What Is a Virtual Assistant and Why Should You Hire One?

There are currently more than 70.4 million freelancers in the US.

More people are turning to freelance work every year, and it presents new opportunities for companies. There are all different kinds of freelance workers, and one type that’s showing up more and more is virtual assistants. Many businesses are hiring virtual assistants to help with various tasks as they offer a range of benefits.

So what is a virtual assistant? Keep reading to find out.

What Is a Virtual Assistant?

A virtual assistant is a remote worker who can perform a range of tasks for your business, depending on your needs. They typically work on a part-time basis and take care of tasks that would usually fall to an executive assistant. In most cases, they work as freelancers but may be hired as employees in certain circumstances.

What Can a VA Do for Your Business?

As remote assistants, they’ll simply need an internet connection to work. You can hire a VA to help with all kinds of different tasks.

Administration

This is one of the most common VA tasks. They can help track expenses, manage budgets, make purchases, and more.

Data Entry

VAs can help with compiling data and ensuring entries are correct and concise. This is typical within educational and postal organizations.

Social Media Management

Social media has become an important aspect of business in today’s world. A strong social media presence can help a brand reach a much wider audience and build connections with customers.

A VA can manage various social media pages for your business by creating posts, replying to customers, and marketing your brand. They can even analyze the performance on different platforms to develop a more effective social media strategy.

Content Creation

Depending on a VAs particular skills, they may be able to create content for social media profiles and websites. This can include things like graphics, blog posts, videos, and more. A VA that has skills such as video editing and graphic design may be better for this, but may also charge a higher rate.

Bookkeeping

Tracking finances is essential for any business, but it can be quite time-consuming. Hiring a VA to take care of this will free up your staff to handle other jobs.

Other Tasks

Some of the other tasks that a VA may be able to help with include:

• Preparing presentations
• Organizing events
• Arranging travel
• Customer support
• Research

All VA have different skill sets and offer different services. When hiring a VA, you may need to look into their particular skills if there’s anything quite specific that you need.

Benefits of Hiring a Virtual Assistant

Many of these tasks can be handled by executive assistants and other workers – so why hire a VA? The main benefit is that you can bring them for a set number of hours each week, depending on how much you need from them. This can often be more suitable than hiring an employee to work contracted hours.

Some of the benefits of hiring a VA include:

• Saving time
• Increasing productivity
• Scalability
• Cost-reduction
• Sustainability
• Specialized services
• Availability and flexibility
• Improved customer service

There are plenty of virtual assistants out there. This means you can easily find someone who’s the perfect fit for your company.

How to Hire a Virtual Assistant

You’re no longer asking, “what is a virtual assistant?” but you may be wondering where to get started. FreeUp is a platform designed to connect businesses to freelance workers. Through our website, you can find a virtual assistant that fits your needs perfectly.

To find out more about how we can help you click here to contact us today.