Social media is a great way to engage users, establish your brand, and even generate leads and sales.

Yet, getting the most out of these platforms involves investing a lot of time and effort for entrepreneurs who are already spread too thin.

Social media posting, management, and reporting are perfect tasks to outsource to a virtual assistant (VA) so that you can reap the benefits without all the hassle.

Why should you hire a virtual assistant for your social media?

Social media has a lot of well-known benefits for entrepreneurs and small business owners. In a recent study of B2B and B2C global industry professionals, the business benefits of social media among those surveyed included:

• Increased engagement (86%)
• More traffic (76%)
• Lead generation (64%)
• Increased customer loyalty (56%)
• More sales (55%).

What’s interesting about the survey is how it highlights social media’s versatility in improving business outcomes. Small businesses can use these platforms for various goals, like marketing, customer retention, and revenue generation.

The problem is that it requires a significant investment of time to manage your social media presence. It's not something you can do once, tick it off your list, and then never have to worry about it again. These are tasks that need addressing on a daily and weekly basis.

What’s more, you also need to find moments to learn the ropes and the intricacies of each social media platform, and stay up-to-date with the constant changes.

And if there's one thing that's always in short supply for entrepreneurs—it’s time.

What it comes down to is this: as a small business owner, do you have the time and specialized skills to really make a go of using social media for your company? Most of us can’t do this and keep all our other plates spinning at the same time, which is why hiring a virtual assistant can be a real game-changer.

10 social media tasks you can delegate to a virtual assistant

OK, so now you know why you should delegate social media tasks to a virtual assistant, it’s time to think about what jobs to take off your plate.

1. Creating social media posts

Creating compelling posts is the bread and butter of social media engagement. With the right guidance, your virtual assistant can capture your brand voice and tone and help you generate new ideas, craft interesting captions, proofread and edit your copy, and make sure your content consistently resonates with your target audience.

With so many different responsibilities pulling you in a million different directions all day, turning on the creativity to come up with content ideas can feel almost impossible. Outsourcing the task to someone with the right blend of experiences, like a social media virtual assistant, makes the process much easier. You get to focus on what you do well, safe in the knowledge that your social posts are in safe hands.

2. Sourcing images and creating visual assets for social posts

Social media is visual. When it comes to cutting through the noise, visuals are better at grabbing attention than text. In the scale of human evolution, words are a relative newcomer. In fact, we process images around 60,000 times faster than text.

A virtual assistant can help you source copyright-free images or paid images that will make your posts pop. They can also help edit images for use in your content or, better yet, create engaging infographics that can help your business stand out from the crowd.

3. Scheduling posts according to your content calendar

Consistency is one of the most essential attributes of a solid social media strategy. You need to build a content schedule and post on a regular basis if you want to stay at the top of your audience's mind. What’s more, research suggests that consumers need about eight touchpoints before they make a purchase.

However, maintaining that consistency is often much easier said than done when you are a business owner. When you spend most of your day putting out fires or focusing on revenue generation, there won’t always be time left to schedule posts. A virtual assistant can change all that by making sure your content schedule stays on track, delivering a consistent and engaging presence even on your busiest days.

Skilled virtual assistants can manage different online platforms by scheduling your posts with social media management tools. What’s more, they can use social media analytics to research and optimize posting times for greater engagement and visibility.

4. Content curation

Establishing your brand as a helpful and trusted voice on social media is about more than just posting your own content. It’s also about helping your audience stay informed of industry news and thought leadership from a variety of sources.

When you hire VAs, you can direct them to find and share posts that your audience will find interesting and relevant. Adding value to other people’s content by way of analysis or new creative spins is a winning tactic. If you keep that commentary consistent with your brand’s voice, it can go a long way toward fostering deeper engagement with your target audience.

A social media virtual assistant who understands your brand will develop a strong understanding of the type of content your target audience wants to see. They can use social monitoring tools to stay on top of the latest and best articles, videos, and research in your niche.

5. Replying to comments and direct messages

Social media is a powerful way to brands closer to their target audience. Indeed, modern consumers want omnichannel communication, with many people using social media platforms to ask questions, share issues, and even buy products and services.

