Which Social Media Tasks Should You Delegate To A Virtual Assistant Part 2

By CJVirtualPA

If you don’t enjoy certain admin tasks, the likelihood is you will probably not be that good at them

For most people these are the activities you dread, like itemising your travel receipts and submitting your expenses.  By hanging on to tasks like this, you are holding yourself back and wasting time which could otherwise be spent on generating revenue for your business. The sooner you delegate them, the better.

Even if you are good are certain tasks, you can still delegate them. Tasks such as posting to Twitter or Facebook may be delaying you and preventing you from completing more high profile work you know deep down will benefit your business.

On the other hand, if you love certain tasks, but you aren’t particularly good at them, you need to ask yourself whether or not you could become competent with the right training.  If you’re prepared to put in the effort and have the time to do the training, get good at these tasks, otherwise delegate them!

If you don’t think about taking on a Virtual Assistant because you think you can’t afford one, remember that “resources always follow vision.”  Also, to be an effective leader you have to be good at delegation.

Here are some more examples of just some tasks you can start to delegate to a VA to save you time in your busy day:

Cleaning up email address books of duplicates

Often, due to device syncing problems, you might end up with several versions of the same contact. Your VA can easily trawl through them to ensure the details are amalgamated and therefore easily uploaded to your newsletter program.

Sorting through Linked In digests

We all know that LinkedIn can be a great tool to help you to connect with like-minded people to get ahead in business.  In order for you to participate in conversations you want to participate in your VA can identify these for you.

Regular Research

Tell your VA which products you want to promote this month and ask him or her to carry out some online research and to draft a blog to be linked to your website and other social media profiles.

Calendar Appointments

It can take many phonecalls and emails to finally confirm an appointment, particularly if more than two people are involved. Ask your Virtual PA to take the headache away and advise you of the date and time when all parties have confirmed they can make the meeting. 

Spice up your Tweets

Your VA can take photos of products or items which can enhance your Pinterest pages and Tweets. If he or she uses Hoot Suite too your posts can be pre-programmed, a double whammy time-saver for both of you!

Online Grocery Shopping

Once your VA gets to know you and how you like to live, he or she can even organise your online grocery shopping via companies like Ocado

Check back soon for more time-saving tips from Virtual Assistant CJ VirtualPA

Which Social Media Tasks Should You Delegate To A Virtual Assistant

CJ Virtual PA
06-02-2014

Part One

In a recent online survey 460 small business owners, 63% admitted they spend between one and hours on social media each week. The remaining people spend even more time, with some spending as many as 21 hours a week just on their social media management!
It doesn’t take much to work out that’s around half a working week – we wonder how on earth they are getting anything else done to create revenue! 

If you're not careful, the majority of time spent on social media can be totally unproductive and should be delegated to a Virtual Assistant for them to manage the promotion and scheduling, leaving you free to focus on what you’re good at, i.e., the client-facing role in your business.

If you've been on Facebook for a while, you'll know that due to all it’s various options it can be difficult not to get sidetracked.  However, social media, if used in a  productive way, can do amazing things for your online business marketing.

Letting Go

If  you have already made the decision to delegate your social media to a Virtual PA, you are to be congratulated! 

As an owner of a business built on hard work, blood, sweat and and sometimes tears, we understand only too well that it is not easy letting go, but by delegating you will save yourself a lot of valuable time which can be so much better spent on increasing revenue.



Once you have made your decision to "let go", you’ll need to give your VA access to your social media accounts and share your login details with them. You will also need to make them administrators of your social profiles. 

Social Media Marketing Model

Firstly, you need to evaluate which networks you will focus on, based of course on your business. For example a clothes manufacturer might use Pinterest to portray their colourful images, whereas service-based businesses like corporate coaches might be better off utilising Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to network in their areas of expertise. 

Some businesses fail in their social media efforts because it just is not possible to build an online presence overnight. You need to create a social media marketing strategy which summarises your goals, recurring tasks and the different achievements you're aiming for.

Social Media Tasks for Your Virtual Assistant to Manage

It’s really important to give your VA an overview of how you have managed your social media to date. This will allow him or her to understand your thought processes as you will want to ensure consistency when your Virtual PA is posting / blogging etc., on your behalf.

Drafting Content  

Your followers expect you to provide them with valuable information, which is why they chose to follow you in the first place.  This is where links and quotes come in as they are extremely popular on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Sourcing quotes, images and links to share across your social media platforms can be time consuming. This is where your Virtual Assistant can really add value by devising a document on a weekly basis, containing draft posts for your approval. As soon as you've authorised them, your Virtual PA can schedule them via HootSuite to be posted when you want them to go to get the best readership for your business.

Increasing your Network

Ask your VA to follow / friend / connect with new people based on your specific criteria. 
Liaison is crucial when it comes to social media, and sharing and commenting on content which is not your own is really important if you want to increase your network. Be careful not to link back to your own website too frequently or your followers may "unfollow" you if they think you’re just trying to directly promote your business / products / services. 



There are lots of ways to encourage social interaction online - here are just a few tasks which can be undertaken by your Virtual PA:

1. Share a content-relevant article or link relating to your industry
2. Add a video from Youtube and comment on it
3. You could even post an online survey to encourage a reaction from your followers
4. “Like” others' pages and interact with the larger names within your particular line of business
5. Post inspirational and amusing images and quotes

Finally, don’t forget to thank your new followers and liaise with those who have re-tweeted your posts and replies.

