I was chatting to someone who was just about to recruit a Virtual Assistant or Social Media Manager to do her social media for her.
It seemed like a great idea to find someone to schedule all the posts. My busy business owner was happy to create the graphics – it is one of her strong points, but she had worked out she didn’t have the time to schedule them across the various social media platforms she used.
It’s a very sensible decision to delegate that sort of work. Any competent social media savvy Virtual Assistant or Social Media Assistant can do it for you.
Though speaking personally I’d rather have them source the graphics too (provided we are both quite clear that we don’t breach other people’s copyright and only use graphics we are entitled to do)!
My client went on to say
I am going to put all my passwords in a password locker, so I can give her all my passwords.
What about social media passwords?
Hold on there. You don’t want to be giving your account passwords to your VA or anyone else! At the very least share via your password locker without letting your passwords be visible.
Be aware, many social media sites have rules that say you must not let anyone else use your password. But whatever the rules say it is a really daft thing to do.
We hear tales of Assistants who change the password without letting the client know (so now you are locked out of your own social media).
And there is a real risk to your reputation if you let someone have complete access to post anything they want. Mistakes can and do happen.
It is not a question of your Assistant being untrustworthy – you wouldn’t hire them if you didn’t trust them.
It’s about having a robust and resilient system that you can control to make sure you are on top of GDPR (more later on this) and that what is posted is on brand.
You should always be the only one who knows your passwords. But it goes way beyond that.
Have a secure and GDPR compliant social media plan
There are some great social media platforms that allow you and your Assistant to work on your social media without you sharing your passwords.
But most of them do not allow you to control one critical thing.
Personal and direct messages.
Social Media is all about engagement
If someone is logging into your social media accounts they will most likely see personal and direct messages sent to you.
And if they are supporting your groups they will be seeing all the posts there.
What’s the problem?
If people are sending you messages thinking they are speaking privately to you and an outsourced team member is seeing those messages you may find health or other sensitive personal data is being shared.
You need a platform that allows you to control whether your team members see this type of content if you are in a line of work where this is likely. We looked for years to find one and are currently using ContentCal to give us the level of detailed control we need.
If you are a coach or advisor dealing with health, financial or children’s data (or other special category data such as sexual orientation or religion) this is not optional.
Free programmes or Facebook managers rarely offer you the level of control you will need if you are active in this area.
Have a proper contract that sorts that out
To share personal information with a third party (a VA or Social Media Manager) you need to have a proper contract with them that handles GDPR and data security as well as copyright, IP and a lot more. And you need to set up appropriately secure systems of working and give instructions on what information they can do with.
You will need to contract for confidentiality, secure access, and voice, tone, and timing/frequency.
“You can delegate the work but you can never delegate the responsibility” is what we always say.
KoffeeKlatch team hiring contracts are set up to encourage you both to talk through the security issues and a lot more. They start at just £55 +VAT. For more information click here.
If you work as a freelance social media assistant check out our VA contracts with Social Media options, or our range of Social Media contract.
