Affiliate Marketing Fanatics 18: Jason Ruckaby
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Affiliate Marketing Fanatics – A Publisher (Mike Buechele) and an Affiliate Manager (Trisha Lyn Fawver) talk about all things Affiliate Marketing. From blogging to branding, social media to search, video and more!
OK… we’ve been slacking off, seriously. Really, Mike got a day job so meshing our scheduled together has been troublesome. But we’re refreshed for 2010 and ready to rock it! In this episode we’re joined by the Affiliate Development Manager for ShareASale, Jason Rubacky. The conversation takes off after some discussion of surname pronunciation. In in this episode we discuss:
- The new trend of DailyBooth.com
- Fantasy football
- VaynerMedia hiring via Twitter & Craigslist – and filming it!
- Techie gifts we got for Christmas
Listen at GeekCast.fm: Affiliate Marketing Fanatics 18: Jason Ruckaby
Read MoreAffiliate Marketing Fanatics Episode 3: Twitter in a Tumblr with a splash of Gary Vaynerchuk
Affiliate Marketing Fanatics – A Publisher (Mike Buechele) and an Affiliate Manager (Trisha Lyn Fawver) talk about all things Affiliate Marketing. From blogging to branding, social media to search, video and more!
We’ve finally determined that the audio problems were due to my headset this week as I stole the stand alone boom mic from my husband’s computer and the sound is excellent. Third time’s the charm! So now you won’t have to listen to a bad recording for our quality content!
We jumped around a bit today and covered a lot, so this episode is longer than the last two clocking in at about 40 minutes. We talk a lot about Twitter and decided that we live most of our lives through Twitter. We also give some shout outs at the end, as I promised last week.
Show Links:
- TweepMe and the creator’s account being suspended.
- Still getting used to the new Facebook.
- A few more words about Gary Vaynerchuk and his SXSW video.
- WeFollow, a survey about Twitter, and the Twouble with Twitters (careful, the video is on autoplay).
- Sony made a deal with Google to enhance their Sony Reader line up (watch out, Kindle!)
For the sake of driving the point home, I talked more about the grass roots fight going on against California Assembly Bill 178, which is looking to do in California what the so-called Amazon Tax did in New York. Here are some links I mentioned and some from the March 3rd episode of Affiliate Thing:
- CAaffiliates.com ABestWeb forum
- Read the entire bill (Number AB 178)
- How to contact your California state law makers
- Comment on AB 178
- See the calendar for the California state legislature
Affsum West 09 Keynote Gary Vaynerchuk
This was a great keynote, given by Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibraryTV. He killed it in terms of getting the crowd riled up and rearing to go for the rest of the show. He also did something I haven’t seen from other keynote speakers – he actually opened it up for questions. Gary has a very real, conversational style of speaking, which I appreciate. He curses, and beware I have republished some things verbatim so there’s some choice words below.
The show organizers did something else cool and different – they streamed the keynote speech live on Ustream.
Bullet Point Review!
- More emphasis is needed on community.
- Content is king, but marketing is the queen and she runs the house.
- Be authentic – he never does double takes or edits out stray bits for WLTV.
- 45-60 minutes spent on content, the rest is on monetization.
- If you’re not doing vanity searches for your name or your brand, you’re a monumental clown.
- Too many people preach to this crowd.
- We’ve been aiming to hit singles but we all have the talent to hit home runs.
- Sink your teeth into your passion.
- Why can’t we be artists AND entrepreneurs?
- If you want to make money, then you should. Don’t feel bad for it.
- If you have cockroaches in the back of your pizza place, clean that shit up! (i.e. anything you do that’s wrong or shady WILL come out).
- People don’t want to see ROI numbers.
- People are not creating multiple channels and should.
- Create more angles and more opportunity to make money.
- ROI will be much more important with the economic situation we’re in.
- Social Media is bullshit – it’s just the extension of business.
- Watch a 13 year old interact – they’re not going to be reading the newspapers or watching the nightly news.
- Details are what really build business.
- When you build brand equity, you’re always able to make money.
- If you think Twitter is your main play for the rest of your life, you’re an asshole.
- When you care, you win.
- We all now go direct to consumer.
- Twitter is word of mouth on steroids.
- If you leave here with nothing else, ask yourself this: Where the hell am I going? What do I want to do?
Points brought up during the Q&A
How do you build multiple brands? There are no tactics, just be who you are.- How do you cross pollinate across different brands and networks? It’s like fishing in other ponds. Your message carries. When you step outside this space, you sound like fucking yoda! Focus your message across multiple channels.
- How has PleaseDressMe.com not fizzled? They said from the beginning that the goal was affiliate marketing to make money. People took them more seriously. They created the hype to leverage the hype.
