At first glance when starting to compile this week’s Cribbed Content, it didn’t look like much was going on.  My Google Reader was kind of light, as were the other scoops and news coming across my desk.  But then when I really started to dig, I found some cool stuff!  Including a really easy Twitter Contest from DIY SEO to win a Kindle!

• Last week I reported that Affiliate Summit East 2009 was all sold out of booths.  They’re now all sold out of Meet Market tables as well, the first time for them that they’ve sold out of exhibitor space before Early Bird pricing was done.  Congrats to the ASE09 team!
• Speaking of Affiliate Summit, co-founders Missy Ward and Shawn Collins were in Dallas at the Inbound Marketing Summit speaking about monetizing blogs.  Missy was kind enough to share their slides from the presentation.
• Affiliate network ShareASale is toying with an Affiliate API and has released the initial sections for use.
• Google recently changed their trademarks policy in regards to AdWords paid search ads.  Search Engine Land wrote an article on how to protect your brand under Google’s new trademark policy, and Geno Prussakov also wrote an article on how this applies to affiliate marketing.
• Apparently Google mucked around with PageRank… AGAIN… and devalued Twitter profiles.  Which is fine with me since I realized awhile back my twitter page was  PR9 when this here blog was only PR2 (currently my twitter page is a PR3).  What really irritated me was that, out of nowhere, this blog went down to PR0 out of nowhere with no real changes other than a redesign (that, if anything, should have HELPED SEO).  So in my opinion Google can shove with with their PageRank racket anyway.  Anyway, Andy Beard explains a few things about the change.
• I’ve seen a certain someone from a certain CPA network tweeting a lot in the last two days about making money from Twitter with CPA ads.  That seems to be ALL this person is tweeting about and it’s getting on my anti-spam nerves.  So instead of calling this person out, I’ll be passive-aggressive and just pass on this article for everyone: 10 Irritating Mistakes that People Make with Twitter. Thanks Nikki Pilkington for a good article right when I was thinking about it!
• I’m a big fan of to-do lists.  There’s been some talk about different apps recently (I was turned onto Toodledoo and love its integration with iGoogle homepage).  Nate Moller wrote a great article on why to-do lists are key to entrepreneur success that any slightly unmotivated or scattered entrepreneur should read!

 Powered by Max Banner Ads 

I won big while in Las Vegas for Affiliate Summit, but not at the tables or slots.  For someone who rarely wins anything, I’ve had great luck lately winning some goodies in the last three weeks, from three different affiliate networks!  I managed to win some cool prizes that will most definitely help me out in my blogging and social endeavors!

So with that, thank you SO MUCH and here’s what I won so far this year and from who.  2009 has turned out pretty awesome so far!  I apologize in advance, dear readers, as this will be a long post!

Flip Mino Video Camera from MarketLeverage

Last month, several bloggers I read hosted a contest by MarketLeverage, the “Share Your Secret” contest.  The rules were simple – share your marketing secret via blog comment and you can only use MarketLeverage as the example network.  I entered on a couple of blogs, and was chosen to be the winner from 11|15 Media’s blog!  So thanks Mike!  Here’s what I shared:

As I said there, my secret isn’t really a secret – work smarter, not harder. I picked up the saying from one of my college roommates and I’m sure some genius generations before me coined the phrase, but I apply that mantra to everything. I try to make things more efficient and do things better so that my time is more effectively used and I can work smart without necessarily making things harder on myself.

To apply that to the affiliate example, I use MaxBannerAds on my blog. When I label the ads, not only do I add the merchant name but I also add the network name, i.e. MarketLeverage, to help me to group them together when I go to look at reporting so I can easily group things for myself. That’s just one small example of how I work smarter, not harder.

There were a lot of great contenders, so I was surprised to have won!  I was given the choice between a 4th generation iPod Nano or a Flip Mino, and since I had just bought an iPod for my husband for Christmas and have my own classic iPod, I chose the Flip.  I have to give MarketLeverage extra thanks for such a good prize because I just realized that my Aiptek HD camera is on it’s way to death.  So yay!  I hope as soon as I receive it and check out the cool content they’re going to preload onto it that I’ll have the guts to video blog more

A new service from marketing master Joel Comm was launched at Affiliate Summit.  The service, called TextCastLive, is a SMS messaging service that texted updates to opt-ins about the conference, like when sessions were starting and other events.  They also peppered in some contests in.  During the tail end of a session, a text went out announcing that the 7th person to show their phone the good folks at the oneNetworkDirect booth would receive $500 in network credit.  So I wandered over and with the good fortune of being with some other people who showed their phones (or, their phones were immediately more visible I might say) I was number 7!  I was actually surprised to see that they have a lot of tech offers on their network, including Lavasoft which makes the awesome anti-spyware program Ad-Aware that I love and swear by!  So thank you to TextCastLive and oneNetworkDirect!

Merchant Bag from buy.at

When you see those bowls on booth tables that say “drop your business card here to win”, DO IT!  This is how I was the lucky recipient of the merchant bag from buy.at.  The bag was a veritable treasure trove of swag, all provided by the merchants on their network.  At face value, it was an awesome Patagonia backpack, designed to comfortably pad a laptop.  It’s nice a slim, which is a benefit since the current backpack case I have is huge and bulky.  They also handed me a $100 Ticketmaster gift card, and said there was a Bonobos gift card designated for me as well.  I shook hands and hugged those I knew, took a picture with the guys decked out for the Affiliate Triathalon (Kim & Ayako – I WANT THAT PIC!)  and wandered off.

I was stoked to get that, and later when I went to open the bag to consolidate some of the other swag I’d received at the show I found that there was even MORE inside!  A cool track jacket, which I unfortunately had to give away since it was much smaller than what I wear, a $5 Starbucks gift card, a nifty gel stress ball, a cool pleather (plastic+leather) & metal USB thumb drive, some nifty ear warmer headphones, and… oh I know I’m forgetting something!  So HUGE thanks to the people I know from buy.at, Kim Salvino, Ayako Bingham, Amy Ely and everyone else there!

So once again, thank you to MarketLeverage, oneNetworkDirect, and buy.at for their awesome generosity and great prizes!

 Powered by Max Banner Ads 

Okay, there was a glitch in the matrix last week and I somehow forgot to post what I’d been working on.  Fail for me.  Anyway, this week’s cribbed content will include some self-aggrandizing points from last week and some really nifty stuff going on this week.

• StickerGiant was kind enough to feature me on their blog last week.  I placed my first order with them while I was in Boston and was really happy with the quality of stickers I received   So I slapped their logo on my laptop!
• I never win anything, yet while at Affiliate Summit I won $1000 in a contest.  So with that I will be going to BlogWorldExpo!  I’m excited as this will be my first BWE and a lot of the good people I met at Affiliate Summit East will be there.
• ShareASale, always the innovator, launched their Make-A-Video widget, allowing affiliates to make – and monetize – videos for advertisers’ products and services.  I’m excited – I don’t do much on ShareASale yet, but soon I hope to have a bit more time to play around with this.
• Fellow AffSpot.com forum poster Daniel M. Clark just published his first widely available book, The Big Book of Spam: Subject Lines.  This is volume one, and volume two is already in the works.  I’m waiting for my copy and will dutifully review it for you!
• Motive Interactive affiliate manager Luke Jeffery Smith has a good audio eBook out there, Luke Jeffrey’s Affiliate Marketing Fast Track. It’s just $0.99 – I plan on buying it and giving it a listen this weekend, again, complete with review!

 Powered by Max Banner Ads