Yes, you can outsource social media tasks, just make sure your VA represents your company in the best possible light.

There are people concerned about the kind of representation they are getting when they outsource social media tasks to a virtual assistant. There are people that warn companies against outsourcing social media tasks because of the importance of these tasks in brand building and communications. While it is true that everything that gets posted in your social media account reflects on your company, it doesn’t mean that a VA will cause damage to your reputation. To think that that the VA will damage your reputation is to believe that a VA is incapable of creating meaningful and valuable content for your social media accounts. And anyone who has worked with a good VA knows that this is not true. There are many virtual assistants who are perfectly skilled in PR, marketing and copywriting and can create content that your followers will find value in.

What you need to do to ensure that your VA represents your company well in Twitter is to make sure your VA knows and understands what you are trying to achieve in your social media activities. If you really want to ensure you have greater control of what’s being published in your social media accounts, create and implement social media policies for your business.

Here are the things you and your VA must remember when using any social media:

Social media work best when used as a two-way communication channel- make sure your VA remembers this. Encourage your VA to reply and retweet. Tell your VA to be warm and personal without being TOO personal. People following your account should feel the authenticity and sincerity of the person behind the account, but they don’t need to learn anything too personal about the company or the person.

Common sense is important- tell your VA to use common sense when using social media.

Do not reply with anger and other intense emotions, unless those emotions were related to happiness- tell your VA to exercise self-control and to not to take anything personally.

Creativity matters- with the millions of people using Twitter and other social media, your account will need a shot of creativity to be noticed. Make sure you create tweets with value.

Have clear guidelines as to what topics your VA can NOT discuss- there may be certain information about your company that are better not discussed in public, inform your VA what these areas, topics and issues are.

 “Visit our Virtual Personal Assistant sponsor: www.CatchFriday.com”.

Follow us on twiiter @catchfriday