These days, virtual assistant services are exploding and have quickly become one of the most abundant remote jobs available.
Virtual assistants are often compared to the traditional job role of a personal assistant to a high-level manager or SEO.
However, personal assistants’ services vary significantly in the virtual world. For example, virtual assistant tasks can include customer service, managing social media accounts, accounting, web design, and many other possibilities.
Whether you’re interested in becoming a virtual assistant for the first time, or you’ve been a VA for a while and are looking to niche down, you’ll be surprised to learn just how many types of virtual assistants there are.
You can even search some virtual assistant websites and narrow down the type you need, and help yourself get started.
Here are the 10 most common types of virtual assistants.
Social Media Virtual Assistant
With practically every business now active on social media, many virtual assistants tasks include social media marketing. However, you can choose to solely manage companies’ social media accounts, marketing yourself as a social media VA.
This is ideal for anyone who loves social media and marketing.
As a social media VA, you’ll be running marketing campaigns, responding to comments and messages, and tracking performance.
Any small business owner will agree that running social media accounts is a tedious and time-consuming task that can steal 6 to 8 hours of their time each week.
In fact, when business owners attempt to manage their own social media accounts, they find they are not able to focus on more important things.
Therefore, it’s no surprise that managing social media is one of the most common areas of work outsourced among small businesses. As a result, there are always plenty of businesses seeking social media specific VA and it is an excellent niche to get into right now.
Of course, as a social media VA, you’ll need to be savvy in using all the social media platforms and know how to manage profiles on different channels.
You’ll also need a thorough understanding of how to market on each channel and how to work with the algorithms.
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Administrative Virtual Assistant
One of the most common and essential services offered by virtual assistants is administration. An Administrative VA is essentially the right-hand man (or woman) for a manager or entrepreneur, responsible for all administrative tasks for the employer and the company.
For businesses of all sizes, an administrative VA is a vital employee to have. They can free up the time of busy executives and leaders and relieve their stress by supporting heavy workloads.
As an admin VA, you’ll carry out tasks like scheduling appointments, managing diaries, and responding to emails. However, duties can also include bookkeeping, industry research, or social media management because it is so varied.
Because it’s such a versatile role, you’ll need to be adaptable and flexible, ready to take on additional tasks. As a result, excellent multitasking and problem-solving skills are vital to providing these types of virtual assistant services.
E-Commerce Virtual Assistant
E-commerce businesses (online shopping stores) are hugely popular in this day and age. As e-commerce stores grow and demand increases, many seek virtual assistants to take over everyday operational tasks.
If you choose to work as an E-commerce VA, you’ll spend your workday managing inventory, adding new products, and updating existing ones.
You’ll need some copywriting skills to write attractive product descriptions, and some technical know-how to ensure transactions run smoothly. You’ll also need to be familiar with all the main shopping platforms like Amazon, Shopify, and Magento.
Many E-Commerce virtual assistants will also provide customer support, helping shoppers with any issues or questions they have.
Some are also skilled enough to help with the development and maintenance of the platform or update the features to create a more effortless shopping experience.
Once you gain experience in this niche, you can specialize in one particular platform. Doing this will allow you to charge a higher rate for your services.
Pinterest Virtual Assistant
Other specialized services offered by virtual assistants include specific social media platforms like Pinterest. Social media VAs have a broad knowledge of all platforms, but Pinterest VAs know precisely how the Pinterest algorithm works.
While Pinterest is classed as a social media platform, it’s also a search engine. Therefore, many businesses opt to use this site for marketing their products or services.
Hiring a Pinterest VA means business owners can take advantage of this trendy marketing platform without taking the time and effort to learn it.
Because the platform is all about visual content, as a Pinterest Virtual Assistant, you’ll be creating images that reflect your client’s mission and will then use them in a marketing campaign.
Many of these virtual assistants choose to create their own extensive catalog of existing templates for businesses to choose from, too.
SEO Virtual Assistant
An SEO (search engine optimization) virtual assistant can help bloggers and online businesses get more website hits. These types of virtual assistants can improve the business’s SEO strategy or create one from scratch.
SEO VA’s have a clear purpose, to help grow brands’ online presence and scale their business by getting their website to rank higher on search engines.
As an SEO virtual assistant, your role will be to go through all the company’s existing web copy and rewrite it in an SEO-friendly way by using keywords to improve their ranking.
Other tasks include updating blog content to make it more SEO-friendly. You can also work with brands by researching commonly-searched topics and producing blog posts that will get their site plenty of clicks.
You can choose whether to solely focus on the SEO side of blogging or on other blog virtual assistant services, too (see below).
Blog Virtual Assistant
Blog VAs are one of the best virtual assistant services for new bloggers. As a blog VA, you’ll help new brands build their blog from scratch and turn it into a conversion tool that gets them sales.
