Preface By Kerwin McKenzie
I’m a firm believer in doing everything myself. Well, I was until a few years ago when I needed to re-design my website; Passrider.com. I tried, it took me forever and still I had no results. So then I hired a guy from the Philippines to take care of it and in about a month or so he was done. And so I was launched into using virtual assistants to take care of the repetitive stuff I ad as well as the stuff of which I know little. This frees me up to do other more important tasks.
My friend Chris Ducker, who in my mind is the king of the whole virtual assistants world has written this article for me to explain this some more. Take it away Chris.
Here’s Chris
The company or personal blog is one of the most important aspects of the business for an online entrepreneur. It is where you can interact with your followers and build trust with your readers. When you become a recommended resource for knowledge on a particular subject, the chances of you selling a product or service becomes much higher. People buy from those who they trust and having a personal or company blog is a great way to promote yourself to potential customers, and give them an idea of who you are and what your business is about. Here we will address the issues surrounding blog management & social media with the help of a virtual assistants.
In today’s society, maintaining online sites is not only a savvy business practice but rapidly becoming an obligatory part of running a company. Ask anyone who has a blog, it is a time consuming process! Regular tasks include updating the website, writing content, editing images, SEO, promotion, WordPress management and replying to comments.
As entrepreneurs, time is our most valuable asset and should be valued as highly as currency. It is admirable to spend hours upon hours working on your first blog or business, crawling the internet looking for SEO tips and solutions to WordPress problems, but in all fairness you should be looking to outsource all of this as soon as you can. Why spend hours trying to fix issues that someone else can fix in a matter of minutes? Why do the slow stuff that someone else can manage just as well as you? That is just bad for business.
Virtual assistants are a convenient way to help business owners maximize their internet presence and therefore, their marketability. Lets begin with blog management.
Blog Management
One of the first jobs that many business owners will outsource is their blog management How can a virtual assistant help you to manage your blog and become more efficient?
- Your assistant can draft posts and research topics. This allows you to log in and elaborate on the headings and information they have gathered therefore saving you time and effort
- If you have hired an english proficient VA then they can also do jobs such as correcting grammar, proofreading and spellcheck
- Adding links to relevant posts on your site and elsewhere on the internet, as well as repairing any broken links on your website
- Uploading images to WordPress and adding images to posts with ALT tags and descriptions for seo
- Fill in tags and seo Yoast details to improve search engine rankings
- Updating plugins and WordPress when necessary. (Always backup WordPress!)
- Set featured image
- Run GT Metric scan to check site speed
- Edit and update old posts (Google appreciates this!)
Do you see how much is involved in managing a blog now? This is only scratching the surface as now the post needs to be promoted. This is another instance where a virtual assistant can be a great asset for a company leaving you the time to create quality content while removing the monotony of tasks associated with blogging.
Social Media
Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, Flickr, G+ and Instagram are only a handful of the sites that are popular nowadays. People have been seized with the desire to share things with friends and associates every moment of every day. As a business, you need to evaluate where to put your energy and focus. You do not need to be on every site and for hours every day, but alas, you must embrace and become proficient at social media if you wish to succeed in today’s online world.
The demand for a continued social networking presence can become overwhelming, tiresome and downright timewasting. It is a good part of your business to outsource, so that you do not become distracted by all that goes on in the virtual world. Creating a social media plan for your assistant to follow is an essential part of handing over the reigns, where you detail the posting schedule for each channel of social media during the week and what to post.
You can use plugins such as Jetpack, which will automate social media posting as soon as the article goes live on your website, but this may not always be convenient or the best way to promote. Putting a personal touch can be the difference between using social to have people engage with your business or avoid it. Some tasks for a virtual assistant who is managing your social media include:
- Have your VA connect your social media accounts in WordPress – if you have not already done so.
- Have your VA verify Google Plus Authorship
- Using a social media plan – have your assistant source images, posts and come up with questions to share on your accounts
- Connect all accounts to Klout
- Depending on the scale and size of your business there may be repeated updating profiles on a vast array of social media accounts and it is important to keep on top of this.
- Engage with people on social media
- Keep customers up-to-date about upcoming events.
- It is important to know your customers – Create a poll to ask questions about what your customers want
Conclusion
There are many ways outsourcing blog management & social media to a virtual assistant can prove a beneficial arrangement for both parties. By removing mundane tasks made necessary by the constant demands of blogging & social media, the virtual assistant will give you back your ability to focus on creating killer content and moving the business forward. Who really wants to be the person who ends up wading through mountains of material for their blog, editing all the content and then promoting it? Does it not make perfect sense to hand over these tasks as soon as you can and give yourself some virtual freedom!
About the Author:
Chris Ducker is a successful entrepreneur, blogger, and podcaster known for his thought leadership about building businesses and lifestyles that thrive with virtual teams. His highly-anticipated book—Virtual Freedom: How to Work with Virtual Staff to Buy More Time, Become More Productive, and Build Your Dream Business—comes out April 1 and is available for pre-order now.