Check back soon to read the second part of "Which Social Media Tasks Should You Delegate To A Virtual Assistant"

5 Ways To Enhance Your Tweets

By CJ Virtual PA

When using Twitter, its important to make sure your content is interesting enough to encourage online discussions.  Here are 5 ways to increase engagement on your social posts:

1. Tell Your Followers A Story

People can tell a sales pitch a mile away and will, for that reason ignore them, but people really cannot resist reading an interesting story. Always include a relevant image which will spark imagination - graphics are a great way to capture attention. It is also important to include a call to action with a link the reader can click on for more information.

2. Communicate What Your Stance Is

Once you know who your audience is, it’s important to let them know your point of view. Without a clear and consistent voice, it becomes difficult for potential followers to discern what your interests and areas of expertise are (and whether or not following you will be beneficial for them).

 3.  Use Descriptive Words & Upper Case

The words you choose to use when posting to Twitter posts can have a significant effect.  Tweets with links which contain verbs tend to have a higher click-through rate than those that don’t.  Another interesting fact is that using Capital Letters works better when it comes to hashtag descriptions.

 4.  Use Quotes In Your Posts

Many people have limited time and rightly should be choosy about which web-based content they decide to spend time reading. By using a compelling quote to summarise content is a great way to gain interest. It’s an opportunity for your followers to click through to your content for more detail.  

5. Re-Share Previous Posts

Use scheduling tools like Buffer or HootSuite to re-share your previous social media posts. As only a small percentage of your followers are going to see your posts each time you add something new, it’s worth posting them out again to gain maximum readership and interest.

Five More Reasons To Use Social Media In 2014

Five More Reasons To Use Social Media In 2014

By CJ Virtual PA

13.01.2014

Posting To Social Media Sites Doesn’t Take As Much Time as You Think

Lots of us use social media every day, but on a somewhat limited basis. If you think that you have to spend all day researching to find  results you could have your eyes opened.  By adopting a positive and structured approach, you can achieve great results by asking your  Virtual Assistant or PA to spend just a few regular hours per week on social media sites such as Twitter. The important thing is to be consistent.

Those Who Use Social Media Are Predictable

As soon as you get to know your social media audience, you can design your content to be appropriate for their needs. Also, your knowledge about social media, for example Facebook, can easily be posted to your other sites and blogs.

Inbound Links Help You To Climb Up The Search Engine Rankings

As well as sending traffic direct, the links which result from social media allow your new posts to rank well with search engines almost immediately.  Of course it may take a while to build your search engine rankings but it is possible to create specific posts which rank well straight away.

Social Media & Branding

One of the best benefits of social media exposure are the results it has on the branding of your blog. Branding is key to building a successful blog and social media is an excellent, free option for helping readers to view your blog in a specific way.

Social Media Enables You to Leverage Your Existing Traffic

If you already have a popular blog the chances are you could leverage that traffic to draw even more visitors via social media. You could consider asking your PA or virtual assistant to include voting buttons in your posts and ask your readers and followers if they would vote for you.

Five Solid Reasons To Make Social Media A Priority In 2014

By CJ Virtual PA

1. Social Media Doesn't Cost You Anything!

Marketing your website with social media is free. There are several ways to market a website or blog but most of them involve spending money. 

2. Results Are Imminent

Building a successful website takes a considerable amount of time and it can take a while to climb up the search engine rankings. By using social media you can develop content and be seen by thousands of visitors within the same day. For this reason alone, social media is a great option for getting your website or blog noticed.  

3. Blogging Gets Easier As Time Goes On

If you haven’t yet put your social media strategy in place, try to remember that it does take time and effort, but it will get easier!  Once you have established a reader base and you’ve attracted some social media followers to your blog, it will be much easier for you to attract comments and ultimately more exposure for your business.

4. Social Media Leads To Other Valuable Traffic Sources 

Visitors who come from social media sites may not be necessarily as responsive as other types of visitors, but a successful social media strategy will increase the number of inbound links you receive to your site, which are usually good quality as far as the search engines are concerned, and these are important to your search engine rankings. 

5.  Start With Twitter!

As a business owner you are bound to be knowledgeable about your products or services so share your expertise with others to prove your credibility online and engage people! You will soon attract followers if you do your research on how to tweet successfully (or ask your Virtual PA to help - he or she can also devise, manage and schedule your tweets for you).

Twitter - Trending & Hashtags

Twitter – Trending & Hashtags

 By Cindy Jalovaara CJVirtualPA

Trending

Trending topics are the top 10 subjects being tweeted about on Twitter.  They are identified by a keyword in the “trending topics” bar at the side of your Twitter home page. These can be useful to discover breaking news stories and reactions to the topics.  Some of the tweets will include hashtags (for example #SocialMediaManagement) which is way of highlighting the most popular conversations on Twitter.
 

Sorting the Topics

You can often narrow down the trending topic data to view only tweets in their specific area. If you  log in to Twitter and click "change" at the top of the “trends list” you can choose to see worldwide trending topics, by country or city.

Top Tip: You can see the top trending topics without having to log in by going to the Twitter homepage. If you want to see all the messages from Twitter users relating to that topic, just click on the topic and the most recent will appear at the top.

Hashtags  #

A hashtag is a word or phrase prefixed with the hashtag symbol ( # )
Not only Tweets, but also short messages posted on Tumblr, Instagram or Google+ to name but a few, can be tagged by including the hashtag and then the word or words. For example #VirtualPAblogs can be used to search for the messages which appear relevant to blogs about Virtual PAs or written by Virtual PAs which may contain more tips to help you enhance your social media management.
 Top Tip:  Create a hashtag for your business: ensure you include your business name or initials but do remember to run a search first to check no-one else has already used it and don't overdo it - remember to keep things relevant if you want the best results.

Bookmark us and come back soon for more ideas on how to improve your online presence.