Types of Virtual Assistant Services

Different Types of Virtual Assistant

There are mainly 8 types of virtual assistants.

1. Social Media Virtual Assistant:

Social media is a necessary evil. Small business owners spend an average of between 6 to 10 hours a week on social media marketing. You can save your precious time by hiring a virtual social media assistant. Now you might be wondering – what is a virtual social media assistant? “Virtual social media assistant is nothing, but a remote worker who handles social media marketing tasks of a client.” Here is a list of some important tasks you can assign to your virtual social media assistant:

• Creating Facebook, LinkedIn, Google + page for your business
• Creating social media profiles on different channels
• Doing research to find fresh content for social media posts
• Scheduling posts with the help of social media tools
• Increasing and engaging your audience on different social channels
• Creating performance metrics and measuring analytics
• Keeping a watchful eye on your competitors

Virtual social media assistants from a reputed agency are usually well-versed in managing all the leading social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. So you shouldn’t worry about anything once you hire a good social media virtual assistant.

2. Real Estate Virtual Assistant

I have a friend, Matt, who runs a real estate business. I don’t remember any meeting with him when he doesn’t complain about not having time to spend with his family. Matt is always a busy person. He does all tasks himself from posting ads on Craigslist to following up with prospective renters to buyers. One day, his wife suggested him to hire a real estate agent. Though resisted initially, he hired a VA eventually to avoid nagging of his wife. You would be surprised to know what happened next. He has more time for his family and goes for a vacation after every three months. And the best part, His business has witnessed a quick growth. Matt is not alone in hiring a real estate virtual assistant. As seen on REALTORMag, Top real estate leaders hire real estate virtual assistants. So, what is a real estate virtual assistant and what does a real estate virtual assistant do? “Real estate virtual assistants are remote workers who can complete a wide variety of real estate tasks, such as preparing & filing paperwork, responding to email inquiries, setting up meetings, etc.” Here is a list of important tasks that you can assign to your real estate virtual assistant:

• Real estate data scraping with the help of classifieds software from different websites, such as Craigslist, Backpage, Oodle, and eBay
• Posting ads on Craigslist, Zumper, Postlets, RentLinx, Zillow and others
• Sending introductory messages to potential renters along with appropriate listings based on what they require
• Compiling morning reports with information received from MLS
• Managing your calendar
• Responding to email inquiries
• Setting up your meetings
• Following up with prospective renters and buyers
• Social media campaigns for your real estate website
• Writing blogs and articles for content marketing
• Database management
• Email campaigns
• Doing property research and creating property report
• Following up over phone and email with parties involved in the closing process like a home inspector and home appraiser

3. Virtual Research Assistant

As I mentioned in the beginning, my friend Mary, chief marketing officer in a leading firm, hired a virtual research assistant to delegate research work. This has helped her finish office work on time and she was able to give her family more time. It is clear from the name, the virtual research assistant is someone who does internet research for their clients. Here is a list of tasks that you can assign to a virtual research assistant:

• Searching for credible sites for up-to-date information based on your needs
• Compiling research data
• Presenting data in an easy-to-understand format
• Searching for important statistics based on your business
• Identifying opportunities for your business growth
• Conducting competitive intelligence
• Helping you choose a right vendor by comparing prices
• Searching for guest blogging opportunities

You can read more here about virtual research assistant

4. Virtual Administrative Assistant

Are you a busy entrepreneur like my friend, Robin? Robin is running a startup business. He offers HVAC system repairing to the local residents of Charleston, South Carolina. Robin has an office staff of 4 people. Due to a small number of headcounts, Robin had to do lots of work himself. Many a time, he stayed late in the office to manage work. His friend suggested him to hire a virtual administrative assistant. After a little fuss, he hired a virtual assistant to manage administrative tasks that started to save him 2-3 hours daily. Now, he has more time to make plans for the growth of his business, and he reaches his home on time. A virtual administrative assistant not only made Robin’s life easier, but also helped him grow the business. Now, you might have a question what is a virtual administrative assistant and how did he help Robin? The definition of virtual administrative assistant can be given as below, “A virtual administrative assistant is someone who does a variety of administrative tasks, such as managing contact lists, handling billing and accounting, handling basic HR duties, etc.” The list of important tasks that you can assign to your virtual administrative assistant are mentioned below:

• Managing emails and telephone calls
• Scheduling management
• Bookkeeping and customer management
• Keeping you informed about your industry
• Managing a contact list in a spreadsheet
• Calendar management and setting up meetings
• Making travel arrangement
• Document formatting and management

