One of the best side hustle opportunities for an educator is starting a virtual assistant business.

For one thing, it will allow you to contribute financially to your household, offers the flexibility to set your own schedule, and gives YOU the power to decide who you will work with and what services you will offer your clients.

Having this kind of flexibility with a side hustle is just what the doctor ordered! You decide which weekends or weeknights you will work.

Another wonderful thing about a virtual assistant business for seasoned educators heading to retirement – set it up right and it can easily become your new full-time hustle!

I know what you are thinking – Char, hasn’t the VA business been done to death?

NO!

VA’s are desperately needed with the growth of so many small businesses being started. Even before the pandemic, people were changing their view on work, finances, and work-life balance so they can focus on the things that matter most – their families and enjoying their lives without having to be stuck in a office all day working for someone else.

However, I strongly suggest that when starting a virtual assistant business that you please specialize in a niche.

Why? Education schedules are different. At the end of my corporate workday, I got in my car and headed home. At the end of our school day, we head out the door to work the sporting events, or coach our teams, professional development workshops, etc. and our schedules can be unpredictable at times.

So specializing makes sense because we can focus on managing just a few services in our business. Remember we want a side hustle, not another full time job after work.

Many profiles I see offer typical services such as correspondence, answering emails, presentations, etc. If these are services you want to offer, know that clients will pay well for these services but often require more immediate action based on THEIR schedule.

You can believe that their schedule will have an emergency while you’re working on a project with a school or central office deadline, during schoolwide testing with phones locked away and laptops shutdown to preserve wi-fi speed, or when regular classes are in session and final grades are due yesterday for 180 students.

Principals and clients both would not like delays.

Plus, if you really want to stand out to a specific market and charge higher rates, then it is best to offer specialized services.

This focused approach makes marketing easier for you, gives you credibility in a potential client’s eyes, and more importantly, it makes it easier for the client to quickly see that your services will meet their specific needs.

I know this from personal experience! I offered the typical services that were like the tasks I did for corporate executives and I got clients – but sometimes they balked at a higher rate because there was nothing special about my services. They could always find someone offering the same services for cheaper.

So what are some examples of specialized niche areas that I suggest for educators considering virtual assistance? Let’s look at two of my favorite niches: Social Media and Blogging VAs.

Social Media VA

There’s a long list of small business owners who do not have the time to devote to managing their social media accounts.

Do they understand the importance of social media?

Yes, and they often make a valiant effort to use social media to connect with their target market.

But social media trends, platforms, and algorithms change, and your market wants interesting and engaging content often. Trying to keep up with it all while growing a business can be a time-consuming source of stress that makes it feel like a chore.

So a VA can be the perfect solution to their social media management.

What kinds of things do you need to know? Depends on the platform. Let’s look at Instagram and Pinterest.

Instagram: This is a very visual platform with high expectations from its audience – an audience that’s active to the tune of 2 billion visits a month. 

They want vivid photos, graphics, and engaging videos. Reels and livestreams are proving to be very successful business tools to grow an audience. The platform now allows you to sell your services and products through an Instagram shop, and you can link your profile to your Facebook business page and simultaneously publish your content, product, and services posts.

Expertise needed: Setting up profiles, smart-bio links, setting up links to other social media platforms, experience posting, creating graphics, creating reels, creating engaging posts, promoting Instagram profiles with ads, linking profiles to Facebook, Instagram store setup, tracking analytics, etc.

Pinterest: It’s more of a search engine than a social platform, but is considered by most as a social platform. It also boasts around 450 million users per month. Like Instagram it loves graphics that are engaging, interesting, relevant, and visually appealing.

Expertise needed:  Setting up new accounts and  profiles, optimizing profiles, using bitly and tinyurl, creating SEO focused boards, Rich pin creation, setting up ads to promote profiles, scheduling pins using Tailwind, Hootsuite, and Buffer, optimizing Pinterest accounts so they rank higher with search engines, automating tasks, analyzing data so you ensure you’re reaching your audience, staying on top of platform changes, and a passion for helping entrepreneurs grow their business.

Trust me – demonstrating that you know your social media stuff means you can charge a higher fee.

Also, these are all tasks that can completed before or after your school workday.  Most posts and pins for both platforms can be scheduled in advance using Hootsuite, Buffer, or Planoly to post throughout the day.

This means a large part of your side hustle will be working on auto-pilot!

Worried that you don’t have the experience starting out?

Make sure you start using these platforms in your own business at the beginning, and track your stats and best practices as you grow. You can then share the results with your clients in blog posts, on your social media pages, and during your discovery calls.

Now that’s a win-win – and will be for you as a virtual assistant when you are able to offer this valuable service to your clients – at top dollar!

Blogging VA

If you love to write, then this side business is for you. Your job would include creating high-quality, SEO strong content for your clients, google analytics and reports, and blog posts.

Expertise needed:  Knowledge of WordPress, blog maintenance skills, SEO and keyword research, Google Analytics, graphic creation, newsletters, emails, using ads, writing blog posts with strong SEO focused titles, experience optimizing content for search engines so that their business can rank higher in search results.

If you’re an English Teacher with strong writing skills and a passion for writing, this could be a great virtual assistant niche for you.

One of the best programs I found for these specialized types of virtual assistance is at The Creative VA Academy (affiliate link). I joined and completed the Blogging VA program because I LOVE to write and a content based business will be more my speed as a VA.

The classes are a mix of video and self study, and Adrienna is teaching from her own experience. She is very thorough and I really liked her smooth style of teaching.

The course often has a waitlist, but please sign up or at least check out some of the other classes she offers.

Given what I learned, I felt like it was worth the money. I wouldn’t suggest it otherwise.

In this niche, clients do understand that content writing takes time and isn’t a quick turnaround. So you will have plenty of time to work this service into your busy school schedule.

Look for future posts where I discuss other niches in depth so you have a better idea of where to start niching down.

In the meantime, work on getting your business set up and launched so you start moving closer to the financial freedom you desire.

To Your Success…