Monitoring social media comments is a great way to build trust and show your target market you care and value their custom. However, each ping of a notification could wreak havoc on your productivity. A study by the University of Chicago found that it takes, on average, 23 minutes and 15 seconds to regain mental focus after an interruption, which means that hours of productive time could potentially be lost each day just by checking new notifications.

Outsourcing to a virtual assistant is key to striking the balance between timely responses to messages and staying focused on high-priority tasks.

With plenty of instructions and guidance, your virtual assistant can answer simple queries, recommend products, and escalate issues before they turn toxic.

6. Managing your online communities and groups

Online communities and groups are an excellent way to build a loyal and engaged following. These social spaces are a great place for like-minded audiences to congregate, share content, and learn how to get maximum value from your product.

Again, hiring a virtual assistant is a great way to make sure your brand maintains its positive reputation within these communities. They can help by asking and answering questions in group discussions, sharing content, approving new members, and welcoming them to the space.

Not only that, a social media virtual assistant can help moderate your spaces and keep an eye out for spam and irrelevant or inappropriate content.

7. Third-party outreach

Social media platforms also present an opportunity to forge meaningful collaborations with influencers and other brands. However, reaching out to these third parties involves time and research. Likewise, finding partner brands for cross-promotions, guest posts, and brand mentions requires careful research to make sure these collaborations will benefit your brand.

Even once these deals are struck, there is a lot of admin involved in managing and nurturing these relationships.

A virtual personal assistant can help with all of the above, meaning you can push on with business-critical tasks that drive growth.

8. Researching hashtags, trends, or competitors

Making social media posting work for your brand requires a bit of market research. Typically, you can split this research into three broad categories: content, trends, and competitors.

Hashtags are a useful way to engage with your target audience by showing up on their social media feed. Many users congregate around hashtags, making them an effective way to grow your brand organically.

A social media virtual assistant can help you research hashtags that engage potential users. They can also look at the strategies your competitors use and help spot any gaps in your current approach. Keeping an eye on what others are doing will help make sure you never fall behind in today's competitive landscape.

They can also report on current industry trends that are making waves, and suggest ways for your brand to get involved and capitalize on them.

9. Reporting on analytics

Using social media to boost your sales, leads, and engagement is full of many little decisions. While you can certainly trust your gut and hope for the best, it’s best to bolster your choices with some objective data.

In reality, having the time to pour over data is a luxury that many entrepreneurs struggle to afford.

That's why social media reporting is an excellent task to delegate to a virtual assistant. These professionals can monitor your posts across a wide range of platforms and create simple reports on key metrics such as impressions, likes, and engagement.

With these valuable insights, you can make informed decisions and fine-tune your social media strategy without sacrificing the precious time you need for your core tasks.

10. Auditing your feed

When it comes to fine-tuning your social media strategy through your data-driven approach, you may find that a little experimentation is needed to see what works and what doesn't.

If you've been throwing a lot of different things at the wall to see what sticks, chances are your social accounts are now full of a mix of content that resonates differently with your audience. If there are significant inconsistencies with your brand messaging, this can be confusing at best and off-putting at worst for your users.

But rather than spend hours trawling through your posts yourself, you can simply provide your virtual assistant with some clear instructions and criteria to follow, and they'll handle it for you.

What's the bottom line?

From creating content and replying to comments to analyzing performance metrics, a social media virtual assistant can handle these tasks with efficiency and expertise.

It's not just about lightening your load, it's about having the freedom to focus on the bigger picture, as well as the peace of mind of knowing that nothing's falling through the cracks. With the right virtual assistant by your side, you can take your business to new heights and unlock the full potential of your online brand.

So, why wait?

If you're ready to take back control of your time, concentrate on what matters, and step up your social media game, Time etc is here for you.

Since 2007, we've been a trusted partner to over 22,000 business owners, helping them do more, achieve more, and earn more by matching them with top virtual assistants to tackle their time-consuming administrative tasks.

Speak to our expert team to get started, and we'll handle the rest! We'll match you with a skilled virtual assistant based on your unique needs, so you can start doing more of what matters most.

Or try us out for free today!