All in all, a good way to start the conference! Getting people riled up at 9:45am on a Monday morning isn’t an easy task!
Read MoreTips & Tricks for Affiliate Summit
I believe I mentioned before, I’m participating once again in the Affiliate Summit Mentor program. I sent these same tips and tricks to the person I’m mentoring, and since people are starting to filter into town today for the show, I’ve decided to share these last minute tips with everyone!
Now, some are just general conference/trade show things that a first timer might not really be aware of. Some are probably common sense, but hey, they’re there for good measure. So take my advice here, don’t take my advice, it’s up to you. But some of this might help!
If all goes well and my flight is on time I should be in the air soon, so I hope to see you in Las Vegas! If you want to meet up with me at any point, send me a Direct Message on Twitter – I’ll have the SMS updates turned on so it’ll be as good as texting me 🙂
General Conference Tips
- Business Cards – Bring plenty! I can’t stress this enough. It’s the best way for people to remember to contact you when they get back to “the real world” of work after the conference. Also, if you’re the type of person that likes to enter booth drawings for prizes, most want you to drop off a business card to enter.
- Added Personalization of Business Cards – For an important contact that you definitely want to get back to you, write something distinctive on the back of the card when you give it to them. It could be your cell phone number or some other bit of contact information that’s not already on the card, or just a note about who you are, like “Met at lunch on Tuesday”. That will give the person a reminder when they get back that they actually wanted to later connect with you.
- Comfort – wear comfortable clothes and shoes that won’t slow you down or make sitting around in sessions unbearable. As well, it’ll help to fully assess the conference bag and its contents to know if they’re suitably comfortable for you. For example, despite being provided a notepad in the bag, I don’t usually use it. I prefer to use a Composition Book to take notes – not only because the cover is thick and it’s easier to write in when there’s no surface to write on, but also I keep my notes when I get back, so it’s easier to keep them in the same notebook than loose all over. Be aware of these kinds of personal preferences.
- Literature – don’t be afraid to grab literature from booths & meet market tables. What I do is take it up to my room and unload at the end of each day. Then I can fully read more into stuff and decide what I’ll be taking back with me. I also find that taking stuff back with me does help me remember who I wanted to do more research into working with, more than a business card necessarily.
- Leave Luggage Space – it’s Vegas, and there will be booth people wanting to give you knick-knacks and t-shirts and you may just want to bring home souvenirs, so remember to leave space in your bags for any literature, paperwork, goodies, souvenirs, etc. that you may be bringing home with you. Buying another bag for that stuff to bring home isn’t fun (trust me, I’ve been there).
Affiliate Summit Specific Tips
- Conference Bag – you’ll be provided with a bag when you register. Mostly it’ll have literature inserts that businesses have paid to have included. I recommend going through the literature immediately and removing anything you know you have absolutely no interest in. Added papers will just bog you down when you’re walking around. The bag usually also contains a pad of paper someone has sponsored and a pen, amongst other random goodies.
- Registration – Register earlier, that way you have time before anything important starts to get rid of the excess in your bag & get comfortable to embark on more important stuff. If you go to the conference area just to register before any intentions of going to the Meet Market or sessions, that will give you time to examine the bag itself, pen, notebook, goodies, etc. to see if you’ll need to grab your own supplies to be comfortable and effectively meet your conference goals.
- Meet Market – GO! I admit, my first Affiliate Summit I didn’t go because the description made it sound like it was a row of merchants sitting around waiting for affiliates to approach them in a creepy way. But it’s a huge networking opportunity. There’s drinks, wandering, and yes, you can have some good conversations with industry colleagues. There are often companies that just get a Meet Market table (they’re less expensive) and won’t have a booth during the exhibit hall, so take the opportunity to talk with anyone you’re interested in doing business with – that may be your only opportunity.
- Water – I don’t know if hotels and conference centers do this for everyone or if the organizers have to request it, but there’s almost always pitchers of cold water and glasses in all the session rooms or just outside. Carrying around a bottle never hurts either if that’s more your style.
- Timeliness – being on time to sessions will greatly help your comfort level and learning. I usually try to get there at least a couple minutes early. That gives me time to find a good seat, get a drink of water, and get settled before the panel actually starts. That way I’m not interrupting anything by trying to get comfortable or by walking in late.
- Meals – if you have a full conference pass, they provide a continental breakfast & light lunch (usually sandwiches, soup, burgers, that kind of thing). It’s nothing gourmet but it’s a good chance to talk to some people casually, approach speakers you want to follow up with, things like that. And you’ve already paid for it with your conference registration, so you might as well take advantage of it, that’s my theory.
