Virtual assistants are designed to help you run your business by handling all of the little things that pile up and prevent you from reaching your business’s full potential. But what exactly does that entail? What are the tasks you can and should pass off to your virtual assistant so you can be the best and most productive business owner possible?
General or Executive Level Administrative Tasks
Calendar Management & Scheduling
Your business calendar is likely a living document that fills up quickly and changes constantly. Fiddling with your appointments and taking the time to shuffle through all that you have going on to find time to fit something else can easily bog you down. Passing off your calendar and scheduling to a virtual assistant allows you to tackle everything that needs to get done and move from one task or meeting to the next with ease, knowing that your virtual assistant is behind the scenes fitting everything in for you.
Data Entry
Who even likes data entry? Odds are, your virtual assistant likes it a bit more than you do. Why not pass off the most tedious and dreaded of tasks to them so you can focus on the big picture? Then, they can send it back to you nice and neat and easy to understand, so you don’t have to spend hours pouring through all the numbers that make you pull your hair out.
Website and Blog Management
Anyone who has their own business website knows what a beast it is to update and manage, but stress no longer - this is a perfect task to pass off to a virtual assistant! Virtual assistants have the time that you don’t to keep your website up to date with the latest store hours, important updates, and blog posts. And speaking of blog posts, virtual assistants can help with those too, whether it’s helping to write, edit, or format them for your website. With your virtual assistant handling the nitty gritty that comes with websites, you are able to keep your content current and engaging for your customers or clients.
Social Media Management
Content Calendar Management
Content can easily become overwhelming. Keeping up with a blog, all of your social media accounts, a website, or an e-mail list can make your head spin. It is so easy to lose track of what gets posted where and when, but a virtual assistant can help by implementing and managing your content calendar. No longer will you forget to post to Facebook. No longer will your monthly e-mails get sent out a week late. Your virtual assistant will make sure everything is posted on time and that you have content to post when the time comes.
Community and Group Management
Your online business community is important to you - as it should be! But sometimes it can be difficult to take the time to respond to everyone commenting, messaging, and otherwise engaging with your posts. Of course you don’t want to ignore them, but you have other things to do! Enter your virtual assistant. They can comb through your notifications, respond to comments, answer basic questions, and let you know when a specific message requires your expertise. Not having to keep a constant eye on your notifications will free up your time to be fully present with the tasks at hand. (And that involves growing your business, of course!)
Create Basic Graphics or Visual Content
Social media is a visual game. You can plan to post every day, but what happens when you run out of content to post? What happens when you have an upcoming event or sale and you need a graphic? You can take the time to try your hand at making the content yourself, spend time and money finding a graphic designer, or ping your virtual assistant! For simple graphics, a virtual assistant can certainly be your go-to to fill in your social media feed or advertise important updates in a visually appealing way that fits in with your brand or image.
Schedule Posts Across All Platforms
Social media is a big part of advertising your brand and engaging with your audience, but if you aren’t posting regularly, you’re missing out. Finding the time or even remembering to sit down and post to your two, three, or four social media accounts is difficult, and especially if it isn’t something you enjoy spending time on. Go ahead and hand the responsibility off to your virtual assistant. They can take the reins on your content posting, implement a social media management tool if you haven’t already, and get everything scheduled at the right time and date so you can focus on "the good stuff". You're running a whole business, not just your social media accounts, after all!
While these are the tasks I typically offer for my clients, there are virtual assistants who specialize in other areas and whose niche might be exactly what you're hoping to outsource. Looking for someone to handle your bookkeeping, marketing, travel arrangements, or graphic design? I've got great news! There's a VA that will knock out those tasks for you!