Podcasts about eclincher

Why businesses use social media - Is there a real ROI for the business? View the full video interview here. An entrepreneurial executive, Gilad Salamander enjoys visioning and creating innovative solutions for cloud, mobile and web technologies. Gilad co-founded eClincher, a platform to manage and analyze social media and online presence.

A zac of many trades; Zachary Harding has crafted a diversified career profile that has taken him from the dancehall to the boardroom and into the Forbes Business Council…and he's just getting started. Dubbed a marketing guru, Harding has a track record of excellence in senior management and strategic marketing roles with prominent brands such as the Jamaica Tourist Board, ATL, Red Stripe, JAMPRO, the Urban Development Corporation, Caribbean Airlines, the Port Authority of Jamaica, Jamaica Manufacturers' Association just to name a few. He is currently the Executive Chair of Delta Capital Partners and Group Chief Executive Officer of Stocks and Securities Limited. He's the CEO with a deep-rooted passion for the cultural and creative arts…on The Entrepreneurial You. Trending Now Has video conferencing shaped the future of communication? The studies indicate a resounding yes and Zoom Video Communications, Inc has come out of the shadows to lead the technological pack. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, more and more companies were forced to rely on video conferencing tools to maintain business. An unprecedented 2020 gave rise to video conferencing systems, and Zoom was perfectly positioned to grow in demand. The accessibility and ease of deployment have made it one of the leading virtual meeting software.  Let's put things into perspective…here are some key statistics on the rapid growth of the video conferencing company, Zoom.  In 2020, Zoom generated $2.6 billion in revenue, a 317 per cent increase year-on-year. It was also one of the fastest-growing apps of the pandemic, with meeting participants increasing by 2900 per cent.  And we're not done…It has almost five hundred thousand business customers as of March 2021. Its valuation exceeded $100 billion during the pandemic and the number of annual meeting minutes on Zoom is now over 3.3 trillion. Not bad for a company launched in 2013, less than 10 years ago.  Zoom's uptake in use has had one of the most rapid business growths of 2020 and research projects that the video conferencing industry will be worth US$20 billion by 2024 so there is more than enough opportunity for game-changing expansions of companies such as zoom. A new age of communication methods is unfolding; boosting efficiency and productivity. For one, thanks to innovations like those, you don't have to be tech-savvy to be able to operate the latest technology.  It's safe to say this trend is here to stay, constantly being developed with added enhanced, next-generation features and this boom is sure to last beyond COVID-19.  Enjoy this Podcast? Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning into this podcast, then do not hesitate to write a review. You can also share this with your family and friends, colleagues and fellow business owners, so they can feel empowered and encouraged to pursue their business. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (henekawatkisporter@gmail.com) or find me on Facebook, YouTube Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Thanks for listening! For more updates and episodes, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify. Some episodes are also available on YouTube Before you go, I have something I want to share with you to make your social media management easier. It is way less time-consuming than anything else you will ever try. You will be able to improve your team and clients' collaboration and productivity. I am talking about eClincher. You can finally get around to doing that project you've always wanted to work on. Signup for a free 14-day trial using my affiliate link. Whether you are an SME, Agency or Enterprise, eClincher is for you. Sign up today. Stay inspired, Heneka    

Do you give time and space to that other voice in your head telling you that you are not good enough? I mean, those big audacious goals that you have written in your journal remain exactly there because you keep asking yourself, “who am I to want to be able to do this thing?” Actually who are you, NOT to want these things. Listen to this episode to learn how Arlan Hamilton has overcome imposter syndrome to be the bad ass entrepreneur she now is. Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:    Learn how Arlan deals with Imposter Syndrome.                                              .  Get insight into Arlan's latest venture dealing with Fractional Employment. Find out Arlan's Jamaican connection.    Episode Highlights About Hire Runner Runner was formed in 2021 addressing a pain point that many companies have, that is needing that extra executive support but not being able to or wanting to bring on a full-time salaried employee right away. Hire takes on fractions employees to assist entrepreneurs on as needed. There are multiple ways that Runners can curate their career. The Gig work economy has changed and created many things; what was missing was the access to benefits.   Where did Arlan's love for Startups come from? The innovation that she tapped into as a child made her curious about people. At around 30 she had moments of revelation that showed her the disconnect with those who were part of the tech space and she wanted to change that. Part of her mission is to be someone who catalyses the brilliant minds from people taken from all walks of life.   How has imposter syndrome affected Arlan's entrepreneurial journey? Arlan has admitted that imposter syndrome affected her when she was younger. We don't have enough time in this world to spend our time wondering if we are in the right room or not. Black women have so much time to make up for. We don't have enough time to wonder if we are ready for that role. 4 Powerful Quotes from This Episode “It doesn't get easier, it becomes more worth it.” “Now with all the policies in place today, it is common decency to ensure that people working within your company are taken care of and we are happy to be on this side of history.” “The startup lane is such a new frontier and could be a leveling playfield.” “I want to be someone that catalyses the brilliant minds who take us into the future. And these brilliant minds are attached to people taken from all walks of life and not just a chosen few who get to represent who we are.”     About Arlan Hamilton  Arlan is an investor and the Founder, HireRunner and managing partner of Backstage Capital. In May 2020, Hamilton released her first book from Penguin Random House entitled It's About Damn Time, which is based on her personal journey into entrepreneurship and venture capital. Have specific questions? You can reach out to Arlan on Twitter. Enjoy this Podcast? Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning into this podcast, then do not hesitate to write a review. You can also share this with your family and friends, colleagues and fellow business owners, so they can feel empowered and encouraged to pursue their business interests. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (henekawatkisporter@gmail.com) or find me on Facebook, YouTube Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Thanks for listening! For more updates and episodes, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify. Some episodes are also available on YouTube Before you go, I have something I want to share with you to make your social media management easier. It is way less time-consuming than anything else you will ever try. You will be able to improve your team and clients' collaboration and productivity. I am talking about eClincher. You can finally get around to doing that project you've always wanted t...

They lied to us, making us believe that as entrepreneurs we should be hustling and grinding constantly if we want to become successful. But is it success if it comes at the expense of our health? Can we have great health while pursuing wealth? Is it one or the other? This episode examines how we can navigate our health goals while still pursuing financial freedom.Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:   Learn to navigate your health goals while pursuing your financial goals.  Find out how to be intentional about taking care of your health.  To learn practical steps to making better nutritional decisions.  Episode HighlightsTaking care of our own health is important Culture has contributed to the way we live our lives without rest. Stress plays a huge role in our ability to be healthy. We need to find a way to prioritize our bodies and our needs. How is a lack of proper nutrition manifesting itself amongst entrepreneurs?   Eating nothing during the week and then binging on weekends. It looks different for everyone When we don't have proper nutrition, we are not going to be mentally sharp as we could be. Lot of emotional overeating. We can cut through the informational overwhelm by focusing on the basics. What does health have to do with financial freedom? We are not going to be our best selves if we are unhealthy We cannot reach our financial goals if we are unhealthy. Having habits in place reach far beyond heath goals3 Powerful Quotes from This Episode“We cannot give to anyone or anything from a state of depletion.”“Taking care of our nutrition is important...for all the many relationships we are currently juggling.” “If we can allow our nutrition to not be another stressful thing to worry about then we can find a way for our nutrition to support the busy lives we live.” About Kate Lyman Kate is a nutrition coach, founder of "Kate Lyman Nutrition," wife, traveler, and lover of outdoors. Kate helps committed clients make a transformational change using a flexible nutrition approach and creating sustainable healthy habits using evidence-based methods. Have specific questions? You can reach out to Kate Facebook and on her website and check out her FREE MEAL PREP COOKBOOK.Enjoy this Podcast?Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning into this podcast, then do not hesitate to write a review. You can also share this with your family and friends, colleagues and fellow business owners, so they can feel empowered and encouraged to pursue their business.Have any questions? You can contact me through email (henekawatkisporter@gmail.com) or find me on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Thanks for listening!For more updates and episodes, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify. Some episodes are also available on YouTubeBefore you go, I have something I want to share with you to make your social media management easier. It is way less time-consuming than anything else you will ever try. You will be able to improve your team and clients' collaboration and productivity. I am talking about eClincher. You can finally get around to doing that project you've always wanted to work on. Signup for a free 14-day trial using my affiliate link. Whether you are an SME, Agency or Enterprise, eClincher is for you. Sign up today.Stay inspired,Heneka 

They lied to us, making us believe that as entrepreneurs we should be hustling and grinding constantly if we want to become successful. But is it success if it comes at the expense of our health? Can we have great health while pursuing wealth? Is it one or the other? This episode examines how we can navigate our health goals while still pursuing financial freedom. Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:    Learn to navigate your health goals while pursuing your financial goals.  Find out how to be intentional about taking care of your health.  To learn practical steps to making better nutritional decisions.    Episode Highlights Taking care of our own health is important Culture has contributed to the way we live our lives without rest. Stress plays a huge role in our ability to be healthy. We need to find a way to prioritize our bodies and our needs.  How is a lack of proper nutrition manifesting itself amongst entrepreneurs?   Eating nothing during the week and then binging on weekends. It looks different for everyone When we don't have proper nutrition, we are not going to be mentally sharp as we could be. Lot of emotional overeating. We can cut through the informational overwhelm by focusing on the basics.   What does health have to do with financial freedom? We are not going to be our best selves if we are unhealthy We cannot reach our financial goals if we are unhealthy. Having habits in place reach far beyond heath goals 3 Powerful Quotes from This Episode “We cannot give to anyone or anything from a state of depletion.” “Taking care of our nutrition is important...for all the many relationships we are currently juggling.”  “If we can allow our nutrition to not be another stressful thing to worry about then we can find a way for our nutrition to support the busy lives we live.”   About Kate Lyman  Kate is a nutrition coach, founder of "Kate Lyman Nutrition," wife, traveler, and lover of outdoors. Kate helps committed clients make a transformational change using a flexible nutrition approach and creating sustainable healthy habits using evidence-based methods.  Have specific questions? You can reach out to Kate Facebook and on her website and check out her FREE MEAL PREP COOKBOOK. Enjoy this Podcast? Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning into this podcast, then do not hesitate to write a review. You can also share this with your family and friends, colleagues and fellow business owners, so they can feel empowered and encouraged to pursue their business. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (henekawatkisporter@gmail.com) or find me on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Thanks for listening! For more updates and episodes, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify. Some episodes are also available on YouTube Before you go, I have something I want to share with you to make your social media management easier. It is way less time-consuming than anything else you will ever try. You will be able to improve your team and clients' collaboration and productivity. I am talking about eClincher. You can finally get around to doing that project you've always wanted to work on.  Signup for a free 14-day trial using my affiliate link. Whether you are an SME, Agency or Enterprise, eClincher is for you. Sign up today. Stay inspired, Heneka  

COVID-19 with its accompanying protocols such as living socially distanced has affected businesses and life as we know it. However, there is always an opportunity to pivot with the right resources and in this episode with Paresh Patel we will learn about "Touchless Technology in a Socially Distanced World.”   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:  To learn what Touchless Technology is. Discover how Touchless Technology can fit and benefit the business models of today.  Learn how Pay Range has been impacting people's lives and businesses.  Episode Highlights What is Touchless Technology    Paresh describes touchless technology as being able to send payment without having  touched a machine such as a laundering or vending machine.  PayRange was established in 2015 to eliminate unnecessary contacts with these kinds of machines.    Ahead of the game  Pay Range was developed well ahead of its game and is especially useful as we maneuver this pandemic in 2021. It uses a mobile application and dongle to allow customers to make payments virtually.  Necessity is the mother of invention and this holds true as it was a personal experience that motivated Patel to develop Pay Range.  Most, if not all people have a story of experiencing difficulty when using vending machines and Pay Range helps to limit these inconveniences.   Does Touchless Technology fit into the world of the digital divide? Paresh highlights that his product is mainly used by members of the underserved community; however, having a smart device makes them eligible to reap the benefits of the application. 3 Powerful Quotes from This Episode “Sometimes the people who are impacted most are the people with fewer options.” “I have everything I need.” “We innovated and found a way to make it all happen."   About Paresh Patel  Paresh  Patel is the Founder and CEO of PayRange, patented technology with over 3 million users worldwide. Pay Range allows smartphones to make touchless, socially distanced payments on any person, place, or thing. Paresh began his technology career in solving business problems at the tender age of 17 by applying technology in a previously unused manner to fix a broken soda machine. Patel has spearheaded a company that ranked 83rd on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500™ and has secured a growth rate of 1,325% during the past three years. Have specific questions? You can reach out and follow  Paresh on LinkedIn.   Enjoy this Podcast? If you enjoyed today's episode of The Entrepreneurial You, hit subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! Also if you enjoyed tuning into this podcast, then do not hesitate to write a review. You can also share this with your family and friends, and colleagues, so they can feel empowered and encouraged to pursue their business. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (henekawatkisporter@gmail.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Thanks for listening! For more updates and episodes, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify.  Before you go, I have something I want to share with you to make your social media management easier. It is way less time-consuming than anything else you will ever try. You will be able to improve your team and clients' collaboration and productivity. I am talking about eClincher. You can finally get around to doing that project you've always wanted to work on.  Signup for a free 14-day trial using my affiliate link. Whether you are an SME, Agency or Enterprise, eClincher is for you. Sign up today. Grab your FREE Guide: How to use - and benefit from - Ease Magnesium, the super supplement for everyone. Stay inspired, Heneka  

The phone is always with us and always on, and more to the point it's always connected to all our social channels, which means it can be an amazingly powerful mobile outside broadcast unit. On this podcast, I share features to look for in apps which enable you. to send content to multiple social channels with one click. Some are free to use, and all have massive potential to increase your Active Communications Index.Apps I mention:AgoraBuffereClincherHootsuiteHubspotSproutZohoWith full credit to eClincher, they have summarized the features to be looking for and it doesn't seem to make sense to repeat but rather to share their great work:Publishing and Scheduling: Can you visualize your monthly calendar, automate posting, or customize across channels in the same window? Are multiple profiles included? Do you have unlimited scheduling?Unified Social Inbox: Can you engage with your audience in real time across social channels? Integrated RSS Feeds: Would you benefit from being able to publish your blogs or industry blogs automatically to your social channels?Social Monitoring: Can you monitor your brand’s reputation and listen to your audience by monitoring keywords and competitors measuring sentiment? Competitor Analysis: Can you track and compare your competitive advantage with social analytics and reporting? Campaign Tracking: Are you tracking your ads, posts, and website to optimize and pivot your marketing strategy? Can you target audiences?Custom Reporting: Do you need to build custom reports for your clients major social accounts? If you like this podcast, then subscribe to our newsletter herePlease visit our blog post on PR for business please visit our site:https://www.eastwestpr.com/blogs/ Create content using AI - Trylately! Automatically generate social posts from videos and podcasts into dozens of social posts.Earth.ai models human interaction. Earth.ai provides access to a bias-free view on what really drives behaviour.Support the show (http://www.paypal.me/eastwestpruk)

An entrepreneurial executive, Gilad enjoys visioning and creating innovative solutions for cloud, mobile and web technologies. Gilad to co-founded eClincher, a platform to manage and analyze social media and online presence. Previously, Gilad held senior management positions at Ultratech, Bloom Energy, Verigy, KLA-Tencor, and Applied Materials. Gilad has proven track record in Business Management, Product Management, Engineering Management, New Product Introduction (NPI), and Manufacturing and Support.

