Affiliate Marketing Fanatics #59: A Gateway Conference
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Affiliate Marketing Fanatics – A couple of hyper-caffeinated affiliate marketers (Mike Buechele) and (Trisha Lyn Fawver) talk about all things Affiliate Marketing. From blogging to branding, social media to search, video and more!
Mike and I jump back into the saddle with this whole podcasting thing. We talk briefly about how great Affiliate Summit West 2012 was, get off track in some places, and try to get the innocent kids in the Midwest hooked on some affiliate marketing conference goodness. In in this episode we discuss:
- Affiliate Summit Central – a gateway conference to bigger conferences.
- Speculation about the night life of Austin, TX.
- Anybody using Pinterest? Thread on the Affiliate Summit Forum
- The Story of Skimlinks and Pinterest by Shawn Collins
- Pinterest “Pin It” Button WordPress Plugin
- 0% of Affiliate Marketers are Female. Say whaa? The rebutted 10 Great Women of Affiliate Marketing
- Some chatter about the Affiliate Summit Meetups in NY and SF
Find us on Twitter: @AMF_Podcast, @MikeBuechele & @TrishaLyn. Like us on Facebook! Be old fashioned and just leave us a comment!
Special thanks to GeekCast.fm for hosting Affiliate Marketing Fanatics!
Read MoreAffiliate Marketing Fanatics 57: Geek Cast Wannabes
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Affiliate Marketing Fanatics – A couple of hyper-caffeinated affiliate marketers (Mike Buechele) and (Trisha Lyn Fawver) talk about all things Affiliate Marketing. From blogging to branding, social media to search, video and more!
It seems longing for a simpler time, back when we all religiously listened to Geek Cast, is a virus that’s going around. Before the band got back together last week on Affiliate Thing, we had a similar idea to emulate that model for fun. Mike is back, and we were also joined by Wade Tonkin of Fanatics and Drew Bennett of BenSpark.com. In in this episode we discuss:
- Our collective love of the original Geek Cast with Shawn Collins, Sam Harrelson, Jim Kukral, and Lisa Picarille.
- The passing of Steve Jobs… would the reaction be similar if Bill Gates had passed?
CityCrashVille Hometown on iPad.- Speculating on what Affiliate Summit Central will be.
- Upcoming Affiliate Summit West in January and how the session voting is going.
- Mike’s recap of the New York Comic Con
Find us on Twitter: @AMF_Podcast, @MikeBuechele & @TrishaLyn. Like us on Facebook! Be old fashioned and just leave us a comment!
Special thanks to GeekCast.fm for hosting Affiliate Marketing Fanatics!
Read MoreWhat #ASE11 Sessions I’m Voting For
Let the games begin! Voting has opened up for Affiliate Summit East 2011. While some people have not been happy with this voting system, I think it evens the playing field nicely. As well, it clears any conspiracy theories about how sessions are chosen.
Before I begin, I will say I have a horse in this game. I’ve submitted a panel, The Future of Coupons in Affiliate Marketing, for consideration. If picked, I’ll be moderating this panel with industry coupon veterans Mike Allen (Shopping-Bargains.com), Connie Berg (FlamingoWorld.com), Carolyn Tang Kmet (Groupon.com), and Kim Rowley (ShoppingBookmarks.com). Please take a moment to register, confirm, then vote for our panel!
Okay, that being said, these are the panels I’m voting for. All of them have very intelligent speakers, well thought out ideas, and will offer merchants and affiliates great insight into the topics.
- It’s Not Your Mother’s Affiliate Program
- Creatives Deliver Success
- Evolution of Local Search
- Do-Not-Track? Not-So-Fast
- Killing the Affiliate Nexus Tax Dead!
- Got an Idea? Make it a Reality.
- 10 Questions for a Prospective Affiliate Manager
- A World Without Cookie Tracking
- How to Convince Online Shoppers You’re Real
- Learn to Create a Likeworthy Facebook Page
- Social Media in Niche Markets
- Merchant ABCs – Launching a New Merchant Program
- How to Avoid FTC Scrutiny in Advertising
- Affiliate Improv!
- Are Your Affiliates Adding Value?
