The word ”Virtual Assistant” is an umbrella word that covers support services offered to business owners both online and offline to help move their businesses forward. Virtual Assistant is not about just one person or service. It’s about an industry that has come to serve. It’s more common online to see that online business owners work with virtual assistants than offline business owners. It started with just the provision of administrative services but with the advent of technology, It has surely evolved to great heights and niches.
The word ”virtual’ means that they can work from anywhere and provide this support to anyone around the world without any issues of distance or location. For example, I currently have three clients who live in the United Kingdom and I am on a different continent working on their businesses. If I decide to travel anywhere tomorrow, I still get to do the work despite my location. The time difference may come as a barrier as some clients feel both parties should be in the same time zone but some don’t mind either. This is the beauty of the business. It follows you anywhere you go as long as there is internet connectivity.
These support services offered can come in different forms depending on the needs of the business and at what stage the business is. This means that ‘there is a VA for every business out there”.
TYPES OF VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS
Virtual Assistants are classified based on the services offered or by industry needs.
BASED ON SERVICES:
Here, you can find Virtual Assistants that offer:
- Administrative virtual support: This is like the mother of this business. Every business incurs administrative tasks and hence needs an assistant to come to take care of them. So what are admin tasks? Administrative tasks range from the organization of appointments, handling emails, document formatting, organization of travelling bookings, answering calls and enquiry, booking of travel logistics, etc Most VAs start from here and then expand their services with time.
- Social Media Management: This involves taking full control of the business accounts of businesses online. It involves opening of accounts, content creation, scheduling and posting, engagement, on a higher level, a strategy that involves marketing, sales and visibility.
- Graphics design: This is straightforward. it involves the creation of branded graphics from logos, flyers for events, customization graphics and so on
- Website design: The design of websites and their management comes in here. it could be a blog or any kind of website. You need to master at least a type of platform that designs a website and master it before you move to the next. This will help you to be positioned as an expert in your chosen field.
- Digital Marketing; This is different from social media marketing. Please, take note of this. A lot of people confuse this service with social media marketing. They are not the same. Instead, social media is part of digital marketing. See this definition from Hubspot. It says that – Digital marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that use an electronic device or the internet. Can you see the difference here?
BASED ON INDUSTRY:
Here, you find that as technology is growing so fast, the virtual assistant world is also growing with it. The many industries and professions we have in our world today all need virtual assistants that can handle their SPECIFIC needs. This is why It’s so sad when virtual assistants just focus on only social media when there are a lot of areas to explore. There are industries that are in dire need of your services if you know how to approach them and serve their audience.
These industries include but it’s not limited to:
- Real Estate
- Healthcare
- Fashion
- Legal
- Entertainment
- Events and Planning
- Engineering
- Politics
- News and Media
- Coaching Industry
Are you still thinking that virtual assistant industry is not broad? Well, think again. I have outlined the various industries that exist in this blog post and will love you to go through it again and make your decision on which area you will like to venture into.
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