In this edition of the Affiliate Buzz, host and Instructor of the Affiliate Marketers BootCamp, James Martell, welcomes back returning guests Vinny O'Hare, a 15 year internet pioneer who is also a podcaster, speaker and author with plenty of great advice for affiliate managers.

James kicks off the episode by asking Vinny about the amount of travel he does. After a hurricane destroyed their home in New York, Vinny moved his family to Arizona while he stayed to rebuild the house.

Now that the house is almost rebuilt, Vinny is still travelling back and forth between the two states and will for another two years until the construction is complete. You can hear about Vinny's experience of being in the house during the hurricane in episode #348 of the Affiliate Buzz.

The Latest Things that Work Really Well

Next James asks Vinny, a retired New York subway system employee who has worked as a full-time affiliate marketer for well over a decade, what the latest thing is that's working really well. Vinny's short answer is user generated content through Gravity Forms, a WordPress plugin, and shared social media through a service like HootSuite.

James and Vinny recap the process. First, set up a form on the Gravity Forms website in such a way that you're asking people questions. The form looks like a normal form on a page to your audience. Then people answer the questions and hit submit, which automatically drops it into the back end of your WordPress site as a draft.

Vinny interjects that his virtual assistant, or VA, handles about 90% of the responses to these questions. The VA takes care of any editing that needs to be done to the drafts before they are published to the web. The result is a few hundred posts per day on Vinny's WordPress site which he monetizes using AdSense, affiliate programs, and advertising.

Then James and Vinny discuss his lack of failures lately. Vinny attributes this to the fact that his recent work involves revamping old sites. His one new venture, however, includes a site to promote giveaways.

The Benefits of Having a Virtual Assistant

James segues into the topic of the benefits of having a virtual assistant, or VA. James and Arlene each have their own VA, and Vinny hired one in March, 2014 on the advice of a friend. He hired the VA his friend used part time, and in no time at all had her up to 40 hours a week and has steadily hired her at that pace in the time since.

Vinny had the benefit of getting a VA who was already familiar with the basic process. James wholeheartedly encourages this strategy and tries to impart the importance of hiring a virtual assistant on students in The School of Internet Marketing.

As Vinny went along, he created how-to guides with screen shots and specific instructions to help train any future virtual assistants that might join his team. He stresses that it is important to make every single move clear when making how-to sheets to avoid problems on down the road.

For more complicated tasks he might use ScreenFlow (which requires purchase of a license) on his Mac to record himself doing the task so the VA has the best possible instructions. James recommends Screencast-O-Matic, an online software whose free service allows 15-minute recordings.

A Typical Day with a VA

Next Vinny explains what a typical day is like working with a virtual assistant. Because they've worked together so long, she just logs in and gets started. Her duties include things like editing and posting interviews and letting people know when their post is live. At the end of the day she sends him a daily progress report.

Another thing Vinny tasks his VA with is going through social media and following 50 new people per day. He limits it at 50 to avoid getting into trouble with the networks. The VA finds people using hashtags, and once that task is done she re-tweets 15 people at random - it may not even be people that they fo...