Welcome back to Podcastification - on this episode I’m walking you through the step by step details of what I do to carry out MY successful podcast production workflow every single week. It doesn’t matter if you publish episodes every week, every other week, or once a month - organizationally you’ve GOT to have an effective podcast workflow to ensure two things: Quality AND Consistency What I demonstrate and describe on this episode is not the ONLY way to do this - but it’s the best way I’ve found after 5 years of podcasting. And if you scroll down, you’ll also notice that I ALSO recorded this one as a video - with the workflow mapped out on my whiteboard. The visuals help on this one - honest. If there’s one thing you get out of this episode, this is what I hope it is: Process leads to Success! [1:18] The vital importance of having a well-considered podcast workflow: consistency & quality [3:12] Write down every step of your process - one per sticky note: here’s why [4:01] Beginning the process, one step at a time Choose your topic Research and preparation GUEST EPISODES: Choosing and preparing for your guest GUEST EPISODES: Reaching out to your guest GUEST EPISODES: Your guest schedules a time GUEST EPISODES: Asking the guest to provide you some vital info GUEST EPISODES: Confirm the recording (the day of the recording) [17:41] Do you see how the workflow enables you to be professional and consistent? [21:45] Resuming the steps to your podcast workflow Create a test recording/sound check Record the main audio/conversation Record the intro and outro immediately following the recording: Here’s why Add the audio files to my Dropbox system (I describe it here) Notify the editor (or set a time to edit on your own calendar if you do your own editing) Create an optimized title and send to my VA (because the artwork step is coming) Add to Auphonic (if you don’t use Auphonic, do it now!) Writing the show notes and notify the VA Artwork/graphics are created Post the show notes and artwork to Libsyn and the website Set up social sharing GUEST EPISODES: Send promo info to guest [44:15] Why process equals success Resources Mentioned YouCanBook.me Calendly Schedule Once The list I send to guests about how to best prepare for the recording The form I use to ask my guests to confirm their participation here Google Forms Hello Sign Hubspot Ringr Zencastr Cleanfeed Skype Zapier Keyword Finder (affiliate link) Auphonic My previous episode about using Auphonic Episode: The Triple Power of Killer Show Notes Canva Libsyn - use the code “PFT” to get up to 1 ½ months off Episode: Using virtual services/assistants Procrastinate on Purpose by Rory Vaden Recur Post eClincher Meet Edgar Featured On This Episode Custom Audiograms from Podcast Fast Track Wavve - check it out! Connect with me… Carey(AT)PodcastFastTrack.com On Facebook On Twitter > click on each link > read articles without having to search for them > and begin my own bullet point outline for the episode, all in the same spot on my Trello board. Create a bullet-point outline of my thoughts As I just mentioned, the next thing I do is begin my own outline of the topic. I want to include things I’ve discovered/ learned, things I believe from my experience, and what others who are experts on the subject have to say. I want to leave no stone unturned - because it’s that kind of comprehensive quality that will get the attention of my listeners/readers AND get the attention of Google. Honestly, it does work that way. Once I’ve created my bullet-point outline, I’ll go through it slowly to ensure it makes sense from a sequential standpoint. If I need to reorder or reorganize it, I will. It’s got to make sense the moment a reader/listeners glances over it. If it doesn’t they’ll probably click off to something else. Journal/write about the topic I don’t always do this, but if I’m dealing with a complicated subject, or one that is easily confused (in my own mind, especially), I’ll add this step - I journal my thoughts and understanding about the topic. Why do I do this? Because as Dawson Trotman once said, “Thoughts disentangle themselves when they flow from lips or fingertips.” Typing/writing things out helps ME understand it. When I finally record the episode I want to be speaking about the subject matter naturally, as one who has studied and understood the topic for myself (because I have). If I shortcut this step, it will show up in the quality of my episode content - and I believe that costs listeners/fans/followers in the long run. I can’t have that. I won’t have that. :) Brainstorm/decide on guests for the episode If the topic I’m interested in would benefit from a conversation with an expert guest, I start thinking through who that guest should be. Nobody is out of the realm of possibility. My philosophy is to ask because the worst they could do is ignore my outreach or say “No.” That’s not so bad, is it? In a future point I’ll tell you how I go about reaching out to these experts. Brainstorm resources I may need for the episode Are there any special graphics, audio clips, sound effects, or other resources that would make this episode ultra special? If I can come up with good ideas, I jot them down. I’m going to do everything I can to up the value of the audio and the show notes to make them stand out - to my listeners and to Google. My philosophy on that is that if it pleases my listeners, it will likely please Google too. But be careful here - don’t overdo it. I went through a season on my podcast where I did lots of cutesy sound effects just for the sake of doing them. I thought they were fun and gave the show a unique sound. My audience told me they were annoying. (Listen to your listeners when they give you feedback). STEP #3: Give my topic, potential guest, and resource needs to my VA/Assistant If you don’t have a VA or assistant who helps you with this kind of thing, you’re making a list for yourself - and you have another set of things to do in order to publish the show as you have planned. It’s a lot of stuff, but it’s worth it to do things right. I’d rather have an episode publish late and be phenomenal than to publish on time and be so-so. I believe my audience knows the difference - and is glad when I don’t shortcut the process. So… passing these things to my VA puts a new task on her plate, which is the next step in this process - reaching out to the guest I have in mind. If I’ve decided to approach the guest through a contact or friend, I do that legwork before I pass this info to my VA. I want her to have as easy a time as possible connecting with the person I have in mind. She’ll also start collecting the resources I need, whatever they are, and place them in a predetermined Dropbox or Google Drive location. That way when I or my editor are ready to produce the episode or show notes, the resources are available. STEP #4: Reach out to the potential guest Once I’m ready for my VA to reach out - I have her do so using a template I’ve written and provided to her that she customizes to the person I have in mind, the topic I want to chat with them about, and the timeframe in which I’d like to record the episode. I thought about providing a copy of my template here but decided against it, simply because any template you create needs to be in your voice and reflect the unique characteristics of your podcast and brand. I can’t write that for you. So, spend quality time on this. It’s important. The first impression you give to potential guests is powerful for them and could make or break their willingness to be a guest on your podcast. Some items you might want to include… Names of previous guests who have been on your show A link to an outstanding show notes page to show them how you feature them A suggested timeframe for the two of you to do the recording A link to your intake/scheduling platform And even though you need to include all that - keep it short. Busy people don’t have time for long emails. Short and sweet is key. STEP #5: Guest Schedules a Time to Record and Completes Intake Form I’m being entirely optimistic here, assuming that your email request was well-received and the person you reached out to is enthusiastic about being on your show. If so, you should receive a response of some kind from them - they’ve filled out your intake form or have scheduled on your calendar to record a conversation. This isn’t really a step where you need to do something, I just include to remind you that your next action points depend on this happening first. So be patient and remember that busy people are busy. It may take them a while to respond (if they do at all). STEP #6: Confirm your recording with the guest Possibly the worst thing you could do is to receive a favorable reply from a guest and then not respond in kind. That person needs to know that you received their information and are planning on recording at the time they chose. So reply to them - some way - any way. Just let them know you got their information and are looking forward to the conversation at the particular date and time they selected. If you have a list of interview best-practices you can send their way, include that with your response. You want to help your guests be good guests. STEP #7 - Test your recording equipment The day of your recording has come. You’re ready to get a great conversation or solo recording into digital form. But you won’t be able to if your equipment/setup isn’t working properly. So test everything. You don’t want the audio coming out less than professional. It will reflect badly on you and on your guest. So take the extra time you need to ensure everything is working as expected. I’ve had instances where I had to switch my recording method simply because I couldn’t get things worked out. I’ve also had to ask guests to switch the microphone on their end to get a better sound. As you do these things, be sure to reiterate to your guests that it’s all for the sake of making them sound as great as possible. They’ll usually be OK with the hassle in that case. STEP #8: Record your main audio This one is pretty simple - just do the recording. Use the great outline you created in the prep and research stage. Enjoy the conversation with your guest. Mine the gold nuggets out of them with good questions. You’re more than halfway done at this point - I think. STEP #9: Record your intro, outro, and pre-roll elements I label this step the way I do because it’s what I have to record for my podcast production workflow. Yours will vary. But the point is this - and I can’t say it enough… well, maybe a story will help… I have clients all the time who toss their main content into Dropbox for my team the minute they are done recording it. Check. Good job. But then when it comes time for my team to put together their audio and produce it, we have no intro or outro (or other needed elements). When I talk to the client about it they say, “Yeah, I always forget to do that.” Or another, even better version goes something like this… “I wish I could do this a better way. By the time I get around to recording the intro and outro I’ve forgotten everything we talked about.” BINGO! This approach solves those problems. You don’t have to remember to record anything because it’s already recorded. You don’t have to rack your brain to remember the details of a conversation you had weeks ago, because you recorded the intro and outro fresh on the heels of that great conversation in the first place. Get it all done at one time, while it’s still fresh on your mind - and save yourself a bunch of hassle later. STEP # 10: Store the files in your designated place In my case, Dropbox is the destination for all my recorded files - and we structure the files and name them in a way that everyone one the team knows what they are looking at and what do do with what they see there. The more detailed you can be with these systems when you’re working with others, the less communication you’ll have to have week to week. Just set it up in a way that works and leave it alone. If you’re doing the editing work yourself you still need to be organized. I can’t tell you how many times at the beginning of my podcasting journey I couldn’t find the audio file I recorded. Clean up your system. A place for everything and everything in its place. STEP #11: Notify editor / do the editing Once my files land in Dropbox, my editor receives a notification that the audio is ready for him and he gets to work. If I were doing the editing myself, I’d arrange my schedule so I could do it immediately following the steps I’ve just outlined. I don’t want to have to come back to it later. I don’t want to have to remember where I left off. I want it out of my hair, scheduled, and ready to go - all in one swoop. STEP #12: Optimize the title of the episode and send to my VA This one is HUGEly important. I can’t stress it enough. In fact, I want to say it again! OPTIMIZE YOUR TITLE. If you don’t know why this is so important, you must not have heard the incredible results I got from doing so - on this episode. And what you hear in that amazing case-study doesn’t only apply to show titles - it applies to episode titles too. So I take the time to do some effective long-tail keyword research using this tool (this is my affiliate link) to make sure I’m crafting a title that people out there in Google-land are actually searching for. Then, once the title is honed in just like I want it - I pass it on to my VA. Why? Because of this… STEP #13: My VA creates my episode artwork Using Canva templates I’ve set up ahead of time, my VA drags images into the display, changes titles and episode numbers, and cranks out new artwork for every episode of my show. She does that with the title I provide to her. But she also produces social media artwork aimed at making the episode appealing to social media users. These may include quotes from the episode, the optimized title I passed her way, or even audiograms (coming to my workflow in the near future). Then she’ll schedule out the social media elements using a social media management tool of some sort (we haven’t settled on one at this point, though I have used eClincher in the past and didn’t have any trouble with it). And she makes sure to include a short link to the episode show notes page as part of the social media posts. STEP #14: Show notes are created As of right now, this is still on my plate. I write these show notes for every episode of my podcast (as of June 2018). Yes, they are long. Yes, I’ve spent half the day on this set of notes already. YES! It’s worth it. The value of exhaustive content like this will grow over time as the internet rolls on. And it will bring great value to my listeners again and again. If you want your show notes to be a certain way, it’s up to you to ensure they ARE that way. Either you have to refine your process and create a video or checklist to show someone else how to do it, or you have to write them yourself. OR - I almost forgot this one - you can outsource your podcast show notes to a team of professionals like mine. STEP #15 - My VA schedules my audio and show notes on my media host and website Nothing hard about this - just a lot of detail. And I’m responsible to make sure my VA understands the details, knows how to implement them, and is able to do it without fail. I recommend checklists. HIGHLY. You can’t expect quality or consistency from anyone if you don’t enable them to know what that level of quality looks like. This goes double or triple for the people working for you. So figure out the steps involved in your posting process - write it down - tweak it - make sure nothing is missing. Then pass it on to someone else. Nathan and I talked about that on this episode. STEP 16: Send promo materials to my guest (if applicable) This is another task my VA has been instructed to do - and she only does it if my episode included a guest - OR if I mentioned someone in the episode that I’d like to let know about the mention. She simply sends another form letter, modified to the person and episode, that provides resources to my guest for sharing the episode with their network. I want to borrow from my guest’s network to get momentum for the episode. The more it is seen in their network, the more likelihood there is that I’ll gain some new subscribers to my podcast. It’s that simple. Wrap-UP Going step by step through my podcast production workflow like this is a bit exhausting, isn’t it? My brain is tired - as are my hands (from the typing). But it’s an example of how a bit of hard work now will reap huge rewards in the future that are ongoing and compounding over time. I’d love to hear your best practices when it comes to your podcast workflow. Please let me know what YOU do to make your workflow smooth and simple.

  Subscribe to Podcastification Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Google Play | Podbean | iHeart Radio | Spreaker https://www.PodcastFastTrack.com/subscribe If I had a nickel for every time a client or potential client or random podcaster has asked me… How can I monetize a podcast? I wouldn’t need to monetize a podcast. It’s a natural question, I guess - there’s nothing wrong with making money from providing value to the world - and podcasts are some of the best vehicles for value-delivery I’ve ever seen. So heck yes, go ahead, monetize your podcast! You should if you can. But… it’s not quite that simple, is it? You can’t simply go out and monetize a podcast. You have to take a little time to figure out exactly what the options are, which one fits you and the purpose you have for your podcast, and so on and so forth and such and such. That’s exactly why I recorded this episode. My goal is to help you understand what I’ve seen as successful or potentially successful ways people have monetized their podcasts. I’m also going to be frank with you (or maybe I’ll be Joe this time) and let you know what I don’t like about each of the methods, what I do like about them, what the pitfalls may be, and whether or not that approach to monetization will make you rich or only pay for your weekly coffee. OK - coffee is more than a weekly expense, I get it. But you get my point, right? Here’s a rough outline of How to Monetize a Podcast [1:25] What do we mean when we talk about monetizing a podcast? [2:53] What are sponsorships? A fancy word for a commercial [8:01] Have you thought about hawking affiliate products to your listeners? [12:16] What would happen if you had a patron (or many of them) support your podcast? [14:24] Could make a membership community for your listeners (and charge for it)? [18:41] YOUR podcast should definitely feature YOUR resources If you want to Monetize your podcast, FIRST focus on delivering value When we talk about monetizing anything we’re talking about making money from it. I hope that’s not too unrefined for you sensitive types, but it’s the truth. You’re trying to figure out a way you can ask people for money in exchange for the value you’re delivering to them - in this case, your incredible podcast content (for example). That means you’ve got to be providing them the VALUE side of that equation. You owe it to your podcast audience NOT to fill their ears with fluff. It’s the people who throw together some quick and dirty (and useless) PDF download piece of junk who give all of us a bad name. Don’t be that girl or guy. Make your offer something worth having. And now that we’ve got THAT out of the way… Idea #1 to monetize your podcast: Sponsorships Whenever I hear people talking about monetization of their podcast, they usually mean gaining some kind of sponsorship. What’s a sponsor? It’s a fancy way of saying a person who wants to pay you to put commercial advertisements on your show. The ads could be pre-produced or they could be something you read. Either way, it’s a commercial, plain and simple. Sponsorships DO have benefits: Someone with deeper pockets than you is paying the bills for your show, at least partially It can be a type of recurring revenue for you If you/they can track sales directly from your listener base, it could be a long-term relationship But there’s also the drawbacks (the things I don’t like about sponsorships)... It’s a commercial. On your podcast. Part of what I LOVE about podcasting is that I get to listen to a topic I’m interested in WITHOUT interruption. Many of the companies that are getting into podcast sponsorships may not be directly related to your topic (Audible, Casper Mattress, etc.) When I have commercials from a mattress company, or an email list company - on my show about Christian Homes and Families - https://www.ChristianHomeAndFamily.com  it seems pretty obvious that I’m just trying to make money. Nothing wrong with that… but does it build trust? That’s what I care about - and what I think you should care about. The legalities of doing a sponsorship right can be a bit sticky at times. One tale I heard told was how a podcaster had to provide multiple months worth of “free” sponsorship to a sponsor because of supposed mistakes he was making in the way he read the ad copy. In his mind, the HOW of it wasn’t covered sufficiently to warrant the claim, but he didn’t want to lose the sponsor so he continued to consent to their demands. And that brings me to the biggest deal about sponsorships that I don’t like… Somebody BESIDES YOU has influence over your show You may say they don’t. But they do. If you’re concerned about what a sponsor might thing regarding what you say, or how you say it, or how it might reflect on them - they ARE having influence on you. The beauty of podcasting (again, in my mind) is that you get to do YOUR thing with nobody telling you that you can’t. So there. Naturally, you can do what you want when it comes to sponsorships. I’m sure there are good experiences out there to go alongside the bad ones I’ve heard about. It also has to do with the “type” of show you’re publishing. Some lend themselves to sponsorships more than others. In the end, you’ve got to do what you believe is best for you, your listeners, and the sponsor. Monetization idea #2: Affiliate relationships In case you’re new to this whole internet thing (like some attorneys I know), it would be a good thing for you to know what affiliate relationships are before I tell you to establish them… Affiliate (according to Entrepreneur Magazine): https://www.entrepreneur.com/encyclopedia/affiliate-marketing  A way for a company to sell its products by signing up individuals or companies ("affiliates") who market the company's products for a commission. Get it? #1 - You find a company that sells products or services your listening audience needs #2 - You make those products available to your listeners through an “affiliate link” on your website or show note #3 - When somebody clicks on that link, the company’s website is setup with a “tracking code” that recognizes that person as coming from your link. #4 - When/if they purchase, you get a commission. Simple enough, right? Affiliate relationships can be a gold mine for podcast monetization… sometimes. Maybe. It depends on a lot of things… but to me it’s an issue of whether your niche has legitimate products/services that you can offer to your listeners. Yeah, yeah, you can technically offer anything as an affiliate product - related or unrelated to your audience - but I don’t think you should. Here’s why… Your audience has done YOU the incredible favor of self-selecting you as their go-to resource for the topics you address. The feel like they know you (or are getting to know you). They like you (at least you’d better hope they do). They are starting to trust you. And trust is a valuable thing. My recommendation is that you do everything in your power NOT to violate that trust in any way. You want to build on it, make yourself a valuable, indispensable resource to your listeners. In my thinking, a big part of that is NOT trying to get them to buy any old thing. That goes back to making them feel you’re “just trying to make money.” Instead, why not offer them things that further connect them to you and your topic? That seems like a winner to me - and when you do it well, it really CAN be a gold mine. As an example: You’ve probably heard of a guy named Pat Flynn. https://www.smartpassiveincome.com/  One of his most successful affiliate relationships has been with a web hosting company called Bluehost. In September of 2017 he made $18.655.00 by referring people to Bluehost. That figure was even down by $815.00 from the previous month. The reason I know such details is because Pat publishes his income reports every month.  https://www.smartpassiveincome.com/income-reports/my-september-2017-monthly-income-report/  It’s a great idea - transparency to show people what’s possible by building your own thing online like he has. The point I want to make is this… that relationship with Bluehost is a hand-in-glove thing for Pat, it’s a service 99% of his listeners will need eventually, so he offers it to them with a full disclaimer that it’s an affiliate relationship. And it banks for him. Month after month after month. So… if you’re going to do affiliate relationships, go for it. Just make sure you’re offering things that are truly of benefit to your listeners and do it consistently and genuinely, like Pat does. But there’s another way to offer affiliate products to your listeners… Guest resources If you do guest episodes - conversations with experts in your niche or industry - you have a very natural, incredible opportunity to make some income through no more work than recording and publishing a great conversation with that person. Here’s how… Many people who are guest on podcasts regularly are established in their niche and have already created their own stuff - books, courses, coaching packages, events, etc. Before you hit the “record” button, stop to discuss what your guest wants to offer your audience. Yes - offer them the opportunity to highlight what they have to sell. And find out if there’s an affiliate-type relationship you might be able to establish with them. You’ll find many such people already have an official affiliate program setup. All you have to do is sign up and place the link in your show notes page. Then, during the interview, disclose that you have that relationship and make the offer. Better yet, let your GUEST make the offer since they know the product much better than you do. Then you get to simply endorse their offer and recommend it to your listeners. And keep in mind… podcast episodes are out there forever (as long as you keep paying your hosting bill). This kind of partnership could be a long-term cash cow for you if you do it effectively. It benefits you. It benefits your guests. It benefits your audience (at least it should). A caution about affiliate offers: Do it right Remember that trust thing I spoke of earlier? It’s vital that you maintain trust when it comes to affiliate offers. You don’t want your listeners to in any way feel that you’ve tricked them into doing something that will benefit you directly - even if the supposed “trick” was that you forgot to disclose an affiliate relationship. So don’t forget. Always, Always, ALWAYS tell your listeners - both in writing on your show notes page or website - AND verbally on your podcast audio, that you have an affiliate relationship with any product you’re recommending, if you do in fact have such a relationship. It’s honest. It’s clear. And I believe if you do it right, it can build trust with your audience even more. And… it’s the law.  https://www.ftc.gov/policy/advisory-opinions/letter-commercial-alert-concluding-respect-type-amplified-word-mouth  #3 Podcast Monetization Idea: Donations Let me ask you a question… What sort of compulsion do you feel when somebody does an amazing thing for you? You want to do something for them, right? It’s what social psychologists refer to as “the law of reciprocity” and there’s something to it. When somebody does good to/for you, you naturally want to do good for them. Take that concept and apply it to your podcast… If you are truly adding value to the lives of your listeners, don’t you think some of them are going to start feeling like they want to say “thank you” in a more tangible way than listening to your next episode? It’s natural. And it’s OK to make a way for your listeners to support your show. It’s called a Donation Model - and it works. You can see a sterling example of it here - on Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History Site.  http://www.dancarlin.com/dc-donate/  He offers 3 ways to donate - via PayPal recurring donation, via old fashioned snail mail, and via Bitcoin (yes, Bitcoin). And I could be a bit off on this, but I recently heard Dan interviewed at Podcast Movement 2017 and I believe he said that he only asks $2 per episode - and that the approach does VERY WELL for him. So… if I were doing this for my “Live Build Change” https://www.LiveBuildChange.com podcast (which I may do someday), I’d say something along this line… The Live Build Change podcast is my effort to help you live your faith in an authentic, genuine way, to build a business either part time or full time, and then to integrate those two things in a way that enables you to truly change your world. If you’d like to make a donation (one-time or recurring) to ensure I can continue to do so, you can find out how to do that at (website link). That’s it. No high-pressure tactics or begging. Just giving listeners an opportunity to reciprocate and moving on. A similar but different way to accomplish it… Patreon Back in the olden days… when Kings, Lords and Ladies, and Dukes ruled the lands… there was such a thing as patronage. For example: The famous artist Michelangelo had two primary patrons who supported him so that he could produce his artistic works: Pope Julius II, and the Medici family. Patreon is a fairly new approach based on the idea of patronage - it’s where your fans can intentionally set up a recurring payment to you SO THAT you can continue doing what you’re doing with your podcast. It’s really what I spoke of earlier - but again you’ve got to set it up in order to make the opportunity for your listeners/fans. Here are the details as I understand them: You set up the account Patreon gets 10% of what you receive (administrative costs at 5% and profit at 5%) Your fans can choose to send you any amount on a recurring basis Patreon takes care of credit card issues, chargebacks, etc. And the site claims to have funneled over $150 million to its users so far   My #4 Monetization idea for Podcasters: Memberships We’ve all done the membership thing at one time or another… When I was a kid I got into the Columbia Record and Tape Club. For one penny the Columbia people (whoever they were) sent me 14 albums I selected and I committed to buy 20 more in the next three years. I loved it. It was a membership I was happy to participate in. Today we have Netflix, Health Clubs, Spotify, etc. You get it. You understand memberships. But have you thought of the benefits received by the company OFFERING the membership? Fairly consistent recurring income Sure, a subscriber can cancel their subscription at any time (in most cases). But how often does that happen in comparison to the big number of subscribers an outfit like Netflix has? That dynamic is a reality that makes the income of a company like Netflix consistent. In fact, because of new subscribers, their revenue goes up over the long run.  Check out this graphic of Netflix profits: https://ycharts.com/companies/NFLX/revenue s And don’t miss the RECURRING part of the setup - people pay over and over and over for what Netflix has to offer rather than a one-time purchase. That. Is. Bank. Set-it-and-forget-it payments (they don’t have to invoice monthly) When I first got this concept it was a game changer for my business. Invoicing on a monthly basis is a hassle. There are costs associated with it both in time and in tangible goods like paper, etc. But recurring payments - subscriptions - do away with all that (with the exception of credit card processing fees). A one-time setup BY THE CUSTOMER starts a potentially never-ending source of revenue. Forgettable fees I don’t remember where I first heard the phrase “forgettable fees” but it’s brilliant - and important to understand. Think about it: How many of us even THINK about our $14/mo Netflix subscription? We just watch Netflix. We enjoy the service. We hardly give the monthly charge a thought when going through our credit card statements. Why? Because the amount is so reasonable compared to other expenses we have to pay - like a car payment or mortgage or rent. It’s a forgettable fee - and companies like Netflix count on that as a big part of why people will buy into their subscription service and STAY in. What does Netflix have to do with monetizing a podcast? SO much, my friends. What is stopping YOU from creating a membership for YOUR audience, YOUR listeners? No, you don’t have the tech that Netflix has. You don’t have the bankroll they do. But a membership model may not be as impossible as you might think. You can set up membership functionality with a fairly inexpensive plugin on a Wordpress Website and start things rolling today. WPKube.com lists 13 of the best plugins right here.  https://www.wpkube.com/best-wordpress-membership-plugins-match-budget/  The point is that there’s really nothing technologically that stands in your way. And there is definitely more than one way to do this membership thing… In fact, if you remember Episode 67 in this very podcast feed - https://podcastfasttrack.com/67  - Rob Walch explained how the good folks at Libsyn have created an option for every one of their customers to have a custom app for their podcast - and it can be set up to have “gated content” in it. Translation: Membership-ONLY content So think that through… You have your own custom app You encourage your listeners to download it They listen to your show, connect with you and each other, through the app You add ADDITIONAL content that ONLY MEMBERS can have But everyone can see it as available (but NOT access it) What do you think is the likelihood that many of those people who enjoy your show enough to download your app, will be willing to pay the forgettable fee you ask in order to get more goodness from you? I think it’s pretty high. This app option from Libsyn is DEFINITELY worth looking into. And Patreon is getting into this membership game as well… A few paragraphs earlier I mentioned Patreon as a donation platform - and so it is. BUT… (you knew that was coming, right?) They’ve been supplying their members with app integrations for a long time… things like Zapier, MailChimp, and Google Sheets. There’s a new one on the list now - Wordpress - which opens the door to integrating the Patreon payments portal to memberships ON your website. In a recent post from the Patreon blog - Patreon Powers Membership Across The Web -  https://blog.patreon.com/patreon-powers-membership-across-the-web/  the company highlights a new Wordpress plugin that essentially makes your site into a membership site, with Patreon as the payment gateway (by donation, of course). So… if you like the donation thing - and think it might fit with a membership thing - this is a VERY promising looking option for you. Cautions about setting up a membership I tried to set up a membership on one of my sites a few years back and it didn’t go so well. I still think the idea is a great idea, but both my timing and my implementation were off. Here’s what I learned… Critical Mass is vital In order to launch a membership of any kind you’ve got to have enough momentum to build a movement - of sorts. It won’t be enough to buy the needed plugins, install them on your site, and start announcing that you now have a membership. You just might hear crickets like I did. You’ve got to have a very excited, raving fan base established in order for a membership site to launch successfully. Some signs you might be ready… Your listeners ask you for help often You can’t keep up with the demand for new content Your industry/niche is exploding You get lots of engagement on social media when you post about your topics People tag you as a resource in their own conversations about your niche And that’s just SOME of what I’d consider. The good news is that if you take the time to set up a membership of some kind and you DO hear crickets, it didn’t cost you much. Chalk it up to your education. You’ve got to be able to deliver over-and-above value consistently It’s one thing to establish a membership site. It’s quite another to keep pumping it full of new, great, helpful content that makes the cost of admission worth it. True, a good membership will become a self-perpetuating thing over time, with members themselves adding great content that helps the community. But you’ve got to be the catalyst for that, the one who pumps the community up with enthusiasm, information, and helpful tools, tips, and tricks for your niche. If you don’t have time to do that - DON’T set up a membership site. An example of a guy who does this very well is James Schramko. He’s got a very successful business membership called Silver Circle. I’ve heard him talk about the power of his membership group both in terms of usefulness to members and income for him. It makes total sense. Here are a couple of James’ podcast episodes about memberships you might enjoy… How to Jumpstart Your Membership Forum https://www.superfastbusiness.com/business/how-to-jumpstart-your-membership-forum/  Advanced Subscription Membership Techniques https://www.superfastbusiness.com/business/497-advanced-subscription-membership-techniques-with-stu-mclaren/  Idea #5 for monetizing your podcast: Sell your own stuff To me, this one is the most obvious, no-brainer, you’ve-got-to-do-this option when it comes to monetizing a podcast. Let me explain… Your audience is YOUR audience. They’ve chosen YOU to speak into their ear-buds. They like what you have to say, that’s why they are listening. Doesn’t it seem natural that if you were to provide a resource they would be very interested in buying it? That’s what happened to Pat Flynn (mentioned previously). He had added so much value to his listeners over the years that they actually began begging him to make a product for them. That may not be where you’re at right now… but you’re on the way. I can say that confidently because every podcaster I know is eager to add value to their audience. And there’s nothing sullied or distasteful about creating something of enormous value and selling it to that audience. It’s the way the “free enterprise” system works. Give it some thought… You create your amazing product to help your audience on a deeper level You set your “asking price” Your listeners get to decide if it’s worth that amount - to them Those for whom it is, will buy it. Happily Excitedly And likely tell others about it when it delivers the value they are seeking Do you see how that works? Nobody was coerced. Nobody was pressured into buying. It’s a very natural process of exchange we participate in almost every day of our lives. You exchange your great content for their money. They exchange their money for your great content. And everybody is happy. Tips for making your own products a legitimate way of monetizing Create truly helpful, good stuff your audience can use When it comes to purchases there is NOTHING WORSE than buying something that turns out to be a disappointment. I remember buying an “iPod” for one of my kids from eBay years back, and when it arrived it was a cheap knock-off. I called it a “lie-pod” from then on. So disappointing. You DON’T want to be that guy or gal. You’ll destroy any amount of trust you’ve been able to build with your audience thus far, not to mention your reputation. So don’t shortcut your products. Make them great. Give it your all. Be ready to devote the TIME required to learn how to create a great product Building something great takes time. Decide right now that you’re going to be patient, but persistent. Learn. Grow. Make use of Youtube University. Get clear on what you’re going to build and how you’re going to build it. But don’t postpone your launch simply because it’s “not perfect yet.” It will never be perfect. Make it good - then publish it. Then you can concentrate on making it great as you get feedback from those who purchase it. Mention your resource often - on your podcast - on your website The “Build it and they will come” philosophy will NOT work with products you create for your listeners. You have to tell them that it exists. And you have to do it repeatedly. I suggest you create what’s called a “call to action” for every episode of your podcast. It’s an offer of help you make to your listeners via the product you’ve created. Tell them what it is. Tell them why they need it. Tell them how to get it. Nothing needs to be high pressure. Nothing needs to be urgent or over-hyped. Just be honest, tell them, and let them decide. But do it consistently. On every episode of your podcast. Think about it - how many times have YOU heard about a product or service that was of interest to you and then forgotten about it, or forgotten to look it up? Lots. But then you hear about it again and take action. Your listeners are the same. Do them the favor of always talking about your offer. And maybe you’ll find that monetizing your podcast through your own products is the BEST and most NATURAL way of monetizing you could have dreamed of. The folks over at Hubspot have created a post titled “31 Call-to-Action Examples You Can’t Help But Click.” Helpful stuff you’d do well to read and learn from.  https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/great-call-to-action-examples  And one more thing about monetizing via your own stuff... By "your own stuff" I don't only mean products. Think outside the box.. You could offer Coaching Group coaching Books Online courses Mastermind groups Events Speaking Workshops Retreats Consulting Service-related work Anything else you can think of that has a legitimate benefit to your audience That’s it. If you’re looking to monetize a podcast, pick the option that works best for you, your show, and your approach to business, and get started. The money won’t come in unless you open the door for it. www.PodcastFastTrack.com/5 - A podcast sponsor challenge for you! Keyword Finder (this is my affiliate link.. Meaning, I get paid if you buy from them) Ringr (another affiliate link) eClincher (yet another of my affiliate links) Patreon (NO affiliate relationship) www.ChristianHomeandFamily.com (one of my websites and podcasts) Paypal Stripe Episode 67 with Rob Walch about having your own custom podcasting app Connect with me… Carey(AT)PodcastFastTrack.com On Facebook On Twitter Subscribe to Podcastification Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Google Play | Podbean | iHeart Radio | Spreaker https://www.PodcastFastTrack.com/subscribe  

