Why You Need a VA to Handle Your Social Media Platforms

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Recently, there are more and more businesses that have been more inclined to turn to the virtual world to promote their business. And it’s no wonder because let’s face it, in our digital generation nowadays, if you have a non-existent social media presence, your chances of becoming successful would be equal to zero.

Since most, if not all, of our consumers go online at one point, all kinds of virtual presence especially in social media platforms, could mean a whole lot of things. This online presence can tick several things off the checklist than when offline—it can drive sales, trigger growth in brand recognition, and help you interact with more customers in an impactful way. Other than promoting your business, social media is also important for the reason that it is one outlet where the public can look at different brands and read reviews on their products and services before actually deciding whether they want to purchase or not.

Unfortunately, social media and other online platforms can be a bit cumbersome and too complicated for most people especially when one isn’t tech-savvy. Other than that, it can also take a large chunk off of your time trying to manage everything and be always updated in order for your brand not to forgotten in a sea of competing businesses.

Most businesses, especially those still struggling and new to the scene, just don’t have the luxury of time to completely immerse themselves in it. If you want to hire a virtual assistant to handle your business in social media platforms but not entirely sure how it works or if it’s even absolutely necessary, this article will be talking about what a VA does, why they’re important, and how exactly they can help you with your business.

 

Social media: a necessary evil

Despite the points we have given above, you are probably still wondering how social media matters when it comes to running a business. You are probably thinking about how we have televisions and radios to promote our brand anyway, so why bother joining social media channels that will just give you more work and more stress?

Most of the members of your target audience would be more accessible through these platforms and your customers would probably want an easier way to get updated on your brand and contact you. Also,  the internet is probably the easiest and cheapest way for you to promote your brand and make yourself known to the public, as people turn to them to see which new services are available for the week, what discounts they can avail on certain dates, and also for them to leave a comment about your amazing service or to message you about (God forbid!) a poor experience.

Which social media channel do we exactly take advantage of?

With top choices such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, it doesn’t really matter which platform you use as long as you use it efficiently to make yourself known to consumers. Although, using multiple sites could prove to be a bigger advantage as well.

If you’re not sure where to start, a virtual assistant can help you immensely in reaching your targeted audience. And with their time focused on managing your social media accounts, they can eventually help you stand out and catch your customers’ attention.

 

What your VA can do in social media

Before diving into the world of social media, make sure your online business has a plan with real structure and a commitment to act on it. Don’t expect your brand to boom overnight online though; a lot of work and thought has to go into it and this means making sure you have a checklist on both your short-term and long-term goals. This would also include which platform is worth your time to focus more on. For example, if your business offers photography services, Instagram is probably your best bet into showcasing those clear-cut pictures.

Another thing to remember is before you can give tasks to your VA, you also have to give them an orientation on how you yourself handle your social media platforms so your goals and thought processes are more or less aligned. This also means you would have to be involved or at least educate yourself on how the whole thing works and how your social media accounts are doing. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be super active in managing everything; after all that is the exact purpose of hiring a VA, but at least let yourself in the know of how your business is doing and where it is supposed to go.

After getting that out of the way, delegating tasks to your VA should be easy as there are so many things one can do in the virtual world. If you don’t have the appropriate skills to make your online presence work, your VA is there to organize everything and slowly build your online presence in social media accounts everyday or on a weekly basis.

 

Research and content drafts

One essential feature you have to remember when posting in social media is that content matters. No matter how short your post is (example: Twitter), make sure it is valuable to your brand and to the point, because your followers are going to expect that from you. If you’re not posting significant content, why would your customers bother following your accounts?

Finding images, links, and quotes to share is something your VA can do along with preparing drafts and creating a schedule as to when to post them, so as to avoid forgetting and rushing everything in such short notice.

 

Engaging with the audience

Now, this is something you definitely don’t want to botch up! With a VA, you won’t have to worry about having one comment or question left unanswered. Make sure your VA is updated with how your clients are responding to your social media pages and is able to engage with them in a proper manner. This includes setting up alerts and notifications whenever someone mentions your product or service or even any positive comment to which you can always respond graciously. If done right, this seemingly simple task can actually be the reason for more recognition, positive reviews, and increased sales.

 

Building the right connections

Another important task your VA can do is to help you slowly build an online network with the right people and other—relevant—businesses. This is extremely important in the business world, real life and online. So it is good to keep in mind that interaction with the right accounts, such as commenting and sharing others’ posts, can help you build a strong social reputation. The same goes the other way; make sure to filter which accounts to unfollow if they’ve become inactive or if they don’t post relevant content, so as to save yourself the time and effort.

Other similar interactions you can do include posting a poll or question every week, sharing applicable material and commenting on it, liking other pages and posts, replying to each comment and showing gratitude to fans, and engaging with other brands in the field that may have more experience than you.

 

Monthly or weekly reports

Just like business offline and how your online presence needs a goal, you would also need to arm yourself with means on how to measure results. Even in social media, goals and results are important so you’ll know whether it is helping your business thrive offline. If it is not, then what is the point of going into social media anyway?

Keeping a metrics report every month to track your progress should help you determine if you’ve been increasing or decreasing followers, been mentioned in other pages, having a negative or positive review, and many more other statistics. What’s important is that you’re aware all these are focused on one main goal.

Aside from these four main tasks, there are still so many things you can do in the world of social media. There is more freedom in how you can promote your business and reach out to your audience, along with other fun stuff. Good news is there is no one strategy better than others; you just have to make sure you know what works for your business and what doesn’t.

As everyone is aware of, social media can be tremendously time-consuming and makes you be unproductive if left unchecked. Therefore, what better way to spend most of that time than to help grow your business, right? Besides, there’s no need to stress yourself out if you don’t have the time and skills. Accept help and let your VA do that easily for you.