1st Affiliate Summit Day SF Recap
The first ever Affiliate Summit Day Meet Up happened on Tuesday. I’ve had a lot of time to digest, and it was definitely a great time. Knowing ahead of time that my best method of transportation into San Francisco would be BART, I was relieved to see that the meet up location was just 2 short blocks from the BART station. I was delighted to wander up to Kate O’Briens to see the familiar faces of Julie Vazquez, Lisa Picarille, and Murray Newlands congregating outside the bar.
Inside, more affiliate marketers! More familiar faces guided me through the crowd to point out where our nerdy group was assembled, but also, more patrons belonging to the group generally referred to as the “public”. I really enjoyed talking to a few new folks, and was especially flattered when someone approached me, already knowing my name, and proceeded to thank me for the knowledge I shared during our Get Noticed Fast presentation at Affiliate Summit East 2009 in New York. How nice!
Scheduled to speak was Murray Newlands about site monetiztion, however due to some unexpected limitations of the bar (noise, other patrons, space, etc) the presentation was scrapped. Hopefully Murray will just shift his presentation to next month’s meet up!
All in all, it was great. A little rough, but hey it was the first one! Huge thanks to Lisa Picarille for organizing the event – I’m sure it was NOT an easy task! In case you live under a rock & haven’t heard, Affiliate Summit Day is going to happen once a month on the last Tuesday of each month. You can follow the fun and track where your local meet up is happening on Meetup.com
Affiliate Marketing Fanatics 49: Interviewing Stephanie Lichtenstein, Lisa Picarille, & Lisa Riolo
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Affiliate Marketing Fanatics – A couple of hyper-caffeinated affiliate marketers (Mike Buechele) and (Trisha Lyn Fawver) talk about all things Affiliate Marketing. From blogging to branding, social media to search, video and more!
Presenting the last in our series of interviews with speakers at Affiliate Summit West 2011, coming up next week at the Wynn Casino in Las Vegas. This time, we talk to Stephanie Lichtenstein, Lisa Picarille, & Lisa Riolo about their panel “Profit from Trendspotting”. Fourth panelist Scott Jangro was unable to join us, but we reference him plenty! In in this episode we discuss:
- The panelists include Scott Jangro of Mech Media, Stephanie Lichtenstein of Micro Media Marketing, Lisa Picarille of MyContentPro.com, & Lisa Riolo of Impact Radius.
- Lisa Picarille is the brain child of the panel, having spoken on trend spotting before at previous conferences.
- Stephanie will be discussing some different techniques to spot trends in the marketplace & pop culture.
- They’ll review the types of trends and how to spot them & how to make money!
- Check out http://bit.ly/dO0cxE for a live example of how the new question asking technology works.
- Reach out on Twitter to them: @jangro, @lisap, @lisariolo, & @microsteph or find their brands on Twitter if you’re interested in doing business with them: @MyContentPro1, @ImpactRadius, & @MicroMediaMktg
Want to catch up with us & ask questions for the next show? Find us on Twitter: @AMF_Podcast, @MikeBuechele & @TrishaLyn. Like us on Facebook! You can also ask Trisha questions through FormSpring.me. Or leave us a comment!
Special thanks to GeekCast.fm for hosting Affiliate Marketing Fanatics.
Read MoreASE10 Experience Extravaganza: Saturday Night & Sunday
Where do I begin? For maybe the first time ever, I don’t have a plethora of post-conference posts planned for this blog. This is mostly due to the fact that the only session I attended, aside from both keynotes, was the one I was speaking in. I spent the majority of my time at this summer’s Affiliate Summit East 10 behind a table talking to people about For Me To Coupon. Nor did I use a single drink ticket provided by the staff! Overall I was able to get some great networking jammed into my time in New York, as well as catching up with old friends from all over that congregate at Affiliate Summits like a family reunion. BUT, let me tell you some great things about the parties I attended & working the show based in the expo hall – something I haven’t done in a couple of years since my days at PsPrint.
