6 Tasks to Outsource to a Virtual Social Media Assistant

When running a business, it is never wise to try to do everything alone. There are tasks that you don’t have the expertise to do efficiently. As the owner, you are responsible for overseeing the processes that keep your business running. You can’t do this efficiently if you’re doing the different tasks yourself. By outsourcing work, you create a structure which makes it easier to manage people and see developments.

In the age of the internet, one of the tasls you need to get off your plate is digital marketing, specifically social media. One of the key people you therefore need to bring onboard is a virtual media assistant.

Why Hire a Virtual Social Media Assistant?

Humans today are mobile and always on the internet. As a result, businesses utilize social media in particular as a part of their marketing strategy. Even the big box retail stores like Walmart and Costco have gone online to reach more customers. It is not where a business makes sales per se, but it plays an important role in today’s funnel.

According to Sprout Social, consumers expect brands to have social media pages. 90% of people online use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms to reach out to brands for information, questions, and complaints. This tightens the competition in the e-commerce sector in terms of delivering high-quality products and services and ensuring a great shopping experience for customers. To make this possible, you need an assistant who is adept in using different social media tools and strategies and is able to adapt to recent trends.

The social media game is aggressive but very rewarding when you are winning. You need a complete and strong marketing strategy which would involve a lot of time-consuming tasks. A virtual social media assistant can provide a wide range of services for a fraction of the cost of a marketing expert working the normal nine-to-five hours for you.

Tasks can be done round-the-clock when you hire a virtual social media assistant. You can sleep well at night and wake up in the morning to see that everything is set for the day on your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and other pages.

What Tasks Should You Pass Over?

Here are some of the most common tasks that social media assistants can do for you. Let’s see how each role contributes to a strategic marketing plan for your online business.

1. Setting up accounts and branding pages.

Creating accounts is the first step in social media marketing. There are plenty of social media platforms available, but do you really need to be on each and every one of them? That is where the expertise of a social media assistant becomes beneficial.

They understand the nature of your business and know on which platforms you can find your target customers. For example, if you are producing creative media, YouTube or Instagram should be your main platform. If you offer services, Facebook is a good site to build your brand, especially now that they have the recommendations and reviews feature. If you would like to build a reputation as an influencer in your field, setting up a LinkedIn account where you can publish your articles and build relationships is vital.

A social media assistant can also be responsible for creating your accounts and profiles, complete with information about your company and the products or services your offer. Your social media profiles create a strong impact on your business. From the photo to the short link or handle (username), all the details you use in your profiles are as important as your PPC or Facebook advertising strategies. They will make sure that they use a professional photo, create a keyword-rich username and title, and write a powerful description for your page. All these contribute to targeting the right audience, and if you have a website, getting a lot of traction and more sales.

2. Creating a content calendar.

A virtual social media assistant works with whatever schedule and content you approve. However, as a strategic thinker, they can determine which content works best for your brand and plan out a schedule that will roll out your marketing strategy properly. This will include:

• What type of content to post
• The frequency of posting every day
• Where to post 

One of the great things about having a social media content calendar for your business is that it is easy to monitor and make changes as you obtain valuable data. It helps to have everything documented even as you try new things with your business processes to uncover what works best.

Prior knowledge, research, and experience are needed to be able to create a good content calendar, however. The output should be based on your target market — their wants, their needs, and their buying patterns. New trends will always emerge and that will change your social media marketing approach. An experienced freelancer will be quick to realize these trends and know when and how to adapt.

3. Content curation.

Content curation is something that all businesses do on their social media pages. It is a new strategy that brands use to promote new trends within their field. Search engines, tags, and filters make this curated content easy to find when it’s shared online. Some of the content social media experts share are:

• Trending news
• Highly shared articles
• Viral videos
• Popular images

More than the value that customers get from what they read, your brand also benefits from content curation. By letting other people know what’s happening in your industry nowadays, you build influencer relationships. Your customers will eventually see you as one of the experts in your trade. People will trust you and your brand. Your followers are most likely the buyers of your products and/or services, as well.

Aside from finding viral stuff to share with your followers, a virtual media assistant will need to personalize the content to incorporate your brand. This includes rewriting the title, using a different image that relates to your brand, and adding a Call-to-Action (CTA) plus backlinks to your company website or e-commerce store. Well curated pieces engage your audience and usually get a lot of comments, likes, and shares.

4. Writing and designing social media posts.

Social media experts are not only marketing strategists but also creative writers. You may notice that social media posts are short but they are well-crafted to catch the attention of the audience.

Social media marketing nowadays is a tough race. You have to do great on social media posts to get ahead of everyone. You need a skilled social media assistant to do this —  someone who is able to grasp your brand’s personality and goals and use this to get your message across to your target customers in a powerful way.

Writing social media posts for a brand is different than when posting as an individual. In the same way, the kind of posts that work on Facebook are different from what gains traction on Instagram or Twitter. A social media assistant can keep them organized and think of different types of content to share every day while conforming to the best practices of each social network niche.

An experienced social media freelancer uses a formula that effectively creates social media posts that hit the mark every time. Here are some factors that they take into consideration:

• The basic rules and best practices of each social network
• Length of a post → it differs for every social media platform and also depends on the type of content used.
• Hashtags versus Keywords → hashtags are popular on Instagram and Twitter, while the use of keywords to direct users to the content they want to see is better on Facebook and YouTube.

5. Creating and managing a Facebook group.

A Facebook group is a great way to expand your network by engaging larger communities to get hold of your target market. The members of these groups are niche-specific and can be potential loyal customers for your product and/or service. Leveraging these audiences and bringing them to your group is probably the best avenue to build relationships with like-minded people and develop how they perceive your brand.

A Facebook group can have multiple administrators and moderators. A virtual social media assistant can be the default admin and mod. They will be responsible for several tasks including:

• Adding, removing and blocking members. In the case of private or secret groups, mods can approve or deny membership requests.
• Assigning and managing group roles.
• Approving, denying and removing posts and comments that don’t fit your community.

Essentially, a moderator is responsible for keeping your Facebook group clean and relevant. Internet trolls are everywhere, and you don’t want them bothering the customer group that you are cultivating. The group administrator also serves as your customer support. They respond to member and non-member queries being sent to the group’s inbox daily.

6. Searching and reaching out to potential followers.

One of the main goals of social media marketing is to gain followers that can be future buyers of your product or service. A virtual media assistant plays the role of researching which networks are frequently visited by your target customers. With the use of keywords and hashtags, they can search for potential followers based on location, preferences, age group, gender, and many other indicators. 

The people they discover are the leads that can be cultivated. Usually assistants plan out and set-up email sequences to follow up with them and:

• Identify the pain points of your target customers
• Build trust by showing them you want to solve their problem
• If the conversation permits, show them how you can help – pitch them your products and/or services.

Conclusion

The power of social media today greatly influences consumer buying decisions. As a result, social media management has now become a major part of running an e-commerce business. As the owner and leader of your company, you should have the ability to delegate important responsibilities like this to a professional virtual media assistant. Let the experts handle what they’re good at so you can focus on growth.

FreeUp is a digital freelance platform that vets freelancers from all over the world based on their skills and experience. Get access to the top 1% of global talent by joining the network.

If you would like to know more about hiring a social media expert, check out the blog or set up a free consultation with CEO Nathan Hirsch or CMO Connor Gillivan to get tips on how to manage a freelancer.