Chris Ducker

Expert Business Growth, Virtual Staffing & Personal Branding

10 Social Media Tools That Make Everything Easier!

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social media tools

While social media is definitely a huge part of many small business marketing plans, it is still one facet of a much bigger picture and many entrepreneurs find themselves wishing there were more hours in the day to focus on the other aspects of their business.

To help give you a little more time in your day, yet continue to promote your social media presence, here’s a list of ten of my favourite social media tools that I use (some more regularly than others) with my team, that can help your business top on top of things a little more.

If you’re wanting to get your social media to even higher heights without being involved every step of the way, you should also check out my guide on How to Work with a Virtual Assistant to Manage Your Social Media – #justsaying 🙂

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How to Use a ‘Nano Podcast’ to Successfully Launch Your Next Big Thing!

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virtual freedom podcastI recently launched my first ever traditionally published book to the world.

It quickly became a #1 Bestseller in three separate business categories and climbed into the Top 150 Rank (hitting 133) of ALL books on Amazon.com – woot!

In short, the launch was a big success, selling thousands and thousands of copies in it’s launch week alone.

I did many things to skyrocket the initial (and on-going) success of Virtual Freedom, such as being a guest on every major entrepreneurial podcast, guest posting on some of the biggest blogs online, running a private Facebook group, mailing finished copies to major influencers (both on and offline), speaking engagements, building out a dedicated website for the book, and much, much more.

However, the one thing that I’m most proud of is deciding to publish podcast episodes directly and exclusively dedicated to the book, it’s message and the type of people that would be buying it, via a brand new, limited release podcast.

In this post I’m going to let you in on why I decided to do this, how I put it together, the execution involved to make it happen the right way, and results on how the podcast affected the initial launch success of the book itself.

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How to Put Your Podcast on Auto Pilot

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podcast auto pilot

I’ve been podcasting since April 2010 and I can directly relate additional business, more profits, more connections, better community building and a host of other opportunities to that sheer fact that I’m actively engaging in this brilliant medium.

Just like a blog, I believe that every entrepreneur today should be podcasting. Truly, I do.

One of the main reasons a lot of people don’t pull the trigger on this, however, is because of the time it takes to produce regular podcast content. Today, I want to try and change that!

The following is the EXACT process I follow to put my podcast on auto pilot.

It’s so simple, anyone can follow it.

Step #1 – Creating Your Podcast Content

This is the one part of the process that you cannot hand off to anyone else. This is why people are going to tune in. They are going to tune in because of you.

podcast set-up

People want to hear your stories. Your experiences. They want / need your expertise. They want you. So, give it to ’em, okay!

And a quick note on equipment – you don’t need a pro set-up like the one I use, above. Just a simple mic and a quiet environment is all you need to get started.

Step #2 – Editing Your Podcast

Once I’ve created the raw content of my podcast, I dump the files into a Dropbox folder which is shared with my Podcast Editor VA. Typically there are two files:

  1. The bulk of the show – either an interview recording, or my solo presentation for that episode.
  2. My spoken intro – this is where I mention any special events, masterminds I might be doing, etc., it’s also where I read out recent reviews for the show, too.

My editor will then get to work splicing these files together with my pre-recorded intro and outro, and export everything as the final .mp3 file.

Step #3 – Tagging & Uploading Your Podcast File

As soon as my editor has finished the editing of the show he will upload the file into another Dropbox folder I share with my General VA (GVA).

podcast tagging

She will then tag the .mp3 file with the show’s artwork, and the episode information (image above), before uploading it to my audio server – I currently use Libsyn for the New Business Podcast and Soundcloud for the Virtual Freedom Podcast.

She’ll then forward on the URL of the uploaded file to my Show Note Editor VA.

Step #4 – Create Your Podcast’s Show Notes

Once my show note editor gets the URL, she’ll download the file and listen to it. At the same time she’ll be taking down notes on important parts of the show, as well as any mentionables, such as websites, videos, etc.

She’ll then use the file’s URL to embed the audio file into the show post (I use the BluBurry Powerpress plugin), select an image to go along with the podcast topic (image of the guest, for example), write intro and outro paragraphs, select a few main talking points from the session and list them down, embed any videos, list down all the websites, etc., and finally hit ‘Save Draft’.

She will then drop me an email letting me know that the post is ready for my approval.

Step #5 – Publishing Your Podcast

I’ll then log into WordPress, open the draft post and check it out. Once I’ve spent 10-minutes going over it, making any final tweaks, etc., I’ll either schedule it to go live at some point in the future (I currently have podcast content scheduled until June!), or simply hit publish.

Step #6 – Promoting Your Podcast

At this point my General VA will put together a quick ‘social image’ (pictured below), and post the image, along wit a quick description to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ to spread the word.

NBP-Episode21

She will then log into my Aweber account and with a pre-written email that I’ve already given her, schedule a broadcast to go out to my subscriber list to alert them of the new content, too.

That’s it.

That’s my entire process for producing (and promoting) podcast material on a regular basis.

About The Team That Gets it Done!

I want to state very clearly that only one person in this entire process is employed with a full-time salary – my General VA – as she does plenty more for me, too.

Everyone involved has a copy of this process flow and follows it time and time again. It’s not broken, so nobody tries to fix it – it’s the process we simply follow to run the podcast on auto pilot.

It simply works.

I hope you’ve found this quick guide helpful, and I’d like to do more of these simple process posts for you, if you’d like to see them, of course?

Question: If there was ONE process you’d like to offload to virtual staff with the help of a simple post like this one, what would it be?