Before I go into my long recap, some housekeeping. For the sake of keeping my long recount of the weeks events from overwhelming you, I’m going to devote separate posts to each keynote, my disgust at some things that have become common behavior at conferences, the Audience Conference, & something we like to call Affiliate Super Friends. So keep an eye out for those posts in the next few days…
Saturday Night: ABestWeb.com Reception & Buy.at Black & White Affair
Saturday night, after I was done with the Audience Conference and had some dinner & a nice short rest, it was all about the parties. What lovely parties, put on by some lovely folks! First was the ABestWeb.com reception, put on at Cinema the Brasserie. Don’t be fooled, this was no movie theater – it was a very open feeling restaurant with a small lounge area near the bar that we inhabited. I drank a lovely white wine while chatting with some great people. Appetizers were passed around along with great conversation with other posters from the ABW forums. I was able to put some faces to screen names of a few folks I didn’t know in person, and also able to catch up with some old regulars. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m no where NEAR an old hat on the ABW forums, but I do like the crowd of posters that tend to show up when events are thrown.
Directly after, we walked over to the Buy.at party being thrown at trendy Inc Lounge. I LOVED the interior and vibe of the party when we first arrived. As a new advertiser on their network, Ghirardelli was sponsoring the shindig, so the trays of chocolate desserts were everywhere! There were comfy couches to hang back on, which was very well received by my tired feet after walking there from the ABW party. At the beginning of the evening as people trickled it, it was nice to sit & chat, have some drinks, and talk… but as more and more people showed up, it got very loud and hot and crowded. To me, it turned from chill lounge to something closer to a night club, which really isn’t my cup of tea. So a group of us left a bit earlier than the scheduled end time of the party & headed back to the deli across from the Hilton for some snacks before bed.
Sunday: Podcasting 101, the Meet Market, Newcomers, & ShareASale’s Under the Stars Party
To keep it short, I think our panel, Podcasting 101, went really well. If you were unable to attend, you can view the slide presentation here. My voice was almost gone from yelling to speak to people at parties, but I made it work. We didn’t have many people when the session began, but more filtered in…probably after they bum rushed the ShareASale meet market table to get their party passes first :). We got some good feedback from people, and I hope this finds a life beyond Affiliate Summit via the presentations and videos.
After the presentation and some questions afterward, I booked it over to the package room to grab the flyers & notepads we’d had shipped to the hotel in my name, then upstairs to the Meet Market to relieve Forrest at the FMTC table and deliver the goodies. BIG thank you to an unknown gentleman from Woot.com who noticed my struggle with the three boxes and kindly carried one up to the Meet Market for me! We sat for the remainder of the meet market talking to people about the service, save for one trip I made down to the sundry shop to grab some beverages and the short opportunity I had to walk around. Because most of my time was spent at the table chatting with folks, I didn’t get a chance to check out all the other tables, but I did walk an aisle or two to hit some that caught my eye (both via their products/services and brightly colored swag).
After carrying our materials down to the FMTC booth, I headed over to the Newcomer Program meet up, headed by the lovely Jen Goode. There I met my super newcomer Jennifer from Affordable Style, who opted to gift me with a fantastic purse from one of their brands HandbagHeaven.com. I am very glad that Jennifer seemed to really get a lot of help from what I clued her in on about the summit & she was able to have a very productive first conference and learn a lot about affiliate marketing in general while there.
Instead of dinner, we went straight to the ShareASale Under the Stars party at the Empire Hotel, with a promise of food. We had some difficulty getting a cab in the rain as someone jumped into our rightfully gotten cab, and then had to stand in the rain outside the hotel waiting for the bouncers to let us inside as the line for the elevator was longer than space inside the lobby would allow. As usual, SAS knows how to throw a spectacular party! Despite the rooftop bar location, the venue had rolling awnings so no one was rained on, drinks flowed freely, and appetizers were passed around. The appetizers only seemed to last for about an hour or so as droves of people started showing up. It got crowded quickly, and a couple hours into the party we’d reached capacity and people were being turned away. Some say this is because the bouncers downstairs stopped checking for the SAS party invites and let just anyone in, but I can’t really confirm this beyond people telling me that no one asked to see the pass they had. It’s a shame that people were turned away, but I guess that just means a bigger venue next time! Or, tighter controls on invitations 🙂
Don’t worry your pretty head… there’s more to come when I recap Monday and Tuesday! Please feel free to view all the photos I took in New York: Affiliate Summit East 2010 on Flickr
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