media.
Clients and leads alike, used to come to us looking for a virtual assistant to whom they could outsource their social media management but almost invariably they had their own plan on what they wanted doing and how to do it, irrespective of their knowledge or practical skills with any of the major social networks.
Now, there is nothing wrong with this on the face of it. Any small business owner is right in thinking they know their business better than anyone else and that they want to portray it in the best possible way. It is also often true that when you spend your time focused on growing your business, building your product your expertise lies there and not necessarily how to leverage social platforms to enhance your brand and, ultimately, your sales.
Hands up! I have been as guilty of this as any other entrepreneur.
Active input through Social Media virtual assistants
However, in recent times we are finding more small business owners and entrepreneurs coming to us as a VA agency looking for active input into their social media.
As we noticed this happening over the last year we reacted and put together a team of social media virtual assistants and marketing virtual assistants in order to be able to focus training and rapidly improve our skills in these areas. This is a good example of a business evolving, admittedly not through our own amazing foresight, but in line with the changing demands of our clients.
Whilst it has always been our intention to build a strong and dedicated team of experts to provide the utmost value to customers, it is also true that we did not predict that so much of our focus would be on social media when we started bizee.co.
Now, we are in position in which we have put together social media strategy for a number of clients and we are delivering content in line with plans and schedules that have been devised in-house, by the bizee.co marketing team.
Below you can find a list of our Marketing Services as well as some of our pricing plans.
General Marketing Services
Strategy & advice
Development, monitoring and analysis
Social Media
Content creation (including simple graphics)
Content scheduling
Campaigns (e.g. competitions, giveaways)
SM Strategy
Audience engagement
Gathering resources
Competitor research
Gif / slideshow creation
Email marketing
Copy writing
Campaign management
Cold emailing campaigns
Email flow / sequence creation
Competitor research
Visual content creation
Audience engagement
Blogging
Content writing
Visual content creation
Web Site
Content management (CMS)
Content writing
Visual content creation
Author: Thomas Smallwood is an outsourcing specialist. Having worked in companies around Europe, from the support desk to the boardroom, he founded bizee.co to help small businesses grow through efficient delegation to skilled virtual assistants. He is an award-winning blogger and a passionate advocate for mental health awareness.
Connect with Tom on LinkedIn.