Blogging: The Root of all Evil?
Is blogging the root of all evil? This argument is swaying, even for me as a blogger.
On some level, I have to agree. Blogging has turned many people into increasingly poorer writers. This “First draft culture” that he describes isn’t too far off, I’m afraid. This ties into a post by Jim Kukral a couple weeks back titled Your Grammar & Spelling Is Going to Ruin Your Career. I have to agree, as grammar and spelling have ALWAYS been pet peeves of mine; even in casual conversation it KILLS me to hear someone say “more better” or “funner”!
Remember that web content doesn’t go away. Archives endure and even if you completely delete your blog…chances are cached pages will exist somewhere. So do yourself a favor and treat blogging like a real job that you’re getting paid a lot of money for if you ever want to advance your career and actually get paid to blog.
And listen to some of these points and try to straighten up & fly right, will ya? 😛
Read MoreA Happy Blog Birthday to Me!
In my hustle and bustle lately, I neglected to realize that I’ve been blogging “semi-pro” as I refer to it for a full year. I went back to see some of my earlier posts from last August and was reminded of this one – Hats, Hats, Everywhere! Could it be that it was just a year ago that I was still managing PsPrint’s mailing services? It’s also sad to say that I was “in charge of” social media marketing – a project that never took off on the company level, but I’ve obviously been running strong with it.
It feels like it’s been much longer than just a year that I’ve been at this, but I have to say that I’ve learned so much in a year that it’s incredible. In many ways this blog as served as a gateway to that knowledge and opportunities that I’ve been given. I’ll never be able to thank this little blog enough lol.
I wish I’d discovered Google Analytics sooner so I don’t have complete data, but thank you to the 16,000+ visitors this year that stopped by. Thanks for spending those few minutes to check out what I’ve been spewing out there into the webverse. I hope you’ve come by more than once. Told your friends. Subscribed despite my trials and tribulations in getting a freakin’ feed to work properly. And come by despite going through three URL changes…
Stay Classy, Interwebs.
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Social Media: The Marketing Summit
That’s right all you conference junkies, there’s a new kid at school. From the people who bring you Revenue Magazine, Social Media: The Marketing Summit will be taking place locally here in October. Some of the brightest folks in social media will be there:
- Lisa Picarille, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, Revenue Magazine
- Brian Solis, Principal, FutureWorks and PR2.0
- Charlene Li, Independent Analyst (formerly of Forrester Research)
- Tara Hunt, Co-Founder, Citizen Agency
- Chris Trayhorn, Founder & CEO, PERFORM and Montgomery Research
I’m excited that there’s a new conference on the block, especially one that’s close enough to just commute to! Unfortunately I won’t be able to afford this on my own and, given my recent changes at work, don’t think the company will send me.
Early bird pricing ends August 30th. The early bird price is $895, a whopping $400 savings! As well, I’m officially taking sponsors if someone wants to send me on their behalf. No travel expenses, just the registration of the conference itself. If you’re interested in being my BFF, contact me.
Read MoreOnline Marketing Glossary: Landing Page
Landing Page:
- The specific webpage a visitor reaches after clicking on a search engine listing, pay-per-click ad, or banner ad.
Many successful PPC affiliates utilize landing pages to help direct visitors to convert to sales. With a landing page, the affiliate does not have to rely solely on the merchant’s website to convert but can give the visitors a nudge into the conversion path with added details or stronger calls to action.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Doorway Page
Doorway Page (also Gateway Page):
- A webpage created expressly in the hopes of ranking well for a term in a search engine’s non-paid listing. It does not deliver much information but is designed to entice visitors to enter.
Some people refer to this practice as a thin affiliate site. The site is pretty much useless in terms of the content, but it ranks well for consumers who are searching for the products.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Affsum Session: Performance Marketing Association Q&A
Well, I think many people attending this session were expecting the topic to be heated, but l’m not sure they were expecting some of the venom that seemed to be in the room. Speaking for myself, I certainly didn’t. Originally there was only supposed to be one panelist fielding questions, but since 4 out of 5 working group leaders were in attendance, they were also recruited to speak. So ultimately the panel consisted of:
- Rebecca Madigan, Performance Marketing Association
- Sam Harrelson, Publisher, Cost Per News
- Brook Schaaf, Schaaf Consulting
- Brad Waller, VP Business Development, AdJungle.com
- Peter Bordes, CEO, MediaTrust
Guns were slinging! Unfortunately there’s not many bullet points to be had, but here you go.
Bullet Point Review!
- PMA is in germination phase – not a real entity yet.
- Why start now?
- Misinformation & lack of representation.
- Legislation.
- Lack of transparency.
- Maturity of industry.
- Formation process still underway.
- Interviewed over 60 industry leaders, Formation Advisory Board voted in by 100 peers.
- Working groups of 45 volunteers.
- Working groups make recommendations on formation.
- FAB 11 ratifies formation proposals (click here to see members).
- The working group committees are Scope/Objectives (headed by Sam Harrelson), Governance (Brook Schaaf), Fundraising (Peter Bordes), Membership (Durk Price), and Operations (Brad Waller).
Points (or other observations in this case) brought up during the Q&A
- Right off the bat the questions were hostile. There’s animosity about the PMA using the NY Tax situation as a launching point for formation despite the fact that they can’t do anything to help.
- Essentially there’s nothing the PMA can do since they’re NOT a fully formed organization, no matter how much they want to help.
- Rebecca acted as moderator and moved the conversation on after almost 20 minutes of hostile banter.
- The PMA blog as been quiet because the people in working groups have had their heads down working on things without much to report at this point.
- The term “Performance” has been used over “affiliate” because it is more inclusive of the larger base of members within the industry. Inclusive of a lot more relationships than just the affiliate – merchant relation.
- The PMA has a very similar model as a chamber of commerce but the scope is still being set up. They are looking at the chamber model in forming things. Mostly they want to improve visibility & credibility.
- Rebecca was questioned as to why she didn’t attend the meetings in Albany that the NY affiliates had since she’s actually the only paid member. It was decided that there was no reason because it would have been redundant and she can’t represent an organization that isn’t formed and doesn’t officially exist.
- They were asked why they divorced themselves from ABestWeb after the controversy, to which they responded that they didn’t divorce from it BUT once a particular few threads got ugly and became increasingly unprofessional they just stopped participating in those threads.
- There’s no conspiracy regarding Rebecca’s involvement – Anik Singal of Affiliate Classroom generously donated her salary for a year and she’s just being paid to “corral cats” and help form the organization. Her comment was that if she weren’t paid for this she’d have bailed long ago based on the assumptions about her involvement and what she’s had to deal with.
- An affiliate asked how they can be assured that the PMA won’t be overtaken by large company sponsorhips and forget the little affiliate? The affiliate industry is it’s own little ecosystem and the heart of it is the average affiliate. They’ve been very hypersensitive to the issue to ensure that affiliates are included.
It seems that there’s lots of confusion about the organization – or lack thereof – and hopefully the Q&A has taken things in the right direction. Perhaps Q&A wasn’t the right moniker. Maybe Suggestion Session or Feedback Forum might have worked better. It was disappointing to see one of the most vocal critics of the PMA – ABestWeb founder Haiko de Poel Jr – leave the session half way through in apparently disgust. I hope that future discussions going forward will be a bit more productive than the session in Boston.
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