- Business Meetings – you may have already scheduled some. Don’t schedule too many though – you want ample time to explore the exhibit hall and attend panels and sessions. Also – I made this mistake at the last Summit held at the Rio – make arrangements to meet your appointments near to the conference area. The conference center of the Rio is at the back of the hotel, so if you’ve made arrangements to meet in the lobby or closer to the casino area, it might be incredibly out of your way to go all the way out there to meet the person. Besides, you’ll have a more professional meeting anywhere in the back near the conference center than you would out by the casino floor anyway.
- Agenda – take a few minutes now to check out the agenda for the show online. It’ll save you time now to decide on some of the sessions/events you definitely want to attend than to have to make those decisions on the fly. However, being flexible isn’t a bad thing – sometimes you hear things from other attendees that you can’t know by reading the description on paper.
- Session/Event Recommendations – these are a couple of sessions that are geared more towards affiliates than merchants. You might want to check out:
- The Black Ink Session, Sunday 1:30p – 2:30p Classroom C (Miranda 5-6). Jeremy Palmer is a great guy and successful affiliate and really takes a basic “this is how you do it” approach.
- Ethical Issues in Affiliate Marketing, Sunday 3-4pm Classroom D (Miranda 7-8). There was a session just like this with almost the same lineup of panelists in Boston, and it didn’t turn out that great, to put it politely. I’m really hoping that they took the feedback given then and will put out a more productive and well run panel this time.
- Mentor Program Meet Up, Sunday 6:30-7:30pm Brasilia 1-3. You’re probably already planning on attending this, but it’ll be a great mixer and balance amongst new attendees and old hat attendees, so the networking will be great.
- Opening Remarks & Keynote, Monday 9:45am-10:45am, General Session Room Brasilia 1-7. For one, the keynote will set the tone and you’ll be sorry if you miss it. For two, Gary Vaynerchuk is the keynote and he’s a fantastic speaker!
- Advanced Optimization for Landing Pages, Monday 2-3pm Classroom C. I’ve heard Olivier Chaine & Lisa Crossley Hunter speak before and they definitely know what they’re talking about, so with just them the session should be good. I’ve never heard Trevor Claiborne speak and I’ve spoken to Beth Kirsch before but never seen her on a panel so I can’t vouch for them.
Las Vegas Tips
- If you’re staying at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, take a cab from the airport. The shuttles, while less expensive, take at least an hour to get from the airport to the Rio since it’s off the strip, so usually it’s the last stop before they return to the airport. If you’ve been traveling all day, you’ll thank yourself for saving the hassle.
- Chapstick is your friend! If you’re not used to a relatively dry climate like Las Vegas, be sure to carry around some good chapstick or lip balm. Even if you don’t leave the hotel at all to expose yourself to the elements, the recycled air & smoke in the casino area can be a lot to take with repeteitive exposure.
- There’s a café down the hall on the way to the conference area of the Rio called the Sao Paulo Café – avoid it! Terrible service, mediocre food.
- There’s also a Starbucks next to that cafe, so if you need your morning latte fix, it’ll be there, but the lines may be long so plan ahead.
- The conference center is in the very back of the hotel, so from the guest elevators and gaming area, it’s a 15 minute walk if you’re taking your time, 5-10 if you’re booking it. Remember that when planning out your arrival times and any other events during the day.
- The Carnival World Buffet is really good; I highly recommend trying it at least once while you’re there. Don’t let the $27 price tag scare you – it’s worth it.
- The All-American Bar & Grill is a good option for a decent burger or fries at any hour.
@Garyvee, this is for you!
Like how I made the title Twitter-optimized? 😛
Big thanks to Gary Vaynerchuk at Wine Library TV for sharing the love and sending out some Bringing the THunder wristbands. In all my craptastic webcam glory…
Awesome job on the branding efforts Gary!
Read MoreGood People Day
So Gary Vaynerchuk at WineLibrary is at it again, enthusiastically making up holidays as he fancies. He’s come up with April 3rd as Good People Day, a day to thank those that help you, inspire you, etc. He explains it better than I, so here:
So I’m left to wondering who I should thank. I guess there’s several peeps out there that inspire me. Here we go, in no particular order.
- Anne Casanova, my manager. She’s awesome!
- Sam Harrelson. A great blogger, generally nice and helpful guy.
- All the people I follow on twitter for constant entertainment.
- All the people who read my blog. Y’all rock and give me a good motivation to keep talking.
- The GeekCast crew for making me laugh hysterically once a week, so big ups to Jim Kukral, Lisa Picarille, Shawn Collins, and Sam Harrelson once again.
- My best friends ever for always being there for me, Katie Shaw, Lorenza Martinez, Rachel Nuckols, and Jennifer Morrill. None of them are big interwebbers, so no links!
- Karen Garcia is a great for random questions via Twitter. So is Deborah Loxly!