5. eCommerce Virtual Assistant

eCommerce businesses are booming like any anything. With the growth of businesses has increased the workload of eCommerces businessmen as well. Now, they need to be more aggressive in their efforts to outgrow their competitors. eCommerce virtual assistants can ease out the burden of eComm businessmen. Here is a list of important tasks that you can delegate to your eCommerce virtual assistant:

• eCommerce product data entry
• Handling transaction in a seamless way
• Managing inventory on a daily basis
• Writing SEO-friendly product descriptions
• Conducting your competitors’ analysis
• Providing 24/7 email and chat supports to your customers
• Taking care of order processing
• Editing product images
• Product category management
• Coupon data entry
• Product classification & taxonomy development
• Handling return and exchange of products

eCommerce virtual assistants are adept at working with Shopify, Magento, or any other platform. So, you won’t have to worry about anything. Whether you are selling products on your website or you are selling them on a marketplace, an eCommerce virtual assistant can help you run your business smoothly. Let us see how an eCommerce virtual assistant has increased the sale of David’s products on the marketplaces. David is selling his products on Amazon and eBay. Before hiring an eCommerce virtual assistant, he had to do everything himself from inventory management to handling return & exchange of products. David used to be overwhelmed by the workload. Many a time, he was not able to focus on his competitors due to excessive workload. He hired an eCommerce virtual assistant, Rohit, three months back. Rohit took inventory management, product fulfillment, and product data entry in his hands. This eased David’s workload out. Now, he has more time for the promotion of his products. And he has been able to execute aggressive marketing strategies for his products. This has doubled his sale.

6. Data Entry Virtual Assistant

I have asked many entrepreneurs about one of the most cumbersome tasks, and most of them gave the same answer – data entry. A study suggests that data entry tasks completed in time stress cause emotional irritation, making it difficult for people to input data correctly. Data entry virtual assistants work as a savior for entrepreneurs. They can save you both time and money. Hear a list of tasks that you can assign to your data entry virtual assistant:

• Preparing, compiling and sorting data for entry
• Reviewing data for accuracy
• Data management (updating data & deleting unnecessary files)
• Keeping a track for activities and tasks
• Generating reports and entering data into your CRM system

Hiring a data entry virtual assistant is always cheaper than hiring a regular employee to complete data entry tasks, especially when you don’t have to deal with a mountain of data quite often.

7. Virtual Bookkeeping Assistant

Bookkeeping is the backbone of every business – small or big. And needless to say, bookkeeping demands time and resource. You can delegate a variety of tasks to your virtual bookkeeping assistant. Here is a list of some important tasks:

• Inventory management
• Taking care of record keeping and bookkeeping procedures
• Budgeting and year-end bookkeeping
• Projecting cash flow and account reconciliation
• Revenue expenditure management
• QuickBooks and Sage 50 accounts management
• Payroll processing
• Bank and credit card reconciliation
• Excel bookkeeping data entry

You can easily hire accounting virtual assistants adept at widely used software, such as Xero, NetSuite, QuickBooks, etc. As Mentioned earlier, my friend Robin who runs a business of HVAC system repair has a small staff of 4 people. He has hired a virtual bookkeeping assistant to manage bookkeeping for his business.

8. Virtual Marketing Assistants

As a business owner, you must be aggressive in planning marketing strategies. A virtual marketing assistant can help you streamline your marketing efforts. Now you might have a question – what is virtual marketing assistant and what they do? “A virtual marketing assistant is someone who helps their clients in various kind of marketing tasks, such as Facebook marketing, Twitter marketing, email marketing, etc.” Here is a list of important tasks that you can assign to your virtual marketing assistant:

• Social media marketing
• Conducting keyword research
• Creating and running AdWord campaigns
• Promoting your blog post
• Developing new and innovative content for all social media platforms
• Researching and identifying new leads in your business domain
• Managing and setting up mail merges using YesWare for Gmail

A virtual marketing assistant will not only keep your marketing efforts on the track, but also save you time and money. In addition to these virtual assistants, you can also hire a virtual assistant for email & chat support, customer care service as well. If you simply want to hire a virtual assistant to manage some unproductive tasks, such as making travel arrangement, sending trade invitations to your prospects, etc., go for a personal virtual assistant. You also have an option to hire a remote team of virtual assistants if you need virtual assistants for multiple tasks. Some agencies offer this facility. Hiring a remote team is dirt cheap as compared to hiring regular employees separately to complete each individual tasks. Now comes a question- what does a virtual assistant charge? The answer is – it depends. Mostly, virtual assistants charge on a  monthly basis. And the rate varies. You can hire a virtual assistant for $5 to $20, depending on the agency you choose.