Great Parties & Events at ASE09
Monday
Aug 17, 2009
I took it light this time around at Affiliate Summit and only went to two events that weren’t hosted by the conference itself. Dominic and I spent the two days before the conference wandering Manhattan seeing some sights, so by the time the conference started we were not that interested in traipsing all over the city again. But we did make sure to go to the couple of smaller parties we were invited to. I’d have been asleep at the networking wheel had I not gone to any of the parties! So here’s my take on the parties with some thanks and photos I took!
buy.at Party @ Empire Hotel
Big thanks to Ayako from buy.at for extending the invitation! This party was on the rooftop bar at the Empire Hotel, which despite being 12 floors up was considerably shorter than most the surrounding buildings. Only one part of the hotel bar was reserved for the party, so it was a relatively intimate affair. We started by working the area and saying hello to old friends, and ended sitting with Heather Smith of Beautiful British Columbia and Murray Newlands of MurrayNewlands.com. It was wonderful conversation and Dominic seemed to really feel comfortable with the jargon conversation and other assorted topics.
MarketLeverage & John Chow’s Dot Com Pizza @ Original Famous Ray’s Pizza
This was just what the doctor ordered! I had a few culinary goals for my trip to New York: bagels, cheesecake, and pizza. New York pizza is legendary, so I was excited to be invited to share some pizza with Dina and crew. We got there a bit late but there was still plenty of great pizza! I had my first real conversation with John Chow and Ted Murphy, both pleasant. I felt bad because there wasn’t much room to sit with the main group by the time we got there to schmooze and converse, so Dominic and I ended up sitting back in the corner where the surplus pizzas were and didn’t have much chance to talk unless people came back and talked to us.
I thought it was especially funny that Dominic got an IZEA shirt from Heather earlier in the day in the Blogger’s Lounge, and decided to change out of his Blinkstar Media shirt to the Izea shirt before leaving. We walked right up the stairs at Ray’s to see Ted Murphy, who of course commented on the IZEA shirt! Good thing I’d taken some time earlier in the day to tell Dominic what IZEA is! After hearing Ted and Dina and Heather talk about the last IZEAfest and the upcoming one, he really wanted to go! Too bad we can’t afford to go to Florida and have fun with them! Big thanks to Dina at MarketLeverage for the invite!
TechKaraoke @ the Hilton
This was unexpectedly fun, though I wish I had been able to get better photos! Of course, the embarrassment factor of karaoke almost requires the lights to be dimmed, so the photos didn’t turn out. I hear that I missed Chris Brogan singing a Jay-Z number, but I got down there just in time to see Ted Murphy, Shawn Collins, and Drew Bennett bust out some Milli Vanilli! Throughout the evening I got to catch up with Connie Berg while listening to the vocal stylings of Todd Farmer, Jim Kukral, Missy Ward, and Brian Littleton amongst others.
I also never realized that you never truly appreciate how LONG some songs are until you hear them butchered at a karaoke event! All in all though it was a good time and I hope Shawn & Missy bring back the TechKaraoke folks to do it again. And this time bring the lights up for more embarrassing evidence!
Affiliate Marketing Fanatics Episode 4: Listen to your Community
Friday
Mar 27, 2009
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!
This week we’re less all over the map, more focused on affiliate conferences, social media and communities, and once again our cherished shout outs. Of course our favorite topic of all time, Twitter, makes an appearance as they were in the news this week. The show comes in and just under 40 minutes for your listening pleasure.
- Social Media: Facebook caves into community pressure again, YouTube adds a Twitter Button
- Jermey Palmer uses surveys to make his affiliate marketing education products better.
- Twitter: Salesforce.com creates Twitter brand management service for companies and sells it for 1K/month, Twitter will have paid pro accounts
- Conferences: Jim Kukral organizing the monetization track for Blog World Expo Oct. 15-17, CJU dates announced Sept. 15-17, Big Omaha tech conference for midwesterners announced. Trisha will be attending Web 2.0 Expo and ad:tech SF next month.
- Shout outs: Sam Harrelson who called us Aff Marketing Maniacs, Brook Schaaf & Karen Garcia for their efforts with the Lobby Day against CA AB 178, Tim Robinson and shameless plug for Comic Book Fury
So please, go check it out and comment and let us know what you think!
Affsum Session: The Ultimate Pitching Guide
Tuesday
Jan 20, 2009
Date: Sunday, January 11th, 2009. Session 2d, 1:30pm.
Session Description: Experts share their best (and most outrageous) secrets for getting attention from merchants, media and the masses. You’ll learn the tips, tricks and techniques to get the attention you seek. The panel consisted of:
- Lisa Picarille, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, Revenue Magazine (Moderator)
- Anita Campbell, Editor-in-Chief, SmallBizTrends.com
- Jim Kukral, Owner, TheBizWebCoach.com
- Peter Shankman, Founder, Help a Reporter (HARO)
I was looking forward to this panel, and it didn’t disappoint. I also learned that Peter Shankman never needs more coffee – he’s animated enough as it is!
Bullet Point Review!
- A good pitch solves a problem.
- This might be common sense, but DON’T PLAGIARIZE!
- Make sure you have a discussion with young PR people that plagiarizing is NOT ok.
- Know who you’re pitching to! It will help determine the angle of your pitch.
- Resource: The Bad Pitch Blog
- Take 5 seconds and read what a reporter wants & oblige – that will get you in the door to just follow submission directions.
- No attachments – filters often delete those emails.
- A reporter must be able to get the point of your pitch in 7 seconds.
- Getting attention from a blogger is different than getting attention from traditional media.
- Leave comments consistently to get noticed.
- If you develop a personal relationship, it’ll help.
- Use the reporter’s name in blog posts.
- Make your pitch sound like a scoop, like you’re an industry insider.
- Do something timely and a little different to get noticed.
- Book: Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work–And Why Your Company Needs Them
- Some reporters now will only accept pitches via Twitter.
- If you can’t pitch in 140 characters, you need to work on brevity anyway.
- Try live streaming and letting people interact with you in real time.
- Twitter has replaced focus groups with the use of search.
- Publish your news wherever you can, like blogs.
- Book: Marketing Outrageously: How to Increase Your Revenue by Staggering Amounts!
- Press releases will be obsolete very soon.
- Resource: Twittering Journalists Wiki
I don’t remember there actually being a Q&A in this session. If there was, I think I included any good points in my notes already.
Overall this was an excellent session. They really didn’t use any slides, so I can’t share any. But with a session like this, it was more about their past experience and real-world knowledge than any special slides or data.