Welcome to Episode 364 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. All right guys 364, and we're talking about tools. Social media tools and what to use and is this the right one or is that the right one; is probably the question type I spend the most time answering. Especially, when I'm at events, and I'm speaking to people. A lot of times it's not really about what should I be hosting, or where I should be hosting, it's literally what can I use to make this easier. What can I use to make this more painless? How can I automate this in a way that makes sense. I want to talk about three types of tools that you need to have. Now, I will say that there are a whole plethora of options within these tool types to chose; I'm going to share my favorite in each category. Again, and I've said this before, and I guarantee I will say it again, maybe in this show; the best tool for the job is the one you are going to use. The smanciest, fanciest most wonderful tool that every expert recommends, is totally useless if you never open it. The best tools for the job is the one you will use, but I will tell you my three favorites the ones I use. Cool? All right. Let's jump in tool type number one; a scheduler. Now, I want to put a little asterisk next to this. Not everyone needs a scheduler. I do have a couple of coaching clients who focus mostly on Facebook and Instagram, and they don't use a scheduler. They use a scheduler inside Facebook, and they use an alarm reminder to schedule to their Instagram, and that's where they're at and that works perfectly for their demographic for their industry, for their ideal clients and for their set-up. There is no reason for them to pay X-Y-Z per month to have a scheduler, when that's the best option for them. That's my little side note there, but jumping back in, a scheduler Some option of posting is the most-most necessary tool. I use eClincher. There are a ton of reviews of tool options, and if you go down to the resources on the Show Notes page I will list links to those episodes. We talk about Buffer, Hootsuite, eClincher and Sprout Social. We talked about CoSchedule, and a whole plethora of choices. Again, the right one is the one you'll use. I use eClincher, because it allows me to do a couple of things. A. It allows me to have something called queues, where my content is actually recycled. That allows me to put all 364 episodes of this show and content for that in a list. It gets shaken up like a snowball, and those tweets go out. When the snow all settles, and the tweets have all been sent it gets shaken up again, and the whole process happens again, without me or someone on my team going in and making that happen. I really like eClincher. In addition to that, I have the option for social listening, because I've got my social inbox where all of my Facebook comments, LinkedIn messages Twitter replies and direct messages' sort of things come into one place. I can simply go in and monitor that space. I don't have to over and over and over and over again dig into each of those places. On the flip side of that, I can also schedule specific messages at specific times. If I'm a part of an affiliate promo, or I'm launching something, or there's something I need to go out on Tuesday at seven, I can schedule it to go out at one time. Tuesday at seven. I really like that. That's why I like eClincher. They've also got a lot of great built-in analytics and things like that. So, that's what I use. But a scheduler, something that's going to help you streamline the process of scheduling your social media foundation is really key. When I talk about your social media foundation, I'm talking about, and I've talked about this in past episodes, the content that has to go out. Your content. Your other peoples content. Your social messages. It's the content that you know goes out week after week, month after month, year after year. It's the baseline, the foundation, see how it's named that, of your social media time. So get that stuff out. Schedule that. Make time to do it once a week. A scheduler allows you to do that. That way when you're going in you can trust that your scheduler is taking care of your foundation and you can go in and engage. You can go on and post something live and fresh. Whatever it is. You can go focus on your groups. Whatever it is you need to do, you have that option. Again, ding-ding-ding, your scheduler has allowed your foundation to be going out. Cool? All right. Number two. A graphics tool. I'm not saying you have to have Photoshop, in fact in most cases you don't need Photoshop. I use Canva, and I'll be honest for some stuff we do use Photoshop. But we actually have templates that we had a designer build for us in Canva. We used those 98% of the time. We just rolled out new cover images and new Instagram quote graphics and stuff like that; guess what guys? We do those with Canva. It doesn't have to be a highly complicated tool. Again, there are a whole range of choices for you. I really love Canva. We even spring for the Premium version, I think it's like 12 or 15 bucks a month, and I think it's actually ten bucks a month if you pay annually. You end up with a couple of months free, so it kind of shaves it down to be less per month. Yeah, it doesn't have to be complicated, it can be simple. One thing I will say though. When you're using a tool like Canva, or some of these real quick social media graphic template-based tools, remember to make yours look like you and your brand. That does mean just adding your logo in place of whatever logo was defaulted in the template, because for a lot of people in the online business space we see those templates so often, and we know this tool so well I can identify a Canva graphic, nine times out of ten. They use one of the top six templates in the list and they didn't really do anything in the way of customization. So it looks like a Canva image to me. Their brand is completely washed out of it, because I immediately identify it as a Canva image. Do some tweaking. I'm sure there are some designers who can probably identify them at even a higher level than I can, but put a little bit of time in and you know what, if you really want invest in having a designer help you. I'm happy to give you the name of my designer, if you guys are interested in that. Send me a message. The team will get you her name, and put you in contact. But you need to make it look and feel like your brand or it's not representing you, it's representing Canva or whatever tool it is that you are using. Canva is certainly not the only game in town with that kind of stuff. Number two, a graphics tool. I'll also say that your graphics tool doesn't necessarily need to be desktop-based. For a lot of you that may be something on your phone. A editing app on your phone that you use. For example WordSwag is massively popular. Again, I can identify a WordSwag image pretty carefully. Make sure you give it your own feel. Don't use default everything, give it your own vibe. Graphics tool massively important, especially now, we know how important visual stimulation is in the grand scheme of social media. That's why photos and videos are doing so well. Number three, before we close this up, some sort of tool to collect your stats in. Now, I'm trusting that I don't need to mention that you are actually going into your Facebook insights, your Twitter analytics, your LinkedIn analytics, your Google analytics, and paying attention to your stats and that these numbers mean something and will give you information. However, you also need to collect that information somewhere. I actually keep it stupid stupid simple, we use Google Sheets to track things like followers count, engagement rates, click through rates, most popular links, and things like that. My friend Brandy Lawson over at FireyFx has been talking a lot about Google Data Studio, which is actually a really cool tool that we use to put together parts of our client's reports. So they can see what's happening on their website, it's a really cool option. You can absolutely be pulling those and collecting your data there, but also keep a record of those things. Again, I keep follower counts and stuff in Google Sheets. I keep a record of this stuff because guys social media is not an immediate payoff. It's not you hire someone or you start doing something or you make one tweak and suddenly the flood gates open. That's not what social media is for. It's a long-term game. You're looking at three, six, twelve months to start really seeing that you've got some solid leverage. Yes, little things should start happening. Follower count should start increasing. Engagement should start increasing. Low level sales may increase, the email list may start growing incrementally over time, but it is not a switch. It is not something you flip. When you have the numbers and you can look at them month over month, and quarter over quarter, and year over year, you really start to see the difference that's made when you just keep plugging away. You just keep doing the work. You just keep being of value. You just keep being consistent. You just keep sharing information and making those sales offers. Making those pitches. In the words of Gary V, "You're doing your jobs, but you're also doing your right hooks." All right guys, so make sure you are tracking that information and you are paying attention to it. Not just day to day, but over the long-term. So having some sort of tool where you collect those stats, that's going to be really valuable. That's the show for today. Big, big, big reminder. We have a brand new training happening Friday actually. It'll get released on Hit the Mic Backstage. This month is going to be our ... Next month ,rather, September is going to be a really good one. We're actually going to talk about how to use Facebook ads to engage a stale community. This is particularly important at this time of year, because maybe just maybe you have spent the last couple of months chilling out. Maybe not posting quite as much. Maybe not engaging your community and now you want to launch something. Now you want to release your program or grow your e-mail list so you can launch something in January, whatever it is. You want to hit those numbers that you set in January of this year. So we're going to talk about setting up your Facebook ads to engage that community. If you would like to join us, and I know you would, HittheMicBackstage.com is the place to go. And I will see you backstage in the private V.I.P. lounge, and of course the Facebook group, and of course I'll see you again here next Tuesday. See you soon.

Gilad Salamander is Co-founder/CEO at eClincher - the most advanced social media management tool. With a proven track record in Business, Product & Engineering Management, New Product Introduction (NPI), and Manufacturing and Support, he has the proven ability to implement strategies that support business growth. He is an active investor in several startup companies and a co-founder/partner at EpiMetrix Inc. Strengths include product vision, strategic planning for growth, full P&L management and operational excellence. #PeakPerformers, Gilad shares the @eclincher story on #TheEntrepYou today! Click To Tweet Show  Notes: Here's a fun question for you…If you walked in your sleep, where would you go? Probably to the beach, but I need to wake up before going into the water. What is eClincher all about? We started the concept about four years ago; we wanted to build a social media management tool for the Micro, Small businesses. We developed that with a cool user interface. Customers compared us to some of the big competitors. We find that we had to build an amazing solution for end users that was transparent. There was also a lot of discussions with our customers. We sought feedback and continuously improve our platform to include features so that they don't have to go to multiple tools to find unique solution for things. They can do it all in one platform in our system. We also wanted to save them time because we know how businesses and entrepreneurs are. They need help. That's our vision. We're are about entering solution and engagement. What problem is eClincher solving that Hootsuite isn't? Social media has evolved from social media marketing and publishing into engagement. Social Media is expanding into support and CRM. That's aligning well with our vision and we have developed our tool to address those issues. The differentiation is that we take care of the publishing and the scheduling. We do it really well with features like post preview, edit links, free access to stock images, animated GIFs, integration with Canva (the publishing aspect). We added another great feature called auto-post with queues. You can use queues to queue a category of posts, fill it up with content and schedule weekly schedule. Once you turn on auto publish it will continue to recycle each post at a time until it reaches the end. There is the option for one time publishing as well as queues with end date that allows you to run campaigns. That can get as 80-90% engagement.  The publishing is the tool to get more engagement. In addition, we have analytics, RSS feeds, content curation, inboxes - an amazing way to get engagement. Everything gets collected from all your social media channels into one inbox. You can respond, follow, follow from different profiles rather than going to the different platform. It saves a lot of time. What are some your users saying about eClincher? We get a lot of 5-star ratings from software review sites. The main thing they are saying is that they like the completeness of the product. They can get everything in one platform so they don't have to use 3 or 4 products. The price is reasonable, we are efficient with everything on stored on the cloud.  We continue to evolve into adding new features and the customers benefit from that. Is eClincher the first product you've worked on? I've worked on new product introduction in different companies and managed teams but this is my first startup. I've done some investment and other stuff so I understand what it takes to build and define a product. It has helped me a lot with eClincher but I also learnt a lot of new things with the experience. I can certainly share tips I've learnt along the way. What are some of the things that are foremost on your mind when you are thinking about developing products? In general, for entrepreneurs and startups the two most important things that an entrepreneur need to focus on is: Connect with the end user.