2 Ideas to Monetize Your Brand, and 1 Way to Make Money with it – TODAY!

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Screen Shot 2014-02-19 at 6.18.38 PMI’ve talked a lot about building a personal brand here on the blog. It’s a subject I’m super passionate about and something that I know works all too well, when it comes to your overall business growth as an entrepreneur doing business in todays marketplace.

However, building that brand, launching it and marketing it to the world to gain the attention you want / need to take everything you’re doing to the next level is just the start. As an influencer, you have to be seen to sell (something I discussed in depth in Episode 42 of my podcast) – doing so drives authority.

You can’t and shouldn’t be seen as giving ‘everything’ away for ‘free’.

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10 Lessons Learned Writing My First Book

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virtual-freedom-is-comingWe all have a book in us.

Ever heard that? I had, a lot.

In late 2011 I got offered my first book deal. I turned it down. I wasn’t ready. I was busy doing other ‘stuff’. I simply didn’t know enough about the topic. Who would buy a book written by me, anyway…?!!

You name it, I came up with every excuse under the sun to NOT write the book.

Then in late 2012 I teamed up with a literary agent, and put together my first ever book proposal document for a project entitled ‘The Freedom Factor’ (what was I thinking…!!!?). After a few name changes, Virtual Freedom was born and sent out to 16 publishers.

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The Easy-to-Follow Guide to Building an Online Brand

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building an online brand

Nowadays more than ever before, being a successful business owner is about making sure that your company name, identity, brand and even your personal brand (if you want to make it part of the attraction of doing business with you) can be found in every nook and cranny online.

Just over 4-years ago I launched this blog.

It wasn’t my first blog, but it was my first real step into personal branding. I knew and appreciated that a personal brand is something thats needed in today’s market, and did spend a bit of time on building my online brand throughout the few years prior, but never really focused on truly building my own unique brand online.

Since then I’ve landed opportunities for myself in the speaking industry, consulted and coached many amazing entrepreneurs, landed a book deal, started my third company and spent more than enough time replying to over 60,000 Twitter followers, 18,000 Facebook fans and an average of 120,000 readers to this blog every month, not to mention enjoying 300,000+ downloads to my podcast.

And, I have to say – I freakin’ love it all..!!!

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Mastermind Update: How One Entrepreneur Got Razor Focused, Launched a Podcast and Dominated an Entire Market!

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Bernd Geropp

Not so long ago, I featured one of my coaching clients here on the site, Fern Camacho. He attended my New York Mastermind in July this year and since then has been making some serious moves in his business.

There were so many positive comments on that post, that I decided to invite another of my mastermind tribe to come onto the site, and tell his story.

Enter Germany-based leadership coach and entrepreneur, Bernd Geropp.

I originally ‘met’ Bernd when he signed up for one of my coaching sessions last year. We then met in person at New Media Expo in January, and then he attended my London Mastermind, in May. Bernd is a guy that takes action, this is clear – but following the London session I had no idea just how much action he was going to take!

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The Top 10 Small Business & Entrepreneur Blogs of 2013

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TOP 10 BUSINESS BLOGS 2013As a small business owner myself, I know how important it is to stay up-to-date with the ever changing trends that the business world throws at us.

I watch very little TV and I don’t read the newspapers. I rely entirely on the internet, and my iPad to stay up to date with whats going on in the world. When I want to focus on business, and the developments that affect me as a small business owner myself, I turn to blogs. Bloggers have the ability to express themselves in somewhat ‘real time’. They can keep their content fresh, and their opinions can be heard quickly.

However, in the world of business blogs there is a lot of noise. A lot of people are trying to get your attention, and with only so many minutes a day to devote to learning and consuming content (personally, I put aside around 30-45 minutes daily), you’ve got to be very strict with who’s content you make time for.

This is the reason why I’ve put this list together. This is not about online business, or online marketing. That’s another list entirely. This collection of blogs are my personal favorite / go-to people in the world of small business blogging. Individually they strike a chord with me enough to keep me coming back for more – over and over again.

Note: These blogs are listed in no particular order of preference, or influence. 

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Going Virtual: How to Work with a Virtual Assistant to Market Your Blog

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How to Work with a Virtual Assistant to Market Your BlogLast week launched the start of this 10-part series that I’m producing, that will show you exactly how to work with virtual assistants, when it comes to starting, marketing and growing a business in todays ‘new’ economy.

The first post explored how to work with a virtual assistant to manage your blog – it seems it struck a chord with a lot of people, and so today I’m excited to follow-up, by taking it a step further – by showing you how a VA can help you market your blog.

If you thought managing a blog on a regular basis was a lot of work, just wait til you get a load of this marketing stuff!

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4 Ways to Work with Virtual Assistants to Build Your Online Personal Brand

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chris-ducker-tbex-speakerA couple of days ago I presented at TBEX, the worlds largest Travel Blogging Conference, in Toronto, on the subject of working with virtual assistants to make the transition from ‘blogger to business owner’ as easy and productive as possible.

One of the talking points was the importance of building a personal brand.

Building a personal brand online with the help of a virtual assistant is a start way to add value to your online presence. In fact, it’s needed into today’s business landscape, more than ever in the history of business and entrepreneurship.

A ‘personal brand’ is synonymous with your reputation, and refers to the way other people see you. Ask yourself what you want people to say about you when you’re not around – the answer is directly related to your personal brand.

It takes time to build up a reputation and become a trusted authority, or expert in your field – which is necessary when building any type of successful brand. However, there are certainly a few simple first steps to building a personable image, creating rapport and gaining trust as an online entrepreneur that you can have virtual staff handle for you.

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