This is a picture of Rustam, Nick, Susie, Colleen and Ross in NYC for Affiliate Summit East.  Our booth was in a great location and we had a ton of visitors.  We had a great show and look forward to Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas in January.  Everyone did a fantastic job and this was Susie and Colleen’s first time in the big apple.  I think it’s safe to say they had an awesome time.  We truly have a great team!

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Affiliate Summit New York 2010
New York, Empire State of Mind…. Concrete jungles where dreams are made of!  The city welcomed us on Sunday afternoon. For the two us this was of first trip to The Big Apple. What a sight! Time Square was mind-boggling. Wow, let’s leave it at that.

What we were really looking forward to was getting to put a face to a name of our clients. It’s always good to meet those we work with on a daily basis, and learn about their businesses.  Here’s a brief rundown of our ASE experiences.

Day 1
After a fun night at Old Castle and show tunes in the ballroom with friends, the day started bright and early at 10am. From 10 until the end of the day the exhibit hall was slammed.  Usually we’d expect a lull during lunch, but not this first day.  The show officially ended at 5pm, but that wasn’t the end for us! When our feet were tired and our voices were just about gone – the day wasn’t over.  The exhibit hall was still swarming with people.

During our busy first day we met a lot of new potential advertisers and even merchants looking to get exposure for their products online – Which is good news for our affiliates. There will be a lot more new offers coming your way.

Day 2

The various parties that were hosted on Monday night resulted in a slow start to Tuesday (Thanks Scott from Adknowledge for the VIP passes!).  People started filtering through the exhibit hall around noon, and we had the opportunity to meet a lot more publishers. By about 3:30pm, business was just about done for the day. Attendees started using their drink tickets… of which there were plenty! We used ours for bottled water! By 4pm it was time for us to get in our “limo” and head to the airport. A couple of us couldn’t handle the Chinese buffet lunch, bumpy ride, heat and pure exhaustion so the porcelain princess was their savior at the airport; others of us, managed just fine!

All in all, it was a great show. With great people! The trends that we noticed were mobile marketing, Click to Call, PPV, and telemarketing. We have great leads for new advertisers meaning new offers for our growing publisher base. Thanks Shaun and Missy for a great show once again.

Written By,

Collleen Darwent & Susie Bordner from RevenueStreet

Social media has provided affiliates with a whole new landscape to promote products and services.  It is a fundamental shift in the way people communicate.  Whether it is through video product reviews on YouTube, fan pages on Facebook, 140 character messages on Twitter, or tags on Flickr, the opportunities available on social media websites continues to grow.

Highlighted in a video produced by Socialnomics author Erik Qualman, are some fascinating social media stats including:
•    Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the US
•    YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world
•    If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 3rd largest
•    25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user generated content

With social media becoming such a major media player and influencer, it is important that affiliates learn how to tackle this burgeoning area.  Following are some important tips and rules that affiliates should keep in mind when developing their social media campaigns:

Keep up to date on the changing advertising policies on each social media site. Social media channels are monitoring their sites more closely.  If they suspect suspicious behavior then you run the risk of getting your account suspended.  Play by the rules!

There are several tools available to help you track who and what is being said about you and the message you are putting out. Free tracking tools include blogsearch.google.com, search.twitter.com, search on Facebook and search on Youtube.  Paid tracking tools are also available including Brandwatch, Whitevector and Synthesio which provide better accuracy. Listen to your followers, you can learn from what they are saying.

With growth comes competition. The rise in popularity of social media channels has led to a rise in price in CPCs/CPMs.  However, pricing can be managed effectively by utilizing high converting creative and ad copy.
Learn and address privacy issues. For example, people have mixed reactions towards ads that highlight/speak to private demographic information that they have included in their profiles, especially when this information does not relate to the product you are promoting.  There is a fine line between being effective and being obtrusive, make sure to look at things from an advertiser as well as consumer prospective.

Make sure to engage and interact with your followers. Social media is all about being able to have an open communication with your consumers. Listen to what your followers are saying and focus on building trust, goodwill and loyalty with them.  Accept the good with the bad, address any negative comments immediately with a genuine response. In the end, you will be more respected for it!

Finally, have fun, get creative and make the best use of these tools to engage your new audience!