This week we tackle taking credit card payments in-person. You’ve seen them at coffee shops, food trucks, boutique retailers and even craft fairs and farmers markets. Those little white square card readers are just that – Square. Rate us on iTunes Show Notes Taking Payments In-Person Square is the most prevalent and, from my experience, the […]

Welcome to episode 357 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. I had a really interesting question sent to me through the website not too long ago, and I decided in addition to emailing this person an answer, I would bring it here, because I think several of you probably have this question. So we're going to talk about, does Twitter still matter? I have gotten a lot of pushback from people lately saying that Twitter is becoming sort of irrelevant and they're not getting traffic or they're not growing their followers, or they feel like it's a waster of time because they're just starting out there, and they don't know how to grow in any way. And so I wanted to talk about why Twitter can still totally be relevant for you, and why it might not be. Twitter does matter So number one, yes, Twitter overall is still currently, as of today, relevant. Like every social network, I'm sure it will come a point where it is not relevant, although I think social channels have done a better job in the last several years of finding ways to evolve. Facebook and Instagram are killer examples of this. LinkedIn, to a greater extent, is a real shining example of knowing their niche and knowing how to improve to speak to their niche. But who has evolved in a way it needed to, to keep up, so to speak? But I will say that I think everything sort of has its season, so I suspect at some point Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn and the things of now will go away. They will be not necessarily replaced, but something will evolve to pull our attention. But for now, yes, 100% relevant. With that said, there is not really a network that everyone has to use. It may come down to Twitter just not being some place where your community spends time. And that's okay. It may come down to Twitter being some place where your community spends a lot of time, and in which case, yes it's super relevant. So it always, always, always, when these questions come up of whether a network is for you, whether it's Twitter or LinkedIn or some network yet to be named, it comes down to: Is it relevant for your audience? Does it speak to how they consume content and where they spend their time? If it doesn't, then no, it's not super relevant for you. Twitter automation Now, switching gears back to Twitter, the people who I have talked to through consults and things like that or who have come to engage our services, generally speaking, they're struggling with Twitter because they're doing something fundamentally wrong. And that's their over-automating. Now Twitter is a great and powerful place to add automation. With that said, you can't just autopilot it and expect it to drive thousands and thousands of pieces of traffic for you each and every day. It's just not the way it works. It's all about balance. I know some people who are really successful without doing any sort of automation on Twitter because it's their natural state and they enjoy that space, and they spend time there, and it works for them. I know people who automate 90% of what goes out on Twitter and they're really successful because A) they've automated really smartly, and B) they're still spending that 10% of time where they're coming in and engaging. And that's where I actually fall in. I don't spend a ton of time day in and day out on Twitter. However, I have put tools in place to do things like send out content and engage new followers. Now when I say engage new followers, I am not, and I have to put this right at the top, I am not talking about automated direct messaging. I am not talking about automated replies. Don't do that. It's not good. What I do is I do use tool where it connects me with people who check certain boxes. So I use a tool that's called Juicer, and it follows people in certain industries or with certain words in their bio, or words they're tweeting. And there's different ways you can set this up, different modules you can use to set this up, but essentially it lets me connect with targeted people who are going to be a fit. I can follow them, I can add them to lists. I like to add people to private lists so that I can make sure I go in and engage with new followers. But again, this is a way that I'm using automation to allow me to connect with targeted people, and then engage in conversations. So again, we're adding them to lists, we're following them based on a word that appears in their bio, or something they tweet, and we're adding them to a private list for the same reason. So again, I can actually engage with those people I'm connecting with. So that's a tool I use for that. On the flip side of that, we're using a tool like eClincher, where we're scheduling content. So we are setting up that social media foundation, that old content, new content, other people's content. All of that stuff gets scheduled inside of eClincher so that when I do go into Twitter, I'm not thinking of what I need to tweet. I'm thinking of replying or something that's actually happening fresh, live, that day, where I can add silly GIFs and whatnot. So that's the tools I use to automate that allow me to have that engagement part. So remember, you need that balance. You don't want to be spending so much on autopilot that you are forgetting that there are people out there. There is a way to engage with them and connect with them. I will say, I just want to button this up with, do not automate engagement. Do not set up tools that allow you to reply to tweets that have certain words or under certain hashtags, or auto-direct message people, or auto-reply to people when they follow you. Don't do those sort of things. Use these automation tools to set your foundation, so that you can engage live. That's where the value is. That's where the connection comes from. If you don't invest a little bit of time engaging with the people, why would they invest any time or money with you? All right, think about that next time you lean a little hard into the automation stuff. Okay? The other thing I want to talk about is, a lot of people who I talk to about Twitter, they feel like their messages are just getting lost. And that's why I really encourage you to add things like video and graphics. Just like Facebook, just like LinkedIn, adding these graphics, adding these videos, creating something that is on brand, relevant, and eye-catching can be really powerful ways to stand out from the noise. So you'll notice a lot of my tweets have graphics. When we tweet videos, we have either the video from YouTube or a graphic. We set up Twitter cards so that when the URL from my website gets tweeted, guess what? It pulls a graphic. So we're making it a little larger than just the standard issue tweet. That's a big part of standing out amongst the noise. So use these tools. Engage with them in a way that makes sense, that's again on brand, and relevant to the content you're sharing. But stand out. Be you. All right? I like to think that when you see one of my tweets, you probably know it's me. Because probably, I don't know, 7 times out of 10 it includes a graphic you're used to seeing from me. Either from the website, branded from the backstage stuff or, you know, just a straight up picture of me. You're welcome. All right? The last thing I want to cover before we wrap this up ... And I wanted to keep this episode short because I want to encourage you guys to take action ... Remember, followers are not the be all end all. So one of the conversations I had with a client recently, they want to grow their Twitter volume quite a bit to 25 or 50,000. And that's awesome, but only if those people are relevant. Only if those people are interested in what you're talking about. Anybody, literally anybody, can make the wrong decision and go buy 100,000 followers. But they're meaningless. A) It doesn't take me very long in looking at the account to realize you bought your following. And two, there's no value for driving traffic to your site or sales or conversations or re-tweets or shares or replies or any kind of engagement stuff. There's none of that happening. So I really encourage you to think twice about putting too much value in that follower count. Where I want you to put the value is in the people who make up that follower count. Remember, they're not just profile images. They are people. All right? Treat them that way. So it really goes back to not just follower counts being valuable, but not the end all be all, but also for being true with that automation stuff. Make sure we're doing these things the right way, in a way to provide more value, not less. All right? That's all I've got for you today. If you are looking for more help with Twitter, the best place to go is the upgrade to this show, which is Hit the Mic Backstage. You can join us at hitthemicbackstage.com. We've got a Twitter ads training as well as cards training, a Twitter 101 training, not to mention all of the other networks. But if you're listening to this, I'm guessing you're curious about Twitter. The best part is, though, you can join us in the private community and I do profile reviews. So if you have questions about how to optimize your Twitter profile, you can drop a link to your Twitter profile in there and I'll actually do a video review for you right inside the private community. I will see you backstage, hitthemicbackstage.com, and I'll see you next week. Have a good one. Bye

Welcome to episode 345 of Hit the Mic with the Stacey Harris. As important as creating quality content is and it's massively, hugely amazingly, foundationally important, so is curating content. Unfortunately, a lot of the conversations I've been having on coaching calls and with clients and at speaking engagements, and through e-mail, there's really a disconnect in understanding why other people's content, or OPC, is so important. Even more so than that, how does it make sense in your strategy to be driving traffic to somebody else? That's exactly what we're going to talk about in this episode. Because OPC, or other people's content, is hugely valuable, hugely important, and can still do a lot for your brand because you're still a resource, even if what the value they're connecting them with is not your own. People still attach you to having gained that knowledge or that insight. Often times you can share content that supports your message or supports your customers, or clients, or community in a way that you don't. Answer questions that you don't answer without having to actually answer it because you share other people's content that answers those questions. I want to talk about how I curate content so that we can clear up some of this confusion. Sound good? Number one, the tools, the trade, I use Feedly, F-E-E-D-L-Y, Feedly. I don't know how many of you remember Google Reader back in the day. I came to Feedly after Google Reader shut down, which was devastating to me by the way. I was very upset. I did persevere though, I found a way to struggle through. I actually really, really enjoy Feedly. I use the free level, I have tested the paid level and I just didn't use any of the features, so I use the free level. Another really great option is Pocket. It's one that I have checked out and then I have clients who, they really love it. I have never moved away from Feedly because, well, I like Feedly. It's a user preference situation. Then, whatever scheduling tool you use will be the other tool of the trade. I use eClincher, and then when I schedule Facebook content, I schedule it right on Facebook. That's literally all you need to curate content. Then, it's a matter of finding sources you want to share content from. One of the ways I do that is tapping my own customer base and network. There are a lot of people in my community and in my network who create killer content that I love to share. I like to share content from my mentors. Yes, I'm always looking for new content, that's why occasionally allowing yourself a limited scroll time on social can be really helpful. I'll check targeted hashtags, or scroll through what people are sharing on Facebook. Selfishly, part of the reason I want you guys to be better at curating content is so that I'm finding new places to learn from and share from. You guys are in some cases, who I'm following, who I'm paying attention to, who I'm listening to. That's the purpose of this community is to grow together. That really, it's really, really simple when it comes to tools of the trade. Some place to manage all of the places you want to curate from so that you're not having to search the dark corners of the internet to try to find something worth sharing, because generally speaking, the dark corners of the internet do not have the best content. Well, I guess it depends on what you're looking for right? So yeah, Feedly to manage that. Scheduling tool to actually schedule it out, and then some sources. Tap your network, tap your community, tap your client base, tap your mentors. Obviously, depending on your audience is, there's also large publications in every industry that you can follow. For example, you'll see I share a lot of stuff from Ink and Entrepreneur and Forbes and things like that because well, they consistently create really quality content, and it speaks directly to things that my audience already has an interest in right? That's important. Number two, how do you manage your time on this? How long is this going to take? And how often should you be sharing it? Well, it's going to take longer at the beginning than it takes further down because you're going to be curating sources, as well as individual content. I find when my content well has kind of dried up or I'm just not feeling the diversity of the content that I once was, it's just kind of died down for me a little bit, it always takes longer when I'm looking for new sources and sharing from new places. Allow for that. With that said, it really doesn't take terribly, terribly long. Takes me about an hour and a half a week to curate content. That is because I actually read the stuff I share and pay attention to it. We'll talk more about that in just a second. Because of that it's going to take a little bit longer. I challenge you to look at how much time you're already spending consuming content, because when you're consuming that content, you're just consuming for the sake of consumption. That is generally a time waster, whereas when I'm consuming for the purpose of curation and sharing and feeding my own sort of social media machine, it's not a time waster, it's value. Not only am I paying closer attention to it, a different part of my brain is firing because I'm actually looking for the value in each piece. Also, I'm then sharing that with you guys and filling that content machine and things like that. That really kind of changes the perspective, but my guess is you're probably already spending a fair amount of time consuming content. Now find content you can consume and share. Curate it instead of just consume it. With that said, I try and keep my content curation, there's no exact science, I don't want it to be absolutely everything I share. Let's just use Facebook for an example for the sake of keeping the numbers really simple. You'll notice one or two pieces of content that go out a day are curated piece of content. At least one piece of content is from me. Often two pieces of content per day are from me either in the form of a promo and a piece of content, or in a Facebook Live, in a past episode, or whatever the formula is that day, but at least one piece of content every day. Usually two pieces of content are the curated pieces. You'll find your own sort of sweet spot as far as how often and how much. You definitely don't want to overrun your content, but you do want it to be there as a support piece to your content. The third thing I want to touch on as we wrap this up, I want to keep today's pretty brief, is to make sure that this content has value for you and your audience by adding your perspective. This is where we go back to the idea that I actually read and consume the content I share with you guys. That's because I want to be able to add value. I want to say, "Hey, if you only pay attention to one of the three points here, pay attention to this." Or, "This is why I really like this." Or, in some case, "Hey, this is why I disagree with this." That's cool too because you're sharing your value and potentially starting a really powerful conversation with your community. I always add my two cents. I'll ask a question. I'll give them a point of engagement. I want these pieces of content to be a conversation starter whenever possible. That's not always super possible, I get a lot more reactions than I get comments when I usually curate content, I'll be totally honest with you. However, with that said, I do find that I get a lot of feedback that they actually want to pay attention to the content I'm sharing because they know there's going to be one thing they can zoom in on, or one thing that they can take action on. It's not just, here's the title of the post that I'm sharing and the link. Add your two cents. Add your value. That's how we're really making other people's content work for us. Tying in a piece to something you offer, or tying in a piece to a piece of content you created. We all have those things that our audience are like, "Yes, we know. You say that all the time." Except they like it because it's just a well branded message right? I can go with that. These things that support, these pieces of curated content that support those messages, that support those things, can be really powerful, but only if you draw the connection for people honestly. Make sure you're tying that in. Often time, I'll share social media content, I'll be like, "Yes, I say this all the time.", and then I'll sort of reiterate the message and share the piece of content. Again, they're still attaching that value to me then. Again, we're still building credibility, we're still building relationships, but guess what guys, I didn't have to create it and that's cool too. That's it, that's kind of how I curate content, how I go through the process, what it looks like and why it's important. Make sure you are also curating content. Remember, if you have questions about this, the best, best, best place to ask is inside the private community and backstage. I know if you listen to the show, you will understand how valuable backstage is as the next step for the show. This show upgraded, so you're obviously already a member. If you're not, come join us at hitthemicbackstage.com because that is the best place to have a conversation after the show, get the additional information you need, any additional support trainings you need. All of that lives inside the VIP, or I'm sorry, inside the backstage community, so come on over to hitthemicbackstage.com and I will see you backstage and of course, right here next Tuesday. Have a great week. Bye. Resources Join us inside Hit the Mic Backstage Connect with Me Connect with me on Facebook Tweet with me and include #HittheMic Be sure to leave your review on iTunes or Stitcher for a shoutout on a future show

Welcome to episode 342 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. Today we're sitting down and talking about another social media management tool. This week we're talking about viraltag. Before we get into the specifics of viraltag though, I want to make a small disclaimer that I make whenever I do any of these kinds of episodes, and that is this. The social media tool that is best is the one you're going to use. If you are not going to use it, it doesn't matter how awesome, how free, how expensive, how feature filled, how whatever. It won't work. Okay? If you love the tool you're using now, great. Use it. If you don't think that viraltag's a fit for you, that's okay you're not broken. The tool you're going to find the best results with is the one you're going to use. With that said, let's break down viraltag because for a lot of you, it might be a perfect solution. Cool? Cool. Starting off, viraltag. Let's talk about some features. You've got the ability to schedule content for all of the big guys: Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, etc. which is a great, great place to start because not everybody has all of those features. You can also do things like upload content and schedule it in bulk. Meaning you can hit sort of all the places you need to get content to or if you have somebody who maybe writes your content for you, they can send you say, a Google spreadsheet or an excel document or whatever for your approval, and then they can upload all of those at one time into viraltag without having to sort of go in and schedule everything one by one. That's really, really powerful. Also, you can create a slightly different post for the same piece of content all at one time. Meaning, I can upload a video or an image and create the Instagram post, the Pinterest post, the Twitter post, and the Facebook post at one time without having to upload that image four times. That is a huge, huge time saver. It's not something I've seen with a lot of other networks. There's also integrations with things like Canva and RSS feed so you can create images and handle your content curation right inside a viraltag. I know for a lot of you being able to do things in one place is really, really valuable. With that said, one last really awesome feature and then a feature that I wish was there. The awesome feature being evergreen content, post recycling. The ability to have a queue that goes out and tweets go out and out and out and then when it's empty, it sort of cycles through again. I know a lot of you are using tools like MeetEdgar. I use eClincher to do that. I believe Sendable does that. More and more tools are adding this feature because it's a great way for us on the content curator side, our creator side of things, to keep sharing past content that still has value. And viraltag allows you to do that as well. Now a not so great feature, or a missing feature really, is there's no social listening. With viraltag, it's all about broadcast. It's not about conversation, so you're still going to need to go use the networks or another tool to actually manage your incoming message, at replies, comments, things like that. However, the broadcast side of this tool is really solid as far as the amount of networks you're talking to, post recycling, allowing you to add your RSS feeds and things like that so you can do your content creation all in one tool. There's a really great thing called Circles that allow you to create like little communities of people to collaborate with friends and peers and really, colleagues, JV partners, whatever so you can kind of share each other's content and grow your reach. That's really, really powerful. Especially for those of you who are on the blogger podcaster content side of your business model. That can be a really great way to increase your reach, grow your network and support people putting out content is going to serve your audience and really get your content in front of more people who maybe aren't yet in your audience, but are a perfect fit for your audience. That's really cool. The other thing is there some analytics. You can pull in your Google analytics, you're going to have Pinterest, Instagram analytics so you can see how your content is doing. You guys know, you know, how valuable that is. You can absolutely make sure that you're tied in and connected to your numbers. That's features. A lot of great features. Really, really like the layout. I really like the way it looks. If that fits your needs, that's worth checking out. The next step of course, is pricing. We always talk about sort of where these price points fit into the grand scheme of things. There is a monthly and an annual option. I'm going to talk about it from a monthly perspective. For one user, ten social profiles you have $29 per month for the individual. That is going to leave out any team sort of option, as well as things like Google analytics and advanced visual analytics. However, those options do come up when you talk about the small business option, which is $99 a month. What's cool is at that $29 a month, you do have the post recycling option, which, again, is killer. That's actually a really great price point to have that option as well. That's worth checking out, guys. Then of course you can save 20% when you do the annual option, and you pay once a year. On this sort of note, I've had a couple people ask me if I prefer to pay monthly or annually for social media tools. I pay monthly for social media tools because there are new tools all of the time. If I find something different I don't want to be tied into a one year commitment or I've already paid for it at least with a social media tool. That's just me. I think for most people, the annual option is really great if your business can afford the upfront cost because it's taken care of and there's usually a savings. Generally speaking, you will not jump around tools very often. I don't actually jump around tools very often, I try a lot of new tools. I've been with eClincher for quite awhile now. I think right about a year. But because I have serious shiny object syndrome when it comes to social media tools, I tend to pay monthly. That's something I wanted to mention. The last thing I mentioned I want to talk about, is who is this tool going to be best for? I think this tool is really solid for those of you who are in the content space, the media space. Vloggers, bloggers, podcasters. Because there is such a really great curation and community, and recycled content, we're talking all of the major networks that needed to be tied into like Pinterest, and Instagram, and Facebook, and Twitter, and Tumblr, etc. I would definitely say for you guys. However, if you're somebody who wants to use one tool for your listening and your broadcasting, viraltag may not be a fit because again, there's none of that listening and engagement side of things inside of this tool. You're going to want to pay attention to that. However, I have to say of all of the tools I've used including eClincher which I use, I liked the Pinterest scheduling inside of this tool the best. If that's something that's really important you, I thought this looked the best of all the Pinterest scheduling tools I've used. That's just a random side note. But that's viraltag. Check it out. If this is something that sounds like it's a fit for you, check it out. But again, there is not one tool to rule them all. This is absolutely a contender as far as being a valuable place to look the next time you need a new tool for social media management. All right? If you have any questions about viral tag or finding the best tool for you, or you want recommendations, come on over to the Facebook page and ask that there. Facebook.com/TheStaceyHarris. They're questions I get quite frequently. What's cool about asking them on the Facebook page is other people can answer them as well. Again, the tool that's best is the one you'll use. If you check out viraltag, there is a 14 day free trial, no credit card required. You can at least get in and get a feel for it. If you love, go with it. It's about what you'll use. All right? All right. Of course for all of the latest social media tools and network news, the best place to go is HittheMicBackstage.com. They are the community that finds out first, the latest and greatest like all of the cool news that has come out in March with Facebook ads and Instagram stuff. Some of the stuff we're going to talk about next week on the three things you must know about social media in April. Yeah, guys Backstage already knows it because I told them. All right? Check out HittheMicBackstage.com to join us backstage and I will see you backstage! Resources Join us inside Hit the Mic Backstage Viraltag Connect with Me Connect with me on Facebook Tweet with me and include #HittheMic Be sure to leave your review on iTunes or Stitcher for a shoutout on a future show