However, you’ll need to have a wealth of expertise in handling the technical ‘behind the scenes’ side of running a blog, along with SEO knowledge. Fortunately, you can learn these skills by taking online courses.
These types of virtual assistants work with clients predominantly in the first stages of setting up their websites. However, you can continue to work with them by offering a service to help grow their blog by creating regular high-quality content.
Another service you can offer is repurposing the blog content by turning it into social media posts.
Becoming a virtual blog assistant is ideal for those with content writing experience. As you are already familiar with creating blog articles, you know first-hand what type of content gets the most hits.
So for SEO and content writers looking to advance their careers and increase their income, offering blog VA services to new bloggers is an excellent option.
Customer Service Assistant
Just as customer service assistants are the backbone of brick and mortar businesses, the same is valid for online brands. Virtual customer service assistants have the same purpose as those working in real-life stories, to provide a positive experience to customers.
However, the critical difference is that virtual customer service assistants don’t deal with customers face to face. Instead, they communicate through online chat, emails, and phone.
The specific communication channels will depend on the business. For example, customer assistants for an online store may primarily offer support via instant web chat.
Alternatively, a customer service VA job can be like a remote version of a call center job. For example, they might answer calls from the company’s helpline but from the comfort of their own home rather than in a busy office.
Like most customer service jobs, a virtual customer service role is a good option for someone looking for a VA job without previous or specialized experience.
What’s more, as the job descriptions vary from business to business, you can still be a customer service VA if you’re an introvert. In this case, look for roles where you solely interact with customers through online chat and emails and thus, don’t have to speak to people.
Data Entry Assistant
For centuries, data entry assistants have supported large corporations and small businesses with tedious and time-consuming data entry tasks.
While this was traditionally an office job, the rise of online companies has resulted in many data entry assistants transitioning to remote work.
Data entry requires an eye for detail. Therefore, it’s naturally one of the first jobs that busy entrepreneurs choose to outsource.
As well as saving time, hiring a data entry assistant can also save them money by preventing costly mistakes the business owner would make when rushing through the task.
Data entry assistants spend their days compiling and inputting large amounts of information into a database and reviewing it for accuracy. Some businesses that require audio transcribing will also seek out these types of virtual assistants.
Many data entry positions do not require previous experience, so they are another excellent option for someone just starting out.
The tasks you’ll do are limited, though, and it doesn’t involve a broad list of responsibilities like some of the other VA jobs do.
So, if you’re someone who likes change and gets bored doing the same thing all do, this may not be the best VA role for you.
Graphic Design Assistant
A graphic design assistant has specific skills in creating online graphics such as logos, website banners, infographics, and social media content.
The scope of services offered by virtual assistants of this kind will depend on their experience and expertise. For example, some solely create logos and social media content, whereas others specialize in web design.
They are one of the most highly sought-after types of virtual assistants for entrepreneurs who want to focus solely on the business side of their startup. As a result, they hire a graphic design VA to help them with the creative part of building a business.
As a graphic design VA, you will work on a business’s branding; creating logos and color schemes, and designing the website. You can also help existing companies looking to rebrand or improve their website.
For example, looking for ways that companies can enhance the images on their website.
Along with a creative flair, you’ll need some previous experience in graphic design. This doesn’t mean you will need a specific qualification as many graphic design VAs are self-taught.
However, you’ll need to be comfortable using design tools like Canva and Adobe Design.
Accounting Virtual Assistant
Some virtual assistants choose to assist solely in the bookkeeping and accounts of a business. They will typically support the accountant by carrying out tasks like managing inventory, processing payroll, and account reconciliation.
For freelancers and sole traders who handle their own accounts, enlisting the help of an accounting VA will relieve the stress of their year-end bookkeeping.
As an accounting VA, you may also need to assist in budgeting and record-keeping for the client.
Many accounting virtual assistants manage the accounts of multiple clients simultaneously. If you have an accounting qualification or previous experience in this field, niching down as an accounting virtual assistant could be an ideal way to raise your rates.
Just be sure that you are well-rehearsed with the latest versions of accounting software, like Xero, Sage 50, and QuickBooks.
Final Thoughts On Types Of Virtual Assistants
As a virtual assistant, you can choose to offer a broad range of services, or specialize in one area, like these 10 types of virtual assistant roles. Even so, training in multiple virtual assistant tasks does not mean you will have a higher skill level.
VAs who specialize in one area are often more valuable than a jack of all trades, as they know the ins and outs of their field. Thus, niching down will allow you to earn more money as a virtual assistant.
Not sure how much to charge as a virtual assistant? Read our guide to learn more about virtual assistant costs.
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