Facebook is one of the most important social media channels today. Almost 2.3 billion users are active on this platform every month and form the core target group of many companies.
Targeted advertising makes it possible to address these people precisely and increase the company’s reach. It is therefore worth taking a closer look at Facebook and using its advantages for your own success and what does a social media assistant do.
At first glance, it doesn’t seem like a big challenge to set up and maintain your company page on Facebook. A photo here, a few posts there, and leads and customers are lining up. But unfortunately it is not that simple.
In order to present yourself properly on Facebook and reach your desired customers, you need in-depth knowledge, time and also some money.
Knowledge and time that many entrepreneurs do not have.
In this article, you will learn
- What tasks you can take on as a virtual assistant in fan page management,
- How best to go about it and what you should pay attention to,
- How much time you need for it
- And how to calculate the price for your service.
Two types of clients and their differences
In my experience, there are two types of entrepreneurs:
- Entrepreneurs who would like to have a fan page but cannot or do not want to take care of it. They usually have no idea what to post on Facebook because they are not aware of Facebook’s potential. They imagine that several posts should be posted on their page every day because they cannot properly estimate the effort required for a meaningful post.
- And then there is the entrepreneur who knows exactly how much time website maintenance takes because he does it himself. However, since he doesn’t have the time, he wants to delegate this task and devote himself to other important business matters.
For a virtual assistant, working with the first type of entrepreneur is more difficult, as they first need to be made aware of the amount of work involved. They need to understand that it is not just about writing posts.
Photos also need to be searched for and optimized, and videos are increasingly being used. Comments and messages are also waiting to be answered.
The second type of entrepreneur is more aware of this. He is therefore not surprised by the costs associated with maintaining a Facebook page.
Creating posts and what to look out for
The most important and time-consuming task is creating posts. This is not just writing text, but also selecting suitable photos or preparing graphics.
Some posts can be written in a few minutes, while others take 1-2 hours due to research. Therefore, I advise against using the number of posts as a basis for billing.
As a virtual assistant, you should agree with your client how many posts should appear on the fan page per week.
It also plays a significant role whether you are provided with materials to build on. This could be information about the product or brand, as well as relevant photos or graphics previously created by the graphic designer.
Some clients want to run their fan page themselves. All they need is a copywriter who can write search engine optimized posts. They take care of the publishing and photos or graphics themselves. That’s why it’s important to clarify the exact scope of the tasks in advance.
If the contractor does not give you access to photos, graphics and other materials, you should make them aware that research takes time. The client should be aware that writing an article does not just involve pressing a few keys on the keyboard, but also searching for information and suitable graphics and photos in photo banks.
I advise virtual assistants to find out if the client provides topics or if they have a marketing strategy. If so, the task becomes much easier as the given topics provide good guidance.
Finally, an important tip: Before you take on the maintenance of a Facebook page, think about whether the topic really interests you and whether you have knowledge of the respective field.
If the topic interests you, you will enjoy it and create posts with ease. This is of great value not only to you, but also to your client. Otherwise, you will spend a lot of time searching for information that you probably don’t know much about. There is also a greater risk that your texts will be boring or incorrect and will harm the client.
For example, if someone asked me to run a fan page related to Japanese fishing culture, I would probably fail completely.
Publish posts – with or without a plan
The post is now finished. Now it’s time to publish it. But first you should make a few arrangements.
Find out if your client wants a specific way of publishing content. Should it be scheduled? If so, should it be scheduled directly on Facebook or do they prefer scheduling in tools like Hootsuite or Buffer? Maybe it doesn’t make a difference to them and they want you to choose the way that’s most convenient for you?
Regardless of the type of publication, the client must grant you access to the Facebook page. Under no circumstances should you use the client’s private account. The permissions should be assigned in such a way that you can carry out your tasks without any problems.
At this point I would like to recommend that you plan your posts in advance. Posting manually is inconvenient and time-consuming. You have to visit the page every time, create the post and share it.
It is therefore much more convenient to create more posts and schedule their publication. You plan once, the posts will be displayed at the set time and you can take care of other tasks. This way you don’t run the risk of forgetting a post or constantly thinking about publishing it.
And since posts are scheduled, you can ask your client if they have any preferences for when they publish. If the client doesn’t give you a time preference, try posting the posts at different times and look at the statistics. Check which posts get the most reach and get the most likes and comments. Consider whether the time of publication affects this.
Answer comments and possible problems
Talk to the client about whether you should respond to comments.
If it’s part of your job, find out whether the customer is currently going through a particularly difficult situation. This could include a shitstorm or questions about high prices and product quality. Discuss how you should react to something like this and which comments can be deleted.
If the fan page is new and the client has not yet developed a strategy for dealing with unpleasant comments, I would advise you to send your prepared responses to them and ask for their approval when in doubt. This way, you can develop response patterns together over time.
Also ask your client if you have to respond to a comment within a certain time. You should be careful here. If the client demands that every comment be answered within an hour, that would mean that you would have to check their page continuously. That is absolutely not feasible. In such a situation, try to negotiate or rather forego cooperation.
Write messages and PhraseExpress
You must first discuss with the customer whether you should reply to messages. The requirements and problems are similar to those when answering comments. It also makes sense to prepare sample answers to frequently asked questions.
I recommend using PhraseExpress for this. In this tool, you can access all sample answers with just a few clicks or keyboard shortcuts. You can embed the answers sorted by customer. This saves you a lot of time and work.
Also, find out if you need additional permissions to respond to messages. People may ask you about their orders from the client’s online store. In order to give them an answer about the order status, you will need to be able to access that store. Please be aware that you are already touching on customer service activities here, which come with their own responsibilities.
Calculate price for your service
Probably the first question you will receive from your client when you are asked to maintain their Facebook page is: “How much does it cost?”
Unfortunately, I can’t give you a simple answer. However, I can explain how I do it. It may not be the most popular way among virtual assistants, but it works for me.
First, I gather information about the task area and create a test post. Both for myself and for the client. I measure the time it takes to write the post and multiply it by the number of posts that are to be published during the month. The client can use the test post to evaluate my work and know what to expect from me in the future.
Depending on what additional tasks the client assigns to me, I estimate the additional monthly time required. The cumulative time required is multiplied by my hourly rate. This results in an offer that I can send to my potential customer.
To ensure that my customer ultimately pays for exactly the time I actually work for him, there are two options:
- In the first month, I measure the time and issue the customer an invoice at the end of the month. This way, the customer knows how much time it will take to run their fan page and what costs they will have to expect for outsourcing to me. They can then buy a specific hourly package from me for the next month.
- We will immediately switch to the hourly package based on my previous calculations. I will let him know as soon as his hourly quota with me has been exhausted. At the end of the month at the latest, he will receive an overview of his remaining hours.
Another solution could be for the customer to name a monthly amount that should not be exceeded. This amount can be divided by the hourly rate to get the maximum possible working hours.
As a virtual assistant, you can then estimate whether the number of hours is sufficient for the desired pool of tasks. If the hourly quota is not sufficient, an open discussion with the customer is necessary. Suggest possible areas of responsibility that you can take on without exceeding their budget.
I hope that this post helps you in your work as a virtual assistant.