Welcome to episode 339 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. Welcome to our first episode of March which means it is a three things you must know episode, and so these are the three things I want you to be paying attention to when it comes to your social media time in March 2017. Now here's the deal. Some of these things will be relevant even outside of March, so if this is not March when you're listening, keep listening, because guys, these are things that I'm seeing questions on, I'm seeing frustration around, and so I really want to get this in front of you get clear. If you want to stay up on the latest and greatest of all things social media anytime, the place to be is of course inside of Hit the Mic Backstage. That's where I make all announcements on sort of network updates, strategy changes, tool updates, things like that. So if you are listening to this because of a intense need to be in the know, head over to to hitthemicbackstage.com because that's the place to be. All right? With that, let's get started. Number one thing I want you to be paying attention to in March is around the tools you're using. We're actually going to review a new tool this month called Viraltag. I'm a big fan of eClincher. I have done countless episodes reviewing tools, and still one of the most common questions I got in February of this year was what tool should I be using to manage my social media? What tool should I be using to schedule? What tool? What tool? it's not about the tools, guys. It's about using it, and the best tool for you to use to manage your social media is the one you're actually going to use. If that's Hootsuite, if that's Buffer, if that's eClincher, if that's Meet Edgar, if that's Viraltag, if that's Post Planner, and I don't care what it is. I care that it fits your needs and that you are going to login and actually use it, because that's where the difference happens. That's where the change happens, and that's where your business and your community is impacted is when you actually use the tool. You know, the same can be said about just about anything. The webinar that's going to make all the difference in your business is the one you attend and then the one you take action on. The course that's going to change your business forever is the one you actually use, so this is one of those things that applies to literally all the things, but I want you to remember, especially when it comes to social media, the tool that is going to work is the one you're going to use. Now there are different tools for different budgets and different needs a different network focuses. Again, I've reviewed a lot of them. I'll actually link to all of the review episodes in the resource section over on the show notes page for this episode, but at the end of the day, if you're not going to use it, it's not going to work. It's not going to make a difference. So make sure you are using it, and that means getting comfortable with it. That means setting aside time to figure it out, to watch the tutorials, to reach out to your social media person get training. Whatever it is that you need to make sure that you are, yes I'm going to say it again, actually using this tool, because again, that's where the difference is made. That's where the change happens. And you know what guys? That's where the results are. I know, it's magic. So yes, the tool that is best for the job is the one you will use. Number two, let's talk about number two. If you're not yet going live, seriously guys, do it. We're actually, we just launched last week on the first, a brand-new training inside of Hit the Mic Backstage about going live, and the power of going live. I actually walked our members through using OBS, which is what I used to go live for Facebook and YouTube. We talked a little bit about a tool that will allow you to go live in multiple places at one time, so if you want to check that out, of course that's all on Backstage, hitthemicbackstage.com. But going live is never been more important than it is right now, so do it. Start figuring out what that looks like for you and then do it with some consistency. One of the biggest things I want you to realize is this doesn't have to be all new content. This doesn't have to be you creating something else. This is a great play for you to be repurposing your content. This is a great way for you to be doing more with what's already there. Maybe you have a blog post the that you wrote or a video series that you did, and you can pull out one small point in that valuable piece of content and say, "I'm going to dive deep into this in five, 10, no more than 15 minutes really, and I'm going to provide the value that way."  Or you can be using your Facebook Lives or your Periscopes or your YouTube Lives, whatever you want to use, you can be using those to create your content. Actually record it going live, and then have it transcribed. I use Rev.com for all of my transcriptions for not only my Facebook Lives, but this podcast. So Rev.com, and then take that and edit it into, you guessed it, a blog post. Use the value in lots of ways, because that's how you're going to see it, but you've got to be doing it. You've got to be going live, and later this month, we're actually going to talk about a few ways I have up-leveled my Facebook Lives so that I'm really providing maximum value and really having the best experience from a creator's standpoint, but also my watchers are having from a consumer standpoint. So stay tuned for that. That's going to go live on the 21st, you'll see that episode. And again, if you want to do that right now, of course head into hitthemicbackstage.com when we're talking about Lives, and you can of course ask your questions there about Facebook Lives. And of course, you can join me. I go live once a week, so there you go. Number three, consistency matters. We talked about this at the beginning of February, but here we are going into the final month of this first quarter of the year, and I'm starting to see a lot of people who were really gung ho at the beginning of the year about their social media goals, about tracking their numbers, about looking at what was happening with their numbers and doing something about it, about implementing a strategy, and now here there are in March, and they're feeling maybe overwhelmed. They're feeling like they don't know if it's working. They're feeling like they don't have time. Something else has sparked up in front of them that seems way more fun, and I get that. I totally get that, but consistency is important, and it matters more than it ever has before, because there are more voices than there have ever been before. And so, as much as you can get distracted by the shiny object, so can your audience, and that shiny object might be someone else. So what I want you be doing is really looking back at January, looking back at those goals you set, looking back at those commitments that you made to change something about your social media and do something with it. If that means that you are going to do something, and this is what I really hope it is if you're not doing is already, looking at your numbers regularly, checking those insights, paying attention to those numbers so that you can see if those changes you're making are working. One of the biggest reasons people stop doing something is they're like, "I don't even know if this is working." Well, first of all, look at whether you've given it enough time to work. Two Facebook Lives is not enough time to know whether Facebook Live works for you or not, okay? It's just not. And number two, make sure you looked at the numbers before you started, and make sure you look at the numbers on the regular now, because they're gonna tell you if things are working. I can tell you that going live once a week since the beginning of the year is absolutely working. You know why? Because I'm seeing an increase in traffic to my site. I'm seeing an increase in new members. I'm seeing the impact made on my business from people telling me they're watching live. I'm seeing my view numbers go up. I'm seeing my viewers are staying longer. I'm seeing my engagement sort of fluctuate back and forth, but I'm still seeing the traffic drive and the members join and the sign-ups happen for the free stuff that I'm promoing. So I know it's working, even if I feel like, "Well, nobody actually watched live today," or, "Nobody commented today." Well, guess what? They did take action, though. They did sign up for that training. They did join us backstage. They did listen the podcast, whatever it was that I was talking about on that episode. So if I didn't look at those numbers, I wouldn't see that it really is working. So stay committed to whatever goal you set. Stay committed to taking action, and continually be measuring those results. And guess what, guys? In some cases, it will be that it's not working, and then it's okay to make a change. But making a change doesn't mean throwing everything out, it means "Well, you know what? I've been going live, and it's not clicking in the way I want it to. Maybe I'm going to start going live on Tuesdays instead of Thursdays, or in the evening instead of in the morning, or flip that around, because guess what, guys? That depends on who your audience is. It depends on when they're online, it depends on when they're available, and it depends on how you're executing your Live. Maybe it's not working because you haven't included a single call to action in a Live you've done all year. I'm seeing that and absolutely seeing that mistake made. I'm guilty of it from time to time. I'll get so excited to provide value and share something that just happened that I'll forget to say, "Click the episode. Check out the training. Join us backstage." Whatever the call to action is that episode. So make sure you're doing those things, but make sure most of all that you're being consistent. All right? All right. That's our episode for today. Again, if you want to be in the know of what's happening, not only strategy-wise, but what's happening on the networks, there were some changes that we talked about inside of Hit the Mike Backstage. Instagram is a great example, sort of a bonus thing you need to know, Instagram has now got a slideshow option for your Instagram photos. You can do up to 10 photos in like a little gallery kind of thing. If you want to know about that stuff first, Hit the Mic Backstage knows about it first, so hitthemicbackstage.com to join us.  Resources Join us inside Hit the Mic Backstage Hootsuite Review Buffer Review eClincher Review Edgar Review Sedible Review Co-Schedule Review Connect with Me Connect with me on Facebook Tweet with me and include #HittheMic Be sure to leave your review on iTunes or Stitcher for a shoutout on a future show

Today we look at a cool tool that is a combination between tweetdeck, and meet edgar (or social jukebox). It is super versatile. See video at  www.weeklywebtools.com/352 www.weeklywebtools.com/eclincher

Welcome to episode 332 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. You did this fantastic thing. You created a podcast, a blog post, a video. Whatever it is, it's full of value, it's fantastic, it's amazing. What happens next? Most people make one really big mistake at this step. What they do next is create another piece of content. Instead, I want you to do something else. Whenever I create a piece of content, it then goes through three steps. Number one, social media scheduling. It goes through the scheduling of what's going to happen in the next few days. It's goes into the cue, all that. We'll dive deeper into that in just a second. Number two, how is it going to get repurposed. For our purposes, transcript is made and then it goes into a couple of editing processes. One for LinkedIn Publisher and Medium, one for DeskPose and sometimes, depending on the post, a couple of versions can be made, so repurposing. We'll talk more about that in a second. Then, number three, we repeat and we'll talk more about that too. That's all we're going to cover. We're going to talk about social media. We're going to talk about repurposing and we're going to talk about the power of repeating those steps. Cool? Let's first talk social media. Now, when I talk about social media, again, I'm talking about the immediate social media. In our case, when the episode goes live on Tuesdays, there is a couple of times daily tweets about it for seven days until the next episode comes out. It goes up on Facebook. it goes up on Google Plus because yes, there's still SEO value there. It goes up on LinkedIn, all of things happened. Just the general broadcasting and sharing of it. An Instagram post is created and it becomes a link on Instagram. Just a general, "Hey, there's a new podcast." Of course, it also was at the iTunes and all those places but all of those social media updates are scheduled when the podcast is done recording regardless of when the podcast is actually going to air. All that content is scheduled to go out. Also, the content is added to our cues and so we use what we called eClincher which I've talked about on the show before. I'll leave the link on the show notes. To recycle content meaning all of the episodes are on the big thing called the cue. They go out at scheduled times. An episode from that list, when that list is completed, it gets shuffled up and it all starts over again. It's a recycled content which again, we've talked about on the show before. We also have social media updates that get updated in there so that we're not just sharing the social media for the next seven days but the life of the podcast because as we've talked about before, the value in your content does not end the day your next piece of content comes out. Again, social media for the initial sort of [burst 00:03:28] and then in the recycled cues. Now, the next step is the repurposing. When the podcast is in production still so between editing and scheduling, a transcript is actually made. We use rev.com to do all of our transcripts and we take that transcript and we create a LinkedIn Publisher post. The LinkedIn Publisher post is just an abbreviated version of the show notes, a couple of main points and then a call to action to go check out the podcast or if you want to read it, the full show notes over on the website. This is another social media thing but it plays into our repurposing because again, we're not just creating a status update that says, "Hey, new episode of the show, go check it out," but we're actually creating another piece of content that points back to the original piece of content. This one writes the line between social media and repurposing but it does it beautifully so we like it. Again, we're taking that transcript and we're using that to create those LinkedIn Publisher posts. Again, those are not status updates, guys. These are actual posts created on LinkedIn and what's cool is when you post one of these, people who follow you get notified in their notifications that you've created a post, something that does not happen when you just share the link via status update so that's really cool. Also, when people look at your profile, it's a great way to beef up the value of your profile because people can really scan and see what kind of content you provide, what kind of value you offer. Even if maybe your audience isn't hugely on LinkedIn, I'll be honest, most of you guys I find don't love LinkedIn and so I don't tend to get a lot of business for like the membership there. However, that is where I do get a lot of leads for things like strategy builds, et cetera. More consulting stuff. Having that value there is hugely beneficial because they can see really quickly that the kind of social media I do, how I talk about it, how I treat it, how important I believe strategy is, all of that is going to come across in my content. It's nice to have it up there beefing up the value of that profile. Cool? Let's slide all the way into repurposing now. In addition to the LinkedIn Publisher posts, that transcript is also used to create a guest post. In some cases, depending on the length of the episode, it could be more than one. Most of the episodes we do these days, it's just one guest post because we've been keeping the episodes or I've been keeping the episodes on the shorter side, the easier to consume, easier to take action kind of 10 to 15 minutes. It tends to just be one guest post now. Some of our earlier episodes where I went on for 20 or 30 or 40 minutes, those can become two or three guest posts. We get that transcript. It's edited into a guest post and then it can be submitted wherever it is that my guest post needs are at the moment. That's a really valuable way to again get more value from that same piece of content. Speaking to the thing that I've been talking about a lot and you're going to hear me talk about it more and more. We're doing more with less. We're taking that value and we're going to be stretching it so that we can spend less time in creation mode and more time in actually serving our audience directly and possibly more profitably by building them programs, working one-on-one, providing services, whatever it is you do. Cool? I'm just going to assume you said cool. Again, we're taking that social media. Here is where we repeat. We've got our social media scheduled. We went in and repurposed, now we're going to repeat that social media step with that repurposed content. Meaning, in addition to a cue for all of my content directly on my site, in addition to the Facebook status update and tweets that gets scheduled out immediately that don't go on the cue, just go out right then. I'm going to do that same thing for that guest posts once it gets published. Those guest posts are all going to go in a cue. I have a cue of them along with cue for my own episodes direct from the site. They're all going to get posted on Facebook and Instagram and I'm going to give them a [shout out 00:08:02] on Snapchat. I'm repeating that first step because again, I'm sharing this value in another way. Now, the root, the core of the content is the same but here's why I want you to share it again. A, a really valuable way to get more guest post or could ask us back is to help promote the piece of content you created. Two, being asked to write for another site or being accepted to write on another site, whether it is imagined or not is a credibility builder. I'm having a hard time talking, I'm so excited. It is an expertise establisher. It is an expert status maker absolutely so make sure you're talking about that. That's why you see those featured on, on everybody's website these days is because we want to talk about all the places that I have thought we were cool enough to talk about our subject. That helps established your connection with our expert status. It's just the way it is. Cool? The third thing is I'm making sure that you get the value however it is that you need it. When you listen to the original podcast, watch the original video, read the original blog post, it may not have connected all the way. It may not have hit you the way you needed to get the message. Here's another opportunity to consume it, another opportunity to absorb it, another opportunity for it's a hit in the way it needs to hit or at that time it needs to hit because let's remember, sometimes, this is just straight up timing. That's absolutely sometimes the case where it's just where it fit best for you. That's what I want you to do. I want you to be sharing it on social and then repurposing it and then sharing that repurposed content. That's what we're going to do. Social media, repurpose, repeat. Yeah? That's what I want to see you guys doing. Go ahead and take action on [inaudible 00:10:10]. In addition to that, I want you to make sure that you are signed up because next Tuesday, one week from today when this episode went live anyways, we are kicking off the Three-Day Launch Your Podcast challenge. Again, the Three-Day Launch Your Podcast challenge launches the January 24th. I want to see you there. We'll be doing live streams over on the Facebook page which, if you haven't noticed we are doing live streams a lot more often than we did last year on the Facebook page. Come hang out with us over there, facebook.com/thestaceyharris but check out thestaceyharris.com/episode332 and you will see an opportunity to get your name on the list for the Three-Day Launch Your Podcast challenge totally free. I really, really want this to be the year that you actually launch the podcast you've been thinking about. Come hang out with us, I'll see you there and I will see you next week. Bye. Resources Join us inside Hit the Mic Backstage Connect with Me Connect with me on Facebook Tweet with me and include #HittheMic Be sure to leave your review on iTunes or Stitcher for a shoutout on a future show

The best social media apps in the online space had better watch out. There’s a fairly new app on the scene that has integrated a TON of great features into its interface. It’s called eClincher and you need to know about it. (affiliate link) What I love most about eClincher is that it enables you to reshare your older content - think podcast episodes from long ago - and keep it in front of the people who follow you on social media. And if you follow some great social media practices such as engaging with people and actually BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEM (imagine that), that following should be growing all the time - so people who never heard your old podcast episode in the first place are able to see it for the first time. I believe eClincher is the best social media app for managing your social accounts that I’ve seen. Another reason I say that is that eClincher integrates the inboxes of all your social accounts into their app so you can see your Facebook notifications, LinkedIn notifications, Twitter stuff, Pinterest (a new platform they added recently), and Google + all at the same time, on the same screen. It’s right there in eClincher, and you can interact with people easily via the app, saving you tons of time. Gilad Salamander is my guest on this episode, highlighting his amazing social media management tool. I think you’ll find Gilad a very generous guy, eager to help you make your social media marketing, promotion, and relationship building more effective in less time. That’s what eClincher is doing for me. I hope you find it to be the same way. Just in case you’re interested - here’s my eClincher affiliate link again. (An affiliate link means I get a cut of your first month’s payment for sending you - but you pay the same you would normally pay). Thanks! Outline of this episode [1:23] The problem most podcasters have - old content getting lost - and how eClincher solves the problem. [3:01] The social platforms eClincher can connect to - and the additional features. [3:53] How eClincher republishes your older content - over and over and over. [6:59] Understanding the power of using queues in the best social media app - eClincher. [8:28] How you can curate content from eClincher - and add it to your queues. [12:20] The unified social inbox to give you greater engagement and save time. [17:07] How the custom search feeds help you monitor certain keywords. [21:01] How you can connect with Gilad and eClincher. eClincher website AND my eClincher affiliate link (buy me a coffee?) Connect with Gilad on Twitter Connect with me… Carey(AT)PodcastFastTrack.com On Facebook On Twitter

