10 Free Tools to Collaborate Effortlessly with Your Social Media VA

Are you worried about how much all the tech tools will cost when you start getting serious about managing your social media and putting yourself out there?

When you think about all the file sharing, content creation, scheduling, tracking, and communication that needs to happen with social media management, the tech side can get overwhelming. 

But your virtual assistant is likely already familiar with and using all the tools you will need, and the best part? Most of them are actually free. 

Sure, every task you need done has a premium, paid option out there. But in most cases, the free options are more than enough.

What tasks do I need to collaborate on?

The four main areas of work for social media are:

• The communication between you and your VA, including file sharing
• Creating or curating the actual content of the posts
• Keeping track of the tasks that need to be done
• Scheduling or posting the content when it is ready

There are absolutely no-cost ways to accomplish all these things

10 Free Tools to Use with Your VA

• Email—Simply use whatever email service you already have. No need to have a special app or subscription anywhere.
• Text—Most VAs are open to communicating through their personal phone for work, and this can often be the quickest way to reach each other when things are time sensitive.

• Slack—This is a free service for messaging, connecting people on a team, and managing projects together. If you don’t want to use your personal email or phone, this is a good alternative.

• Google Docs/Sheets—Docs functions like Word, and Sheets functions like Excel. One benefit of using these free Google programs over the Microsoft alternatives is that they support live updates. If your VA types an entry in Docs or Sheets, you are able to see it appear live. This makes information tracking, sharing, and updating smooth and easy.

• Google Drive—This is free cloud storage up to 15 GB available to anyone with a Google account, which is most people these days. As with the other Google products, updates are live and file sharing is seamless.
  
  PRO TIP: When sharing a Google Doc, Google Sheet, or any file in Google Drive, be sure to set the sharing access properly. Common options are to enter the other person’s email address manually as a person who can access the file or to set the access to “Anyone with the link.”

• Trello—Here we are diving deeper into task management. You can make lists and charts in Docs or Sheets if you want things super simple. But Trello has more native tools like calendars, boards, cards, and due dates. These help you keep track of tasks by week, by project, by person, or any other way that makes sense.
  
  Other websites with free options are Asana, Monday.com, or ClickUp. All function similarly and are just different ways to organize your work in a digital format. Your VA is likely already using one of these platforms.

• Canva—This is fast becoming a very popular design tool, especially for social media graphics, videos, and templates.  You can even create whole e-books or slide presentations here. Canva is adding more templates and tools all the time and is very user-friendly. And yes, it is free. (Although the pro version is completely worth it, in my opinion!)

• Clockify/Toggl—These websites are free time tracking tools. Your virtual assistant probably already uses one of them to track their time working for clients so that hours are billed to the client accurately.  Both have the capability to mark what tasks or projects are being worked on, so your VA can know how much time different tasks are taking.

• Zoom/Google Meet—Video calling is something we are all familiar with these days. Both of these tools are free and user-friendly. Both have screen sharing capability to easily show information or demonstrate a process. Use them for discovery calls, regular meetings, or in-depth trainings.
  
  On the free version of Zoom, calls are limited to 40 minutes. For Google Meet, one-on-one calls can be up to 24 hours (if you want to meet that long!) or groups of 3 or more can meet for up to 60 minutes.
  
  Zoom will record any call if you set it up that way. Google Meet will only record calls on the paid Google Workspace subscription. But there is a way around this.
  
  BONUS TOOL: built-in computer screen recorders—Every computer or laptop has some version of a screen recording tool that can do screenshots or video recordings of your screen activity. You may have to install an extension or app for it, but they are free. This can be handy to demonstrate a quick process or where to find something for your VA or the other way around.
  

• Meta Business Suite/other native scheduling tools—Once you have coordinated to plan a social media content calendar, shared all the information and files, and created the graphics and videos, the final step is to actually post the content. Facebook has Meta Business Suite to manage scheduling posts on Facebook and Instagram. Other sites—including LinkedIn, X, and YouTube—have their own scheduling tools. With these schedulers, you don’t have to post live every day, but set it to post the content for you at the times you choose.
  
  This is not hard, but it does take time and can get tedious. It is not the fun part, and that is why you have a VA. We don’t mind the behind-the-scenes tasks that make it all run!

If you are ready to talk about getting help from a virtual assistant to manage your social media presence, reach out to Alyssa Avant & Company. We pride ourselves on serving our clients well.