VA - Writer/Social Media

Hello!

I’m currently looking to hire one part-time, general purpose Virtual Assistant.

I’m American, but I’m currently a student living in Paris, France. Manila is 7 hours ahead, so ideally you would be working in the evening (Manila time), so that I can work in the morning and we can communicate in real time.

I started a travel blog a few months ago, and I’ve been very busy and not had the time to dedicate that I would like to have. I’m going to start working on it a lot more consistently and I would like the assistance to handle some of the more routine tasks that goes into building a successful blog.

I would really like somebody who considers themselves a writer, that could double as a General VA. Your writing wouldn’t need to be perfect, but enough to get a rough outline of a blog post that I could review and publish.

Additional duties would include, but are not limited to:

Social Media - This would primarily be managing my Pinterest. If you are not familiar with Pinterest that isn’t a problem as it is a very easy site to learn. I’m currently experimenting with Stumbleupon, and If I see progress there, then I would put more effort into it.

Commenting - This is perhaps the most time consuming aspect of a blog but I believe it’s necessary. You would simply need to read other travel blogs and leave thoughtful, engaging comments.

Wordpress - I would handle the vast majority of Wordpress, but if you have any experience with it, that’s a plus! Specifically with formatting (which is easy), and linking (which slightly more difficult but still easy).

Research - This could be any number of things, but don’t worry, I wouldn’t ask you to do something without showing you how I would like that task to be completed. Very easy!

Organization - I’m a pretty organised person, but I often forget to update things! This would include updating my calendar, and keeping track of spreadsheets.

There may be some additional things that come up on a case-by-case basis, but again, I will show you exactly what needs to be done, and how to do it, before letting you do it on your own. So if you’re not experienced with any of these tasks, don’t worry!

I know some people use software to check up on their VA’s, but I don’t believe in doing that, because I think this is a relationship that should be based on trust. The most important thing to me is that you’re willing to learn, and you’re honest enough to complete tasks with little/no supervision.

What I would require though, is a short “report” at the end of the day detailing what you completed on that day. Either a short email, or possibly Dropbox would suffice. Initially, this would be daily, but if we work together for awhile this would probably go away completely.

As far as compensation goes, I would like to be around $250-$300 USD/month for 20 hours/week. There is the potential for this to move into a full time position within a few months, but for now the blog is so new that there simply isn’t that much to do. Also, if it isn’t obvious already, a smartphone and computer with good internet is also a requirement.

Sample Day

A day could begin with you updating some spreadsheets that I already have. For instance, I have one with other bloggers that I would like to work with in it. I may need you to update it with their new amount of social media followers, or something along those lines.

Then you would need to work on Pinterest for perhaps an hour. Specifically I would need you to Re-pin some of my boards. In addition you would have to browse Pinterest and comment/like/follow other peoples boards.

Then I may need you to comment on other blogs. Perhaps 3 a day. I haven’t really decided on this one though.

Then if you still have time, work on creating outlines of blog posts. I have a very long list of blog post ideas that I would provide you with, and I would tell you which ones I would be working on in the near future.

An example could be if I were writing a post called “50 free things to do in Paris”, you could simply google “free things to do in Paris”, read a couple different articles, and then put together a list and then send it to me, or upload it directly into Wordpress. I would then go and review what you wrote, add my own suggestions, and do all the linking and formatting.

Some other things could come up, but for the foreseeable future, this is what you would be working on. As the website grows I would like to expand this role into a full-time position, and possibly hire another VA as well, though that’s far down the road!

One thing that I would really like is if you could provide samples of your writing, as English proficiency is a must for this position.

If you’re interested, please do respond to this and I’ll be sure to write you back. I will be doing interviews, and hopefully we can come to an arrangement!