Welcome to episode 307 of "Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. All right guys, 307, and we are doing another tool review. I love social media tools, I think they're super fun to play with but here's the deal. There are a ton of them, a ton of them, we've reviewed a bunch of them before. I talked about this last week. The one that's going to work is the one you use. For some of you that might be CoSchedule, and CoSchedule's what we're going to talk about today. I'm going to show you the three things you need to know about CoSchedule and I really want you to pay attention. If you are somebody who uses Wordpress.org, as in it's self-hosted, because on .com you can't have plug-ins. If you use Wordpress.org and you need help managing not just your social content but helping with your overall content strategy, and scheduling, and editorial calendar and stuff like that, this is going to be worth listening to because I'm going to break down why this might be the tool for you. Again ... 100% again, there is not one tool to rule them all, that's uniform for everybody. There is however maybe one tool to rule them all for you, and this might be it. Again ... Again, again, again, it's about the tool you will use. Check out CoSchedule if you listen to this and you think, "Hmm, that sounds really fantastical," then great, check it out. However, if you listen to this and you're like, "I'm happy with the tool I've got, it seems like everything ..." Then stay with the tool you've got. This is not me saying everybody needs to use CoSchedule. Full disclosure, I don't use CoSchedule. I used it for the purposes of telling you guys about it today but I'm going back to my tool, eClincher, because that's the tool that rules them all for me. Again, everybody's different and there's no wrong choice here, just do something. Cool? All right, now I will get off my soapbox on that one, put it away for now, and let's dive in to the three things you must know about CoSchedule.   Number one, CoSchedule, not just a social media management tool. That's right. What's cool about CoSchedule is it really does a great job of bringing together ... I'm actually pulling up the website in front of me so that I can tell you guys some specific features that I really loved. It actually does a really good job of bringing your content marketing plan into one place. What's cool is it will actually live inside of your Wordpress site. When you pull up a post you can see your scheduling stuff. You can pull up your CoSchedule calendar so you can schedule from there. What I really loved about this tool is, again, if you're looking for a one stop shop kind of vibe and you want to be able to jump in, get it done, rock out your content, rock out some social and be out of there, this very well might be the tool for you because this makes that super, super simple. What you'll see once you install the plug-in is on each of your posts down at the bottom you'll actually see your calendar. You can connect your social profiles there and then you can set up your shares to go to the different places. It really allows you to do it right inside of your actual site. You don't have to take your link and go to another site, figure it out there, and so on and so forth, keeping jumping through the tasks. What's cool is there's two levels, there's a team level and a solo level. If you've got a marketing team in place, maybe you've got a VA that helps you with your marketing or maybe you have somebody who helps you who's in a marketing role. You can give them access as well and they can go in and take care of this stuff, but you still have the admin access that can go in and review everything, set some things up, assign tasks. Again, this is not just a social media tool, it's literally a whole marketing tool. Some of the things that are really cool about it is it's going to be your content marketing area, your social media marketing area, your marketing project's area as in there's a calendar for you and your team to work from, and also your blog management. Your editorial calendar where you plan it, where you promote it, where you push it. What's cool is you write the content, you set up the stuff in CoSchedule for social, you hit the button and away it goes. It schedules the post and then it schedules all the social and actually puts out that social. Again, that's really, really powerful if you are somebody who's overwhelmed by having all the choices or all the tools or all the places you have to go. Check this out for that. The number two thing I want you to know is there's no social listening.  One of my favorite things about the tools I use, one of my favorite things about a solid social media management tool is the listening part. I would consider CoSchedule a social media publishing tool, not so much a social media management tool because, again, there's not anything where I'm seeing replies on Twitter or people engaging with the content, or comments onto my Facebook page or things like that. All I'm doing is I'm actually extending the marketing of my content, which is critical from a content marketing perspective. Content is only as good as sharing it and stuff but it leaves some money on the table when you start talking about listening, and engaging, and cultivating community. For me, I would need to use this paired with another tool which, if you've listened to this show before, one of the things I love about the tool I use now is it allowed me to go from multiple tools to just one tool. That's something to consider when you're thinking about CoSchedule. You're going to need something like Hootsuite or something like that to actually do a social listening or you're going to go into each of your networks and check things. That is a really, really important thing. However, from a social broadcasting perspective, from a publishing perspective, this is a great option, again, if you wanted all the things in one place. Be aware you're going to need a different tool to do the engagement, you're going to need a different part to do the listening. Please, please, please ... Pretty please, with sprinkles and cherries and all that good stuff, don't forget the listening part. It's absolutely critical that you go in and you engage. You don't want your content falling on deaf ears. Worse yet, you don't want it falling on ears that genuinely don't care. That's what happens when you leave a community unattended, so to speak. Don't forget that social media listening part but that's not something you're going to be able to get in CoSchedule. The number three thing I want to talk about is the two ways you can engage with this tool. As I said, you can actually engage with it right inside of your Wordpress site. You can actually go into Wordpress, write out your post, upload your podcast, whatever it is for you content-wise, embed your video, whatever it is for you content-wise. Then right on that same post page you can go in and you can schedule your social. Easy breezy, easy breezy, easy breezy. That's awesome! However, you can also go to the calendar inside of your Wordpress site and see your activities and your top posts and manage your team. That can all happen, again, right inside of your website. In addition to that, you can actually go to the web based app ... It's just app.coschedule.com so it's not like any sort of crazy far off land, and actually manage things from there as well. You can see your calendars, you can see top content, you can, again, manage your team. That allows you to get some analytics, some information about what's been shared and how often it's been shared. It allows you to get some love, some attention for what's happening because maybe you don't always want to manage it from your website. Maybe you want to go in and specifically pay attention to some of the things that are happening with your analytics and things like that. Well, you can do that in your app. Well, there is two ways to engage with this. If you're not always wanting to be in your website you can do it on the website on their web based app. If, again, you want to have all the things in one place you can actually manage this tool right from your website as a plug-in. Again, it's got to be Wordpress.org because it is a plug-in. Installing the plug-in took me literally two seconds. It's really, really simple. When you set up your CoSchedule account it will prompt you to download the plug-in. You just have to upload the plug-in into your Wordpress site and away you go, there you go. You just have to log in from there and it's all right there, it really is that simple.  If you're somebody who's a little tech-phobic this has a really low barrier to entry and, again, allows you to go in less places. You can manage it from your website or you can manage it from their web based app, which is really cool. Those are the three things I wanted to touch on. What I want to kind of recap is my final thoughts for CoSchedule. CoSchedule is a really great tool and it's going to be a really powerful tool for a lot of the people who listen to this show and who email me and are like, "I just want one thing." Here's your one thing with an asterisk. Meaning, you do need another tool for the social listening or to go into each of your profiles and listen manually, for lack of a better term. The pricing for CoSchedule is really, really reasonable. It starts at $15 a month when you bill annually or $19 if you bill month-to-month. There is a 14 day, risk free trial that doesn't even require a credit card which is really cool, and that's the solo standard. Again, you can set it up so you work solo. Great, you can use the solo levels or if you have a team in place and you want to be able to really manage your whole content marketing and manage the team's involvement all from one place, you can do that with the team level. The solo level is ... I'm going to give you the month-to-month price but it's $19 for solo standard, $39 for solo marketing or $79 for solo automation. I think the solo automation is really, really cool. For $79 a month you get a lot of information. Again, this is going to give you an all-in-one place, content marketing strategy. They're rolling out autopilot publishing which I don't have the details of but I'm thinking that may be something similar to the cues we have or the libraries we have in Edgar or eCligner because the description says easy republish, evergreen content with social automation. That will be a game changer feature that will be available in the solo automation level. Again, that one's $79 a month of $60 a month if you bill it out annually. When I first start using a tool I like to do the monthly to make sure the tool's going to work for me over time. I'll go about a quarter to make sure, and then if it's working then I'll switch to annual or, yeah, switch to annual building. Something to consider if you're looking at this investment-wise. Again, that solo automation is going to be really cool. Again, solo standard, $19 a month for the month-to-month, one user, five social profiles. For a lot of you who are just starting out or who are trying to get ahold of some of this automation and some of this content marketing, this is going to be a really fantastic entry level tool that will grow with you really nice, especially when you consider you can then move to a team level. The team level starts at $79 a month which gives you five users, 10 guests, and 10 social profiles. You're going to be able to have workflows, you've got social media templates, there's some premium integrations. If you have a team in place or you're working towards that this is going to be a really powerful option when it comes to getting it done, when it comes to getting this scheduled and out there. Again, this isn't just your social, this is your whole enchilada. This is your content marketing. Again, I think CoSchedule just like every tool, not perfect, not for everyone but for a lot of you this is the episode you've been waiting for. This is the tool you've been waiting for me to talk about because this is going to be the one that really flips the switch and makes it easy for you to understand. Check out CoSchedule.com, all one word, check it out. I can't wait, I cannot wait to have you join us backstage. We've been working on Hit the Mic Backstage, making it even better for you guys. We added descriptions, we're working on and there are some in there already, transcripts of a lot of the trainings. We're doing some major community upgrades in the next few weeks. I'm going to have a big announcement today ... I'm sorry, no, next week actually inside of the Facebook group for the next round of upgrades that are happening in the community. I'd love to see you get in now so that you can really be a part of this growth, really be a part of this evolution, and get in on some pretty killer content. Last week we talked about setting up your recycled content so speaking of those libraries and cues in things like Edgar and eClincher. I actually showed you guys how to set that stuff up. Of course, that's exclusive inside of the membership. On the 25th we're talking about using free challenges to grow your email list, some do's, some don'ts, some lessons learned. Promoting it, setting it up, the whole thing. Again, that is exclusive for members. If you want to be a part of this and you want to learn this stuff the only way to do that is come behind closed doors. That's at hitthemicbackstage.com. I cannot wait to see you there and of course I'll also see you on Tuesday. Bye. Resources Join us inside Hit the Mic Backstage 3 Things You Must Know About eClincher 3 Things You Must Know About Buffer 3 Things You Must Know About Hootsuite 3 Things You Must Know About Sendible 3 Things You Must Know About Sprout Social 3 Things You Must Know About Edgar Connect with Me Connect with me on Facebook Tweet with me and include #HittheMic Be sure to leave your review on iTunes or Stitcher for a shoutout on a future show

Welcome to episode 305 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. Hello, hello, it's a new month and I'm super excited to share 3 things you must know about social media in October, 2016. We're going to touch on a few things that are really good anytime, but they've come up a lot in either one on one calls, and that actually the second 2 things we're going to talk about both came up in Hit the Mic Backstage over the course of September. I answered out for them, and now I wanted to bring it to you, because I find when these things come up for me over and over again, it's because I need to share it with you, so that's what we're doing. We're going to touch on again, 3 things you need to know. Let's jump right in.   Number 1, this actually came up, I spoke at WordCamp Phoenix, which is a WordPress event in Phoenix, Arizona, this last weekend? Yeah, last weekend. This came up in a couple of conversations I had with people, either they were asking me a question about tools, or just in the course of our conversation about social media. I realized this is something that a lot of us struggle with, and that's the idea of choosing a tool. I had a lot of questions about, "I am in x, y, z business, what should I use for social media? I do x, y, z, what social media tool should I use?" Here's the thing, there is exactly 1 tool that everybody should be using. It's the tool you'll actually use. I like eClincher, I am a huge fan of eClincher. I've talked about it before on the show, we did a whole episode about it. We've done episodes about several tool options, I can link to them in the show notes if you want to go to thestaceyharris.com, episode 305, I will actually link to all the episodes we've done on tools. We have another one actually coming next week, we're going to be talking about CoSchedule next Friday. Here's the deal, all of these tools have exactly one flaw. They're not going to do it for you, you have to actually use them. That's not a flaw so much as how a tool works. When it comes to choosing a tool, try a bunch on. That's why they all have trials, and a lot of them have free levels that you can get started on. I think Buffer has a free level, and then you can actually trial the awesome, which is their premium level, which you need for stuff like Pinterest scheduling and access to more networks and stuff like that. You can actually get a feel for these tools before you have to commit to them for life. Try them on, and use them. If you find that you get in and you hate the interface, and you just can't function there, choose another tool. There are dozens, if not more. Social media marketing tools out and about and around. They're only going to work as well as you show up and you use them. Make sure you're utilizing those tools, try them out. Again, I will have links to a few of my favorites. My go to recommendations, because people still persist and want to know these, my go to is eClincher. I went from using 3 different tools to just eClincher. We've been using it for, I want to say like 6 months now, and we love it, it's fantastic. Hands down my favorite social media tool I've ever used. I'm not saying it's a tool I'll use forever, they could make changes, they could not make changes and somebody else could come in and fill gaps that show up in the future. It's hands down my go to when it comes to social media tools, I love it. eClincher is my recommendation. If you're looking for something free, Buffer's a great place to start. Hootsuite's a great place to start. I think Buffer is more intuitive and more attractive than Hootsuite, but I think Hootsuite's a bit more robust, especially at the free level. Again, it just depends on what your needs are, so figure out what your needs are, and then pick a tool, and the magic, use the tool. That's going to be mission critical when it comes to actually seeing results from that investment. Let's move on, okay. Number 2, and this is ripped from a one on one call actually that I had with a client this week, because especially going into launches, and big sales seasons for some of you, and then planning, maybe you're planning a New Year's launch, I'm guessing you're planning that now. Don't get so focused on ads that you forget the value your organic content provides. Sometimes it's really easy when we go into a launch, or maybe we're going to be really going hard at something like our membership side, or our passive income program we've got, moving into hitting our end of the year money goal. It's really easy to think, "Okay, so this is what I'm going to spend on ads, this is the ad campaign I'm going to create," and you go all in, you step up in a big, big way, you go pro with planning. Sometimes you drop the ball on your organic content, or the content you're not paying to get seen on social. You can do real disservice to that ads budget when you neglect to put some thought into what your organic content is going to be. Because you want that organic content to really boost up, to really support, to really reiterate the messaging around whatever it is your in launch mode for, whatever it is you're running ads for. Let's use a business coach as an example. Maybe I'm running a last launch of the year for a mastermind program that's going to kickoff January 1, or January 4th, or whatever the first Monday of January is. We're just going to say January 1, okay. The launch and the sale portion of this, is all going to happen in November and December. Then the program's going to start in January. There's going to be some pre-work they get to do to get them started. I'm totally making this up as I go, so if it makes no sense, that's why. We're going to do that, right? Awesome. We have a webinar series, we have an opt-in, and a download, and a tripwire, and all sales funnels lead to purchasing this mastermind. We are aces top to bottom getting people right into the funnel that is this mastermind. We go, "Oh, but we got to make sure that content is going out on the Facebook page and the Twitter accounts. Oh, I'll just schedule this, this is fine, this works," keep it going. The disconnect is, is you're leaving a lot of engagement space without any thought, without any intent, and it doesn't serve your goal, and it doesn't serve your community. That's going to hurt your launch success, because now I'm getting a mixed message. Now I've got people I'm connecting with on this thing I just threw up, when really I'm trying to funnel everybody over to this mastermind message that's geared around hitting their 2017 goals right from the start. Instead, we want all of the organic content we're posting, all of the stuff that just goes out to our Facebook news feed isn't getting any ads money, same with Twitter, LinkedIn, wherever you are. We want that all to support that same messaging. Maybe your mastermind, your business mastermind is all around clarity, goal clarity, and taking action, right? Awesome, sign me up. You want everything you're posting to speak to clarity, to goals, to achievement, to the pain points at which they're getting interested in your program to solve. Because that's going to be a consistency in message, it's going to be a consistency in what to expect from you, and it's going to mean that when I see your ad later for the webinar on the same topic, I'm already connecting you and that topic. Make sure all that content, even other people's content, even the content you share from other sources, make sure it all feeds that same message, that same thought process, that same opportunity for learning, and that same solution. Because again, it's a consistency of message, and it connects, even when we're talking about other people's content, it connects you, in my mind, with that thing, with that piece of the puzzle if you will, okay. Don't leave your organic content just sort of off to the side without thought. Give it the same intent, planning, give it the same strategy backed decision making you would your ad campaign that you're spending money on, because it's going to help the money you're spending your ads on. The money you're spending on ads is going to go further when there is a consistent brand message from all pieces. Cool? All right. The third thing I want to talk about to kickoff October, I'm pulling it right out of Hit the Mic Backstage. If you haven't joined us inside of Hit the Mic Backstage, we do office hours once a week, and then inside of our private community you can actually ask me questions anytime. I'm just guaranteed to be there for 2 hours once a week live. Once a month we do office hours with live profile reviews, and so it's really the best way to get a pro's eyes on your stuff all the time, your issues, all the time. That's a really cool thing about it. This is actually pulled right from an office hours question that I got this week, because, well, it's about the boost button. I give the boost button on Facebook kind of a hard time. If you've ever listened to me talk about Facebook ads before, you know that the boost button is not my favorite option. Somebody in ... One of our members inside of Hit the Mic Backstage asked me if the boost button was really bad, or if it could be used for what she needed? Here's the thing, much like social media tools, there aren't really bad ones. Well, there are bad ones, but the worst thing that happens is, is that people are using them without thought. It's a tool, so the same is true with the boost button. The boost button is a tool, if you're not using the tool correctly, you're not going to see success. However, if you use a tool correctly, it can be really, really helpful. I in fact, occasionally, do use the boost button, but that's because I've done some of the other work to make sure that that boost button is effective. No, the boost button is not bad. How you are using it in some cases, that's what's bad. How can we use the boost button effectively? Let's go back to our example where we were talking about, "I'm a business coach, I'm launching a mastermind." Let's say the cart actually opens January 1st, and then the program starts in February for the sake of this example. Right now as we're going into the end of this year, I want to start building a reputation around this topic, so that when I go full on in December, pre-launch, and then in January 1 when the cart opens, you're already connecting me. Again, that organic content I'm posting is going to land with ease, and the ads I'm posting are going to land with ease. I'm probably going to start talking about some of these messagings, these messages, excuse me, and getting you interested in this stuff, and maybe even getting you on a wait list, or signed up to opt-ins that I can later use to funnel you into the program right now, absolutely. That's fantastic, let's do that. In those cases, occasionally I will use the boost button because of 2 reasons. A, it will get you used to seeing my face so that when I start running ads ... Because here's the deal, we all know organic reaches a small percentage of the total people who like our page. It's just the way it is guys, embrace it, it's the way it is. There's a section of my audience that may not have seen my Facebook posts in a while. They may not have seen my face in a while. I want to make sure that I'm getting in front of them now, so that when my ads come and say, "Hey, come do this thing," it's not out of left field. It's, "Oh yeah," and they're already reintroduced to how epically awesome I in fact am. I will use the boost button on some content, and I will drive it to a targeted section of my page likes, and/or a pre-built custom audience. Now if you don't know what a custom audience is, we need to chat. Check out Backstage, so we have a whole training on Facebook ads, that will help get clear. You need to have that built. When a Facebook ads boost button is a bad idea, is when you have no idea why you're doing it, you just want to increase your reach for the sake of increasing your reach, and you haven't built any kind of audience. I don't ever want to see you doing, people who like my page and their friends, because here's the thing, your ... The person who likes your page's third grade teacher does not care about you, and does not care about what you're talking about. What's going to happen, is you're just going to be providing noise to their news feed, and best case scenario, they ignore you. Worst case scenario, they block you, they hide, and that's now negative feedback on your ad, which is negative feedback on your profile. You don't want that, you want the ad to be seen, you want the ad to be connecting. Put it in front of the people who are actually going to care about it. That is going to be critical in making sure that you see actual results with the boosted post, okay. Again, you need to know your goal, and you need to have a custom audience built so you know exactly who it's getting in front of. That's so, so important. All right? All right. Short answer, boost button, not bad. How some people use it, very bad. All right. I feel better now that I've been clear about that. There you have it, 3 questions. 1 from a speaking engagement, 1 from a client call, and 1 from Hit the Mic Backstage. I feel like that was a really good rounding out of sources of questions this week. If you want to join us at Hit the Mic Backstage, now really is the time. We've got some really cool stuff coming up. In this month we're doing 2 really cool trainings, 1 on free challenges. If you've ever wanted to run a 3 or 5 day free challenge to grow your email list, we're doing a whole training on how to do that, how to market it, this month inside of Hit the Mic Backstage. I'm so excited for that one. Again, these trainings are members only. Make sure you come and join us. You can cancel absolutely anytime, there's no long term commitment, and I would love to see you in there, and I would love to get my eyes on your content, and your profile, and all of that good stuff. Come check us out, hitthemicbackstage.com. All right. See you on Tuesday. Resources Join us inside Hit the Mic Backstage 3 Things You Must Know About eClincher 3 Things You Must Know About Buffer 3 Things You Must Know About Hootsuite 3 Things You Must Know About Sendible 3 Things You Must Know About Sprout Social 3 Things You Must Know About Edgar Connect with Me Connect with me on Facebook Tweet with me and include #HittheMic Be sure to leave your review on iTunes or Stitcher for a shoutout on a future show

