How to hire a VA for social media and not kill your networks in the attempt?

Much has been said about the importance of social networks as channels to publicize new brands. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, to name just a few, are the social networks you need to be on to start creating a brand, make yourself known and form communities around your company.

However, social media can consume all your work time if you don't manage it correctly.

It's not about uploading your company logo to Facebook or creating an Instagram profile just to show your products or services. If you do that, we guarantee that you will not be able to find a single client through these platforms, much less create a community.

For your social networks to be much more than just a place to show what you sell, you must first establish which ones are appropriate for your brand. Then, create a strategy in which you establish your marketing and communication objectives in the short and medium term. Next, you must establish a content plan in which you decide what images, videos or texts you will publish and why you are going to do it.

Don't forget that each content must offer value to your followers so that they feel that what you are publishing is worth seeing or reading and take a few seconds of their time to give you a like, read the descriptions, send you a message and ask you for more information. As you receive comments and questions on your posts, you should answer them one by one and do a kind of mapping of those followers who communicate with your brand to get a profile of your audience.

Every week, you must rethink your social media strategy based on the results shown by your account analytics in order to consolidate what has worked and modify what has not. This cycle never ends. On the contrary, as your accounts grow, social media becomes more and more complex.

If at this point you are thinking that we have told you all this so that you can convince yourself to hire a social media virtual assistant (VA) to manage your brands' social networks, you are wrong.

Until very recently, especially in Latin America, it was a very common practice for companies to hire community managers to be in charge of managing their social media accounts. These communities could be, in the best of cases, personnel hired within the company, but there was no shortage of brands that hired freelancers for this task.

However, the current trend in the world of social media, especially for entrepreneurs and small businesses, is that the owners or CEOs of the companies themselves manage the networks. Because? Because digital marketing today seeks the personalization of both brands and the personalization of followers' experiences on social networks.

For there to be true commitment between followers and brands, companies must “put on a face” and stop being just a logo. The owners, or people closely related to the brand, must constantly appear in the publications and offer the quality and value content that their followers expect.

So, if this is what needs to be done to get the results you expect from your social networks, could it be delegated to a VA ? Well, the answer is yes.

You will think that what we tell you is paradoxical because how could you delegate your brand's networks if you must be the face of your company and not a community manager.

Also Read: Virtual Assistants for Social Media

The answer is simple.

Social media tasks that can be assigned to a Virtual Assistant

As you already know, running your brand's social media accounts requires effort, time and knowledge. Perhaps you are willing to invest time and effort, but lack basic or professional knowledge in the area.

We recommend that you ask a VA to help you define your brand's communication channels on social networks based on what you want to achieve with them and the time you can dedicate to each network. The VA will study your brand and your market niche to see which ones are right for you.

It can also help you correctly prepare profiles, choose the best image for your networks and write a very detailed and clear biography of your company. Additionally, you can ask them to do research on the networks to identify those accounts that are similar to your brand in terms of business area, which may or may not be direct competition. This is in order to see what they are doing and discover which accounts you could partner with in the future.

However, where a VA for social media can be most useful is in developing the digital marketing strategy and content plan.

The digital marketing strategy is that map that will guide your steps through social networks and will indicate the actions you must take to meet the brand's objectives. These objectives are divided into marketing objectives (sell as many % more, successfully introduce a new product or service, reach a new audience, among many others) and communication objectives (grow as many % in followers or fans, generate more comments on social networks). posts, receive more direct messages, etc.).

As it is the most important document to be successful on the networks, it must be prepared by a person who is an expert in the field and this is where a virtual assistant for social media is so important.

The second aspect in which a VA is very useful is in developing the content plan. The content plan is nothing more than that calendar that specifies what to publish, in what format and when to do it, according to our stated objectives.

Avoid posting as you go. This practice has a negative impact on your goals and makes you waste a lot of valuable time because you will spend all day thinking “What should I post today?” On the other hand, with a plan made by an expert, all the content will have a reason and will already be decided.

If you are an entrepreneur with a small business, you can dedicate a little of your time to serving your followers, putting your face on the account and creating a community with the basis that the strategy and content plan created by the VA will give you.

However, in slightly larger companies and whose CEOs have more responsibilities and less time, assuming control of the networks is very complicated, if not impossible.

What do we recommend? First, make sure you have a virtual assistant specialized in digital marketing who is in charge of creating that strategy and content plan and ask someone representative of your company to help you be the face of the brand. Try to make sure that person is someone who has a great appreciation for the company, who feels it as their own and whose sense of commitment to the brand is very great. You could even designate a small group of workers for such a task, so that everyone supports each other and gives vitality to social networks.

That way, your followers will always feel cared for, loved, and your brand will be humanized. You yourself, as CEO, can appear on some occasions and respond to some messages personally. Followers will feel like a reward that you, the head of the company, speak directly to them.

If you are looking for a VA with knowledge of social media, reliable and responsible, we recommend that you go to one of the VA agencies in your country or region, such as eAssistantvs.

At CiavGroup we provide you with virtual and personal assistance services, in the administrative areas, customer service, tele-marketing and of course digital marketing.

We guarantee that all our staff have university and/or postgraduate education, have more than five years of experience in important companies and are constantly learning thanks to our continuing education system. As our selection processes are very rigorous, we only hire the best.

With our digital marketing specialists, you can have a modern, efficient marketing strategy and content plan tailored to the needs of your company.

If you want to know more about our digital marketing specialists, contact us and we will be happy to advise you.

As your networks and your company grow, and the relationship with the VA becomes stronger.

Have you considered the possibility of hiring a VA to manage your brands' social media accounts?

As a monopreneur, would you be willing to be the face of your brand on social networks and serve your followers one by one or would you prefer that a VA take over all social media? We want to read your opinions and experiences on the matter.