Welcome to episode 299 of Hit the Mic thee Stacey Harris. Hello, hello, episode 299 is here and we're going to talk about maximizing your content today. I know you are producing amazing content each and every week, or month, or whenever you create content. Are you making the most of that content? Are you really making sure it's getting in front of the right eyes, or ears? Creation for creation's sake does not grow your business. That's not content marketing, that's just creation. I want to make sure that you are really maximizing that content, getting the most out of every single bit of it, and really using it to serve your audience. Ultimately that's why we create content, is to serve our audience. If we don't tell them about the content, or we don't produce it in a way that they consume it, or if we don't produce the kind of content they actually need, it's not going to do us or them any good. Let's start with talking about the content they actually want and need to consume. I want to talk about this in 2 ways. I want to talk about it from the perspective of actually sort of building out your editorial calendar, and then also making it consumable for them. First let's talk about your editorial calendar. I know I've talked about editorial calendars on the show before, but it's worth remembering that there's not just 1 way to build that. There are a lot of ways. I use Google calendars, I just have a editorial calendar setup in my Google calendar. It's not on my regular appointment calendar, it's just sort of in it's own calendar. That's really nice because it makes it really easy for me to see what's ahead, what's coming up. It also makes it really easy for me to move things around. Here's the deal, when it comes to editorial calendars, you are creating something that is just going to be there to make things easier. It is not sort of set in stone, rules to live by, the only options. If you get inspired, or you have a question that keeps coming up, or you just have something you have to talk about right then, move whatever was on the calendar. It's not sort of your commitment, and you have to do it, and it's the only way it can be. No, it's totally flexible. Remember again, this is to make things easier for you, not more difficult. That's why I like having Google calendar cause I can just move it around if I need to. I do probably once a month where I decide to shift around because I want to talk to somebody right then, or something new comes up, or whatever. That's first and foremost, find a tool that's going to let you build an editorial calendar. If you're a paper and pencil person, use paper and pencil, that's cool. For a long time I actually had a monthly paper calendar, and I wrote it out on the days of the month. Next up, how do we find out what goes on in that editorial calendar? I like to use the content, and the questions I'm getting from my community already. The questions that come up in Hit the Mic backstage all the time, the questions that come up when I am engaging in other Facebook groups, the questions that come over and over again on client calls. If you're somebody who is doing discovery calls, sales calls, those kinds of things, the questions that come up over and over again there. The problems that are coming up in those calls over and over again, those are great content because it's content that's going to very easily feed into a discovery call. It's really easy to convert on that content. Q and A's that you do, whether it's on a Facebook live, or in your Facebook group, or in other Facebook groups, or on your Facebook page, or over on Twitter. The things that people are talking about in Twitter chats. Sometimes I will sneak peeks at the questions that are coming up on some of the big social media Twitter chats, and that's going to help me inform what I should talk about in the content, the things that people are confused about. The struggles that are coming up over and over again. If they already have these questions, start answering them. It's really that simple. Answer what they've already got. Then put it in a format that's easy for your content, or your consumers to actually consume, your audience to consume. If that's audio's, do podcasts. If that's videos, do videos. Do Facebook lives, whatever. If that's written content, do blog posts. Later on we're going to talk about why doing it in multiple ways is a really, really good thing. That's first and foremost is focus in on what your audience needs and wants. If you're writing content for the sake of content, or you're recording podcasts for the sake of recording podcasts and it's not actually helping your audience, you're kind of wasting your time. You're actually super duper colossally wasting your time, and I don't want to see you doing that. Check out what your audience wants and needs. Number 2, don't forget to share it. This one is so, so easy and so, so mishandled in a lot of ways. Some of you are producing just epicly awesome content, and you're just not sharing it. When you create content use your strategy, use your social media strategy. Share it on your networks, schedule it into your social media foundation. Be putting it out in your networks, be talking about it all the time. If you have a Facebook live coming up on Thursday and you got a new blog post going out on Tuesday, then the great thing to talk about on that Facebook live would be something from that blog post on Tuesday. You can push that traffic back to that post. Make sure you're sharing it, and you're sharing it in all the places. If you see a question come up, and you've answered that question so thoroughly with great resources and a blog post, you don't need to rewrite that blog post in response to the question. Give them a little bit of an answer, give them some immediate value, sort of instant gratification answer. Then say, "I dive way deep inside of this post," or, "On this podcast episode," and then link to it. That's not being sleazy, that's not being promo-ey that's helping them, that's providing them with the resource they're requesting. I do again, like to give them that little bit of value saying sort of, "Here's the quick answer, but here's way more information in this post," so that I'm not just sort of driving traffic to my site without any sort of regard for a reason to go there. Absolutely share that content. Remember, if you're not telling people about it, it's going to be really hard for them to find it. It's going to be really hard for them to use it, and learn from it, and get better because of it. Share it in all the places. This goes back to using your plan, building your strategy, what networks are you on, how often do you share? Then it goes to what tools are you using? Are you using something like a HootSuite, or a co-schedule, or a MeetEdgar, or a eClincher, or a Buffer, or whatever it is you're using. Then where on your calendar do you have time to fill those tools so that this content is being shared? That this content is being seen, and this content is actually providing the value that this content is intended to provide. Again, share, share, share. Number 3, repurpose it everywhere. I was terrible about this, and I'm undoing that actively right now. This is episode 299 of this show, on Tuesday we'll go live with episode 300. I have literally hundreds of episodes of this podcast, and some of them have been repurposed, but a lot of them haven't. I can go through and I can utilize that content for a lot of things. An example, now with this show immediately after I hit done and export on the recording for this, and it goes into my website and all of that ... or I'm sorry, it goes into iTunes and it's all set. I also get a transcription made, I use Rev.com to create my transcripts. Then that transcript, with a couple of edits for clarity, go right into the show notes. There is 2 ways to consume this content. Moving forward when I get back into doing regular Facebook lives now that we're settled here in California, we're going to be re-purposing that into podcast episodes, we're going to be re-purposing that into YouTube content with transcripts. I want you to be able to consume video, audio, or that in written format if that is what you want to consume, that's how you best consume content. I want it available in every way, and then I take those transcripts and they get edited further to be guest posts. I take parts of that, and I turn it into a LinkedIn publisher post. Those publisher posts can feed back to my podcast on my website. You can also then take that and make quote graphics, and tweet-able takeaways, and everything else from 1 piece of content. All of that knowledge, all of that value, I want you to be re-purposing it, I want you to make it literally all the things. Then be sure that you're going in and you're keeping content updated. If you have added new resources, or you've talked about sort of 1 of the things you talked about in a blog post, go in and link it to the other post, go in and add some information. Keep your content fresh, keep your content updated and actionable so that people can utilize it over, and over, and over again. Then re-share it, go back to number 2 and share it over again. When I repurpose content I share all the ways I repurposed it. Pretty much all of my guest posts are also podcasts. I don't just share 1 or the other, I share both all the time using the recycle cues in eClincher. Make sure you're giving your content a lifespan it deserves. Not just the 3 days after you posted it, but forever and ever. Re-purposing it can be a great way to breathe new life into content that already exists. To recap, maximizing our content. Make sure you're creating content that your audience wants and needs, make sure you're sharing that content, and make sure you're re-purposing that content. These are the things that are going to make the difference in whether your content is content marketing, or just content that exists on the internet that no one ever sees. All right, reminder. Tuesday, we're live for episode 300. We're going to talk about 300 episodes podcasting, we're going to talk about what I got going on as far as this show and my commitment to you in the next 300 episodes, we're also going to have prizes. I'm going to be giving away some very cool stuff. Also make sure you join us live at 9:00 AM Pacific on Tuesday the 20th, September 20th, right here. Go to TheStaceyHarris.com/Episode300 and you can get an email reminder to join us. If you have any questions, best place to ask questions is inside of Hit the Mic Backstage. Let me know in the comments on the show notes. I will see you on Tuesday live. Resources Join us inside Hit the Mic Backstage Episode 300 Invite Connect with Me Connect with me on Facebook Tweet with me and include #HittheMic Be sure to leave your review on iTunes or Stitcher for a shoutout on a future show

Welcome to episode 298 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. Hello, hello, 298, here we are, and we're going to talk a little bit about if you're actually marketing on social media or if maybe you're just spending a lot of time on social media which, as a heads up, not the same thing. I want to dive in on this because I've been having a lot of conversations with people through consulting calls and networking things and this has been coming up for probably the last 6 or 8 months, where people will tell me that they're spending a lot of time on social and they're just not seeing results. They spend hours everyday in Facebook groups and on Twitter and on Facebook, or the really common one right now is Facebook and LinkedIn. "I was spending tonnes of time on LinkedIn, but I'm just not seeing results." I asked them some questions. I say, "Well, what groups are you spending time in? What kind of content are you posting? What your analytics telling you about the content? How's it be reacted to? How's it being engaged with? How's it being seen? What networks are driving traffic back to your site?" They go, "Well, I can't think of any specific groups," or, "I'm in this group, and this group and this group, but I don't actually post that much in those ones." They can't tell me what information they're getting from their analytics because they're not getting any information from their analytics because they're not posting content consistently and if they are posting even irregularly, they're not checking their numbers. They can't tell me anything they're actually doing on LinkedIn, any people they're engaging with or connecting with, the kind of connections and conversations they're trying to have, and that tells me that they're not actually using these tools to market. What's happening is they're lurking. They're reading a lot of posts, they're scrolling a lot, and scrolling is the enemy because what happens is it's like winding a clock. You're just moving time. You're not actually doing anything productive, and that's why I want you to do a few things differently with your social media time, and that's what we're going to break down today, and these are hints that I've given you guys some of them before. We're going to look at them a little differently today, but when you do these things, it gives you a clear course of action to follow.   It's all going to start with doing things like building a social media strategy, knowing where you're spending time, and then where within that channel you're spending time, what kind of content you're posting, who you're talking to. All of that's going to come from your social media strategy and I definitely encourage you to take a step back and build one of those if you haven't yet, but I want to talk more today about the tactile, spending your time on social, tracking it, using it wisely, and really making it work for you because, and I know you've heard me say this before, there is absolutely 1 finite resource for me. I cannot produce more time. I can make more money, I can meet new people, I can get new clients, I can find new people to support me, I can expand my team, I can outsource new things to contractors and automate things. I cannot actually produce more hours in my day. I can't even produce more seconds in my day, so I am ridiculously conscientious about how I spend my time. When I feel like I am wasting time, that will drive me crazy faster than anything else because I only get so much in the day, especially when you're somebody who like me, is very intentional about not working all of the time, who is very specific about what hours I want to work and when I don't want to be working, because I don't want to go down that rabbit hole that I was early in my business, working crazy, obscene long days, and I realized in going through that, the reason I was doing that sometimes was because I was not using the time throughout the day very wisely. That's why I'm so specific about how I spend my time and there are definitely times where I'm better at this than others, which is the other part of the reason I'm sharing this episode today. If you're somebody who's hearing me say these things and they're like, "Absolutely. I'm so protective of my time. I'm not wasting time anywhere," yet you can think about to the last couple of weeks or the last couple of months, I know this is true for me, where you're like, "Oh, I probably could have been more productive then. I probably could have been more productive today. I could probably be more productive right now," then keep listening, because here's the deal. This is one of those muscles that we have to keep exercising. I just recently in the last couple weeks, started looking at a new way to track what I'm doing everyday and tracking my time and my tasks, and I went back to looking at my default calendar and when I did things, because I needed to tighten this up again. Hang with me through these things that we're going to talk about today because they're absolutely going to change how you spend your time on social. Okay? Number 1, what exactly is in your social media foundation? Knowing what needs to be in that foundation, and taking a step back in case you haven't heard me talking about social media foundations before, social media foundations are the things that have to go out. Your content, your promo, your upcoming events, your webinars, your opt-ins, your curated content from other sources. It's just stuff that has to go out every single week, and if you don't know what's in that list, it's going to get really hard for you to batch task that because you're going to be all over the place. You're going to be pulling things from here, pulling things from there, doing a little of this, doing a little of that. The very thing I want you to do is get really clear on what goes in your social media foundation because that is going to be the first thing we're actually going to put on our calendar and schedule time for. Sit down and think about how your foundation is created. For example, we have 2 episodes of this show that go out every single week. Right now, it's Tuesdays and Fridays. It's been that for a while, most of the last 298 episodes. I know that every week those 2 episodes need to go out, so I make sure that those get scheduled. Now, in full disclosure, I don't do that. Charles, who is my right hand here at The Stacey Harris, he does that. Maybe you have a VA doing it, maybe you have an admin in your office that does it, maybe you have your high school kid do it, I don't know. Maybe you do it, however it gets done. You have to know that that content's going out, and when it's going out. For example, I know that that goes out once the day of the episode goes live on Facebook, I know it goes out on Google Plus and LinkedIn, I also know it goes out everyday for 7 days for a new episode on Twitter. All that's actually written out in not just my big strategy document, but in a quick sheet social media doc. Anybody who joins the team can see exactly what needs to happen with the foundation. Number 2, we have recycled content, meaning the last 297 episodes before this one, and that is not to mention the 100ish, 75ish maybe episodes we did of "Hit The Mic TV," blog content, guest content I've done on other sites. All of that goes in queues, and we use eClincher so we can actually build queues that recycle the content. That way, they can go out automatically. We don't have to update that every week. That takes a little bit of the time we have to spend putting in that foundation, but we know what frequency that's scheduled for, and again, it's in our quick sheet for the foundation, knowing exactly what needs to go out in that foundation, because those new episodes need to get added to that queue. Next up, I know how much curated content goes to each source, so again, this is in that quick sheet. I do 2 episodes a day for Facebook, or 3 pieces for LinkedIn, or whatever it is in your strategy. Put that into your quick sheet. Then, the last piece is any additional promo. I've got some opt-in promo and backstage promo that goes in, again, a recycled queue using eClincher so that we don't have to fill that up. Then, I've got a couple of pieces that get added in when there's something going on, whether maybe I'm a part of an online summit, or I'm speaking at a conference, or I've got an event going on, or I'm doing a webinar, or we're doing an especially big membership push, or maybe we've got SocialPro launching, whatever it is, we have space for that in the foundation, and again, all of this is in a quick sheet, so I want you to take a step back and realize exactly what needs to go in your social media foundation, and then you're going to do part 2 of this first one, which is schedule that. I suggest starting with 2 hours a week. If you want to put in a little elbow room, do 3 hours. As you get more comfortable doing it, you will get faster, but you need to make sure this is actually on your calendar. Marie Forleo says this and I really, really love it. If it's not on your calendar, it's not real. If it's not scheduled, it's not real. For me, that's ridiculously true because there's always going to be something else that's coming to grab your attention. There's always going to be something else that's going, "Oh, I'm an emergency. Come pay attention to me," and rarely are these things actually emergencies, but they are shiny objects, they are attention pullers. As my friend, Brandy Lawson over at TekGrl.com says, it's a squirrel moment. "Squirrel!," and it'll pull you away. However, if you come back to your calendar and you know that Monday from 3 to 5, this is what you do, then awesome. Monday, from 3 to 5, this is what you do. It will become habit. Figure out what that time is, put it on your calendar, and treat it like a client. Give it the same priority, the same importance, the same intentionality that you would give your client work, because if you don't do that, if you skip over this, you will not have client work at the same maybe consistency as you currently do, or maybe you're already struggling with that consistency and you'd like to see that consistency happen. Continually, consistent marketing, quality marketing, that gets you there. This is a key part of it. It's a huge component to that. So, outline exactly what's in that social media foundation, build a quick sheet that outlines it, and then schedule it, and then actually doing it, because FYI, listening to this episode, not going to change anything. Only if you go take action on what I'm talking about on this episode will you see change. Part 2, networking on social. The stuff that's got to happen day in, day out. Figure out those 2 primary networks I've talked about in the past. Again, this is going to go back to that strategy you've already built. They get time on your calendar every single day. 15 minute chunks of time. Not an hour, not 2 hours, 15 minute chunks of time. Depending on what network it is, depending on what your needs are, what your level of involvement is, how many is gig to be up to you. I do 4 to 6 per day, so an hour to an hour and a 1/2 on social. These, again, go on the calendar. You're going to schedule these again because if it's not on the calendar, it's not real. Actually schedule these in on your calendar. Again, 15 minute chunks of time. I am not asking you to take an hour out of the middle of your day. I'm asking for 15 minutes here, and 15 minutes there, and you're going to assign these things specific tasks, so maybe it's respond to people on Twitter, maybe it's send LinkedIn invitations, maybe it's respond to LinkedIn invitations, maybe it's engage in a LinkedIn group, maybe it's answer questions in a specific Facebook group, and then you're gig to go in and do those things. Now, the tasks you assign, I don't want it to be "Check Twitter." I don't want it to be, "Look at Facebook groups," because that's going to lead to scrolling. I want something specific and actionable. "Post question in 'Hit The Mic Backstage.' Post question in my private community," whatever your Facebook group is. "Answer questions, respond to 5 posts in XYZ group." Knowing exactly how you're spending that 15 minutes. Give that 15 minutes a goal, because now you're going to go from scrolling and looking for something to do on social to knowing exactly where you're going and exactly what you're executing on. When you know exactly what you're doing and exactly what you're executing on, it's really easy when you're done to see whether that was done or not. When you say, "Oh, I've got 15 minutes of Facebook time," there's nothing to say, "Okay, this is what I did with this time, and now I can measure these results." There's no way to check in on that. When you say, "I'm going to answer 5 questions in my Facebook group, my free Facebook group that I have," it's really, really easy to go, "Yep, I answered 5 questions. Here's the resulting conversations, here's what happened with those 5 interactions. Here's how those relationships moved forward." There is a clarity that comes from that specific task, that comes from knowing exactly what it is you're executing on, okay? That's what I want you to do. I really, really challenge you to take action on this episode. Right now, stop what you're doing, unless it's driving. Stop what you're doing, and actually say, "This is when I'm going to execute on building my 1 sheet, scheduling my social time, scheduling my daily social interaction time, and then do that. Then, let me know, okay? Here's some accountability. I want you to reach out to me. Tell me that you've done this. Tell me that you're going to do this. I will check, okay? Let me know. Go over to the Facebook page, or Twitter. I You'll really find me anywhere at TheStaceyHarris, okay? Check in because I want to see action on this episode. This one is one of those ones that's newly a good episode if you guys do stuff with it, all right? Speaking of good episodes, next Tuesday, the big 300. I'm excited, I won't lie. I'm going to do a live show. We're going to talk about podcasting lessons, we're going to talk about what's going on in social right now, we're going to talk about all sorts of cool stuff. If you want to find out when and get an email reminder, and have the first crack at some prizes that we're going to be giving away, yes prizes, prizes, free stuff, come hang out. Go on over to TheStaceyHarris.com/episode300 and you will find a link to submit your email address and let me know that you want a reminder. I will send you a reminder and say, "Hey, we're going to be live. Come join us." Then, we'll be live on that same page next Tuesday, September 20th, at 9am Pacific Time, which makes it 12 Eastern. I had to do the math in my head real quick. Join us. It's going to be a really good time. 300 episodes, just about 3 years. I think technically October or November is 3 years of this show, but 300 episodes, that's nuts. I will see you there. Join me live. Thanks for listening. I will see you on Friday. Resources Join us inside Hit the Mic Backstage Sit down 1 on 1 with The Stacey Harris Episode 300 Invite Connect with Me Connect with me on Facebook Tweet with me and include #HittheMic Be sure to leave your review on iTunes or Stitcher for a shoutout on a future show

Welcome to the Real Fast Results podcast!  Podcasting is such a special medium to use, and it is especially effective when you’re trying to build an audience for yourself and your business.  That’s what Lance Tamashiro is going to discuss during this episode.  You’ll really enjoy this if podcasting is of any interest to you at all because Lance does really well when it comes to demystifying this process.  He has a way of making it all so much easier than you ever would have thought possible. Lance has risen far up the charts, and it didn’t take him very long to do this.  He’s right up there with the likes of Pat Flynn, John Lee Dumas, and Gary Vaynerchuck.  So, who better to take advice from?  Without further ado, please welcome Lance Tamashiro. Podcasting the Right Way Today, we’re going to discuss a couple of items. First of all, I want to tell people how to get their own podcast set up, but I think that’s the easy part.  I think the whole thing that holds people up is this idea of perfection, this idea of enough content, and the best way to get that done.  My goal for today would be: Make sure that people know what they need to do in order to get their podcast up, Know that whatever you have, whatever point that you’re at, the most important thing is to get this thing up and running. Just remember that you’ll get better, and you’ll do better as we go.  So, I think, you know, the mindset stuff and also the step-by-step in getting there. Why You Should Have a Podcast – Easy Content For me, I started a podcast, and it got ranked up high pretty quickly.  That’s true and false at the same time.  I don’t want to mislead people because I actually started my podcast, I think back in 2012.  What I did was, I did three episodes.  One was like two minutes long, one was like 10 minutes long, and you can go see; they are still out on iTunes. I thought, “I don’t get it… I don’t understand why I’m doing this,” so I did nothing, and then in 2013, I said, “I’m going to do this podcasting thing!”  I did three or four episodes.  They are still out there, and you can go [listen] to them, and they did nothing.  The same happened every year. I would promise myself that I was going to do this podcast. I run a mastermind group, and I offhandedly said, “January of this year, and we’re filming this in 2016.” A couple of months ago I said, “My New Year’s resolution is that I’m going to do a podcast once a month.” I said that it was my resolution because I always break my resolution, so I knew this still wasn’t going to work.  So, I started doing this, and I stumbled on this other way of doing it, this other way of making content.  More importantly, other people that I was able to connect with, that promoted my podcast, ended up shooting it to the top.  Now I’m doing three, four podcasts every single week, and I’ve been as high as #9 in the overall “Business” category.  I’m usually between 40 and 20; it fluctuates up and down.  But, there’s a couple of things that really came out of it for me: They are really easy to do, if you do it the way that I do it. It gets you exposure to a lot of people that you would have never gotten before. You know, [we’re] from the internet marketing world, where it’s like pulling teeth.  You call someone up, and you’re like, “Will you promote me? Let me figure something out,” and nobody wants to do it, but suddenly you have a podcast, and everyone wants to promote you.  I mean, I’ve had guys like Tucker Max promote me. I’ve had a New York Times bestseller. I’ve had guys like [Daniel Hall] promote me.  It’s a whole different thing when they’re creating the content, and it makes it easy for you. You get to be the guy saying, “How do I do something cool that you know how to do?” I’m not a good joint venture guy.  It’s always awkward for me to meet somebody and try to figure out how to do a joint venture. However, I’ve found that the podcasts, first of all, give them a reason to contact you.  So, they’re coming to you and saying, “I want to be on your show.”  Then, what happens is, you do about five minutes of getting to know each other, but there’s not a lot of time before the podcast, so then you do the interview… where a weird thing happens. After 20-30 minutes of talking back and forth, with no expectations, framed around this podcast, you’ve suddenly, in a weird way, built this rapport with them. You know details about them. It’s like at the bar, guys come up to you at a conference, and they go, “Let me tell you about me.”  It changes that whole dynamic.  What I loved about that part is that afterwards, there’s a built-in follow-up. There’s built-in reasons to keep a conversation going with somebody, whether it is a “thank you for being on the show”… that’s one where you can keep that conversation going.  I do a thing where I’ll get transcripts made and then send them out to them, which is another reason I get to keep talking to them.  And then, the show is live and I’m promoting it now, so you’ve got all of these touch points where you are able to contact somebody, and you’re truly doing something for them every step of the way.  You know, I’ve had people send me stuff in the mail, send books, send emails to their list. And, that was the big eye-opening thing for me, it was… Yeah, it’s great to have a top-ranked podcast. Yes, you get traffic to all the things that you promote.  Yes, you can get sponsorships. Yet, it was that joint venture and those connections in places that I never even thought of before.  I thought my niche was this little, tiny thing, and it turns out there are people all over that are interested in my products and services. How to Create a Podcast It’s really simple.  People thought that it was such a hard thing for so long.  Literally, what you need is a WordPress site to start.  People will talk about these services like Libsyn, which is a podcast hosting site.  They are good to have, down the road as you get bigger; you don’t need it to just get started.  The next thing you need is headphones.  I mean, I started with a $25 Logitech USB headset. I just plugged it in and started talking to myself. Then you need something to record with.  I used Camtasia Studio at the time because it was just something that I already had.  I could record two sides of a conversation.  I used that because it’s what I already had. Basically, you just set up a blog and get a plug-in called PowerPress.  It’s free, and what that will do, is it just puts a player on your blog.  You upload the MP3 to it, and it starts to play.  Then, all you have to do is go to Google Play.  If you search “Google Play Podcasts”, it will come up where you can submit what’s called “the feed”.  The PowerPress plug-in gives you that feed, so you just put that in, and the Google Play and Google Plus will pull it up.  You’ll be in their directory. Then you just click “Submit”.  It submits the podcast in iTunes and to Google. A site will come up, and then you put that same feed into them.  Once you do that, anytime you put a new podcast on your blog as a separate post, it automatically pushes out to all of these different directories.  It’s the simplest, easiest way to get started.  The hardest part, for most people, is to start making the recordings and making the content. Recording a Podcast Is Not as Hard as You Think First of all, you hear all of these podcasts like mine.  If you need some motivation for a crappy podcast that does well, go listen to mine.  I’m not a great speaker, I don’t have anything planned. I bought my intro music off of Fiverr, and I just use that.  And, that’s it.  Even when I started, I didn’t even know what I was going to say.  If you listen to my first episodes, it’s usually just me rambling on.  What I like about doing the interview model, which is what I do now, is that I don’t have to say anything. Literally, what happens, in the way that I do it, is that somebody comes to me and says, “I want to be on your podcast.” I say, “Give me your bio.”  I read their bio, pretty much word-for-word as they give it to me, and then I say, “How did you get started with…”. Then they start talking through it, and I say, “Well that’s awesome.  What would you tell somebody that’s just getting started?”  Then, they tell me, and I say “What’s a big mistake that they make?”  That’s it.  I mean, that’s the formula. In 20 or 30 minutes, if you ask those questions, if you think about it, it gives them the story or what they did. It tells somebody new what they should be doing, and it tells somebody new what mistakes to avoid. You’re done and out of there, and you don’t have to say anything, other than ask those three questions.  You’ll get more comfortable as you go, and I would say just get started. Grab somebody you know. Daniel Hall and Jason Parker were the first two people that I interviewed on my podcast. It was easy for me because I knew you guys. I say, grab somebody you know off of Facebook. Grab somebody you talk to on Skype, and start there and build up that confidence, and then move on.  But, you’re going to find, “Oh, it’s just talking to somebody…” once you get started. Recap of What You Need to Start a Podcast You set up a WordPress site. You buy a domain name. Set it up with your hosting account and put WordPress on it.  Then, the only plug-in that you need is called PowerPress.  It’s free, so you can put a theme on there if you want. However, you don’t have to because what you’re really trying to do is to get it out into the directories--into iTunes and Google Play.  You just have the basic theme on there, put PowerPress on there. What PowerPress does is, when you make a new post, it will add a section below the post where you upload your MP3 file.  So, you upload your MP3 file, and that puts the post out there.  You have to do that before you can submit to the directories. Make that first post with some kind of audio on it. Then you search on Google for either “Google Play Podcasts”, or “iTunes Podcasts”. The third one you want to do is Stitcher.  So, you’ve got Stitcher, Google Play, and iTunes, these are kind of the big three. Inside of the PowerPress plug-in, it gives you a link that says, “This is your podcast URL.”  When you go to those directories, they’ll have a website if you Google them, all you have to do is paste that URL that the PowerPress plug-in gives you in your blog. You paste it in, and basically, what that URL does is every time you add a new post, it tells all of these directories, “Hey, there’s something new.  Add it to your directory.”  Now, any time you want to make a new one, you just make a brand new post, upload it into your PowerPresss plug-in, which is underneath your post settings, and it automatically, magically shows up everywhere that you wanted it to show up.  And, literally, that’s all you have to do to get started with your podcast. After that, the big thing is to decide how you’re going to do your show.  I mean, is it going to be multiple people; is it going to be just you?  When I started, it has been just me talking, whenever I had an idea of something that I wanted to talk about.  Well, now because the show’s there, people contact me constantly to be on the show. Because it’s ranked, they find it inside of iTunes.  Contact all of the people you know and just say, “I want to interview you.  I want to get you on, and it’s 20-30 minutes, it’s a piece of cake…” You just record it and put it up there. I don’t do any editing.  If you listen to mine, there were times when people have dropped out, and I just finish up the conversation.  There’s been times when my son has walked in, in the middle, and I just kind of talk to him.  For me, it’s kind of about personality.  It depends on what you want to have on your show, but I don’t want to spend a bunch of time editing.  You can if you want.  There’s also services that will do it for you.  If you’re just getting started, the important part is to get it out there. Because, if you want to start getting bigger guests, what they want to see is that you’re actually doing it.  So, if you have 10 episodes under your belt, they are more likely to say “yes” than if you’re not even listed. It’s really easy.  I have had a few people in the internet marketing space, when I was first getting started, that kind of blew me off.  Now they all want to be on the show because they know how much traffic it’s getting.  So, when you get started, it’s one of those things where, get some episodes out there, and most people will automatically say “yes”.  Now, here’s the big thing.  If you want to get guests easy, go to Amazon, find all of the authors inside of your niche, it doesn’t matter what your niche is, and contact them.  There is no author that will not do a book promotion.  You talk to them about their topic, talk to them about their book and you can fill up your schedule as quickly as you want to. Podcast Cover Art Honestly, when I launched mine, I didn’t have cover art.  What I ended up doing, is I took a picture of me and my daughter, went on to Pixlr and put in  words.  I just put “Lance Tamashiro Show” on it.  I mean, you can see it.  It’s just a picture of me and my daughter with the words on the bottom.  I didn’t overthink it.  However, now they want the size to be either 2,000 x 2,000 or 3,000 x 3,000. Again, you just upload that to PowerPress, and they take care of everything for you.  This plug-in really does do everything.  You know, if you walk through the setup of the plug-in, they have it by menus, and you just fill everything in, you’re good to go.  And, I think they even have the links now for Google Play and iTunes to send you to the place that you want to go. If you want to have a cool setup, I would say go to Fiverr.com and just search “podcast art”.  There will be a bunch of people that come up.  Just pay them $5 or $10, get that thing made, and don’t even think about it.  And, even with mine, that’s where I got my intro made.  I went in and typed in “podcast intro music”.  The first guy that came up, I hired him, and he did my intro and outro. I think it cost me $20 total, and then I was done.  You don’t even have to think about it.  I do my recording, and then I go back and I stick that at the front, and then the back, and then I’m done. I kind of think the intro music is distracting.  I mean, that’s the big thing.  I’ve been going back and listening to the other top podcasts, and most of them it’s like five seconds with them just talking into it. So my thought at this point is, “I’m going to pull that out, or at least just really strip it back,” because I mean, that’s not what it’s about. It’s about the information that you’re going to give to people, and the guests that you have on. Podcast Tips If you have a podcast that no one listens to, do you really have a podcast?  I mean, that’s the big question with all podcasting.  It’s, “How do I get subscribers?  How do I get listeners?  How do I get people on?”  So, the first thing is if you’re starting from scratch, here is what I did. I had a dead Twitter account that I never used.  I hadn’t made a tweet on it since like 2010.  So, I had this Twitter account, and I’m thinking, “Alright.  I’ll just use this and see what happens.”  I found this software.  It’s a website called eClincher.com.  What it does, is it basically can make a list of tweets, and it will just tweet them over and over again, as much as you want. So, what happened was, one of the guests on my podcast said to me, “The average lifespan of a tweet is 45 minutes.”  So, if you tweet every 45 minutes, it’s not like Facebook where people are going to get mad at you.  It’s not like email.   You’re allowed to tweet every 45 minutes and nobody cares.  So, I found this thing that’s basically an auto-responder.  Now, every time I have a new show, I put that into my “auto-responder”, my auto-tweet, called eClincher. I set it to run every 45 minutes, or 60 minutes, and it just cycles through.  When I started at like 10 episodes, it just cycled through every 45 minutes, making those tweets go out, and then I just add a new one. Here’s the key that I did.  Every guest that I had on, I would tag them. You’ve probably seen this on Twitter. You see that every day.  You see I’m promoting it, and you’re likely to like it, or re-tweet, or whatever, so your people see it.  But, then what I do is I use the hashtag.  So, I use #podcast almost always. My podcast is business-related and entrepreneur, so I use #business and #entrepreneur.  My Twitter account was, just from doing that, 200-300 followers a day. Just from tweeting that thing out.  I mean, constantly tweeting those things out. However, you’ve got high-profile people that re-tweet it every day because they like it and because you’re promoting them.  It doesn’t cost them anything; they are there anyway. It keeps you in their heads.  I mean, you’re never going to forget that you were on my show because every time you log into Twitter, you’re going to see X-number of tweets from me promoting it.  Again, having guests for me is what blew up really fast because I couldn’t believe how willing people were to tweet about it, to Facebook about it, to email about it.  I mean, people with massive, massive followings. If I were to have approached them and said, “Hey, email for my product.  Let’s do a webinar.”  They would have said, “No way,” but because it was this podcast, they were all willing to do that. I attribute a huge amount of the growth and success of my podcast to that because, I’ve got a pretty big mail list, and I’ve got a pretty big following, but I rarely, I mean maybe twice, I’ve sent out emails about my podcast.  So, this grew without me being involved.  It was all pretty much my guests. Here’s probably the biggest tip that I got from doing this, about getting guests, and getting high profile, and growing this thing fast.  For me, I always thought of myself as in the internet marketing space. I found out I wasn’t, especially for my podcast.  Let’s say you’re in the dog training niche.  You’re not in the dog training niche for your podcast.  You’re in the animal-whatever niche. If you want to focus on dogs, that’s fine, but here’s where I think people are missing the boat.  They start saying like, “Well, I’m a dog trainer so I’m just going to train about this type of dog.”  What they need to do is contact places like the Humane Society.  They need to contact places like Purina, places that make dog toys, and the reason is all of these people have a huge following on social media.  The second thing is that they all have PR departments that are set up just to get out PR and get their word out.  So they will do an interview with you, if they see you have a podcast.  And then, three, that gives you a lot of credibility to say, “Hey, the guy from Purina was on my show.  Why don’t you be on my show,” or “the guy from the Humane Society was, why don’t you?” They will all promote it.  These big companies will all post it onto their Facebook pages.  Don’t think of yourself as in this small, little microcosm niche.  Think about how big you can blow it up, which is the opposite of what we hear in online business.  People say, “Pick your little niche and do that”.  That’s fine, but for your podcast, there’s only 10 broad categories in iTunes. Pick one of those, and that’s your niche. Then start thinking about what companies, what big players you can go to. Most of them have big PR departments, and they are just looking for places to get their message out and will promote you. Connecting with Lance The easiest way is to go to iTunes and type in Lance Tamashiro.  That would be a great way.  The other thing is, if you’re interested in podcasting, setting up something similar to what we’re doing here today, you can check out the PodcastCrusher training.  It’s basically a step-by-step course that lets you look over our shoulders as we set up an actual podcast that we started from scratch, and you can watch and see how that’s been growing as well. Resources Lance's PodcastCrusher Course (I bought this  and use it myself) - PodcastCrusher Course Podcast Plugin - PowerPress Podcast Hosting Site - Libsyn Photo Editor - Pixlr Social Media Management Tool - eClincher Lance Tamashiro Podcast - Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Productivity & Results Podcast Cover Art - Fiverr.com Podcast Platforms: Stitcher Google Play iTunes.com Daniel's Real Fast Results Tips: Podcasting Pick a topic and start asking friends when you can interview them. You can use Google Hangout to record your interview. Make sure you have a good microphone. Real Fast Results Community If you are diggin’ on this stuff and really love what we’re doing here at Real Fast Results, would you please do me a favor? Head on over to iTunes, and make sure that you subscribe to this show, download it, and rate & review it. That would be an awesome thing. Of course, we also want to know your results. Please share those results with us at http://www.realfastresults.com/results. As always, go make results happen!

Today's Sponsor: WP Import "Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely." -- Henry Ford Loopholes, superstition (H1 tags, meta tags, duplicate content), shortcuts/hacks, or a "good" user experience? Dwell time and human reviewers. Consistently put out content (at least once a week), promote it using Facebook, Twitter, eClincher, Zapier -- save "temporary" content like webinars, Periscopes, Snapchats, FB live into YouTube, iTunes, etc. 1. Use WordPress and a mobile theme (built-in or WP Touch) 2. Install All in One SEO Pack and Google XML Sitemaps plugins 3. Install W3 Total Cache and set it to minify JavaScript and CSS -- this will shave a few seconds off load time and give you a boost (and use Google PageSpeed Insights and tools.pingdom.com) 4. Add 10 years on the domain (only gives a slight boost but is easy to do) 5. Verify the site with Google Webmaster Tools (and Add Google Analytics code if you know how to do that) 6. Buy an SSL certificate and redirect the site to 100% forced SSL (a little bit of work) 7. Link to your legal pages at the bottom of every page. Terms and conditions, earnings disclaimer, and especially a privacy policy (PaperTemplate.com is great for this) 8. Add a physical mailing address and a phone number at the bottom of every page, even if it's just a PO box and a Google Voice number. 9. Load up your WordPress ping list 10. The next step for my blog: Signup for Facebook Instant Articles and install the plugin (this is new and I haven't done it yet)

Today's Sponsor: WP Import "Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely." -- Henry Ford Loopholes, superstition (H1 tags, meta tags, duplicate content), shortcuts/hacks, or a "good" user experience? Dwell time and human reviewers. Consistently put out content (at least once a week), promote it using Facebook, Twitter, eClincher, Zapier […]

We're breaking down a few key pieces when it comes to branding because, real talk, branding is not set it and forget it. These are choices you need to make time after time as your business grows. We're talking why branding and marketing aren't the same thing, personal vs company branding, and why consistency is so important.   Resources Join the VIP Community Hit the Mic Backstage eClincher Signup eClincher Pricing   Connect with Me Get YOUR question on a future episode Email me at hello@thestaceyharris.com Tweet with me and include #HittheMic Be sure to leave your review on iTunes or Stitcher for a shoutout on a future show