I’m a lover of both Chris Brogan and Peter Shankman, but I have to say that I took more from this keynote than Chris’.  I was surprised that Peter wasn’t TOO hyperactive, but was still incredibly entertaining and engaging.

• Peter Shankman, Founder & CEO, The Geek Factory (Twitter @skydiver)

Bullet Point Review!

• HARO has grown to just under 100,000 subscribers in 14 months.
• It’s helped 24,000 journalists.
• $0 to just over $1,000,000 revenue in 14 months.
• Peter worked at AOL News launching their digital news.
• You can’t make anything viral, but you can make something good.
• Social media is trust.
• Social media is the ability to screw up to a bigger audience in a faster amount of time.
• We’re a society that loves to be finders.
• Doing something to be nice gets you remembered, not just recalled.
• We covet what we know.
• 4 Ideals of Social Media
  • Transparency -> Immediate Trust -> Viral
  • Relevant
  • Brevity
  • Top of Mind Presence
• Social media is 2 way communication – you must be prepared to talk and listen and respond.
• Giving people what they want, when they want it.
• Have you ever asked your audience how they like to get their information?
• The average attention span is 2.7 seconds, or 140 characters.  (Coincidence, Twitter?)
• There are three categories email falls into
  • Ones you can answer immediately and delete.
  • Ones you have to wait until you get back to the office to reply to.
  • Ones that aren’t getting to the point and require too much attention to figure out what it is they want or need from you.
• Learn how to write; take a class if you need to.
• You have 1 paragraph to get someone’s attention and keep them interested.
• Paramount Studios CEO Barry Diller was known for getting to the office 30 minutes early and opening his Rolodex and calling 4 or 5 people randomly just to say hi -> this created good will and helped build relationships that could later be leveraged.
• Peter checks Facebook every day and sends people a short note when it’s their birthday – this is his version of the Barry Diller method.

I know that now I have to find a Poken since they just look so cool and really start to think more about the altruism of business, something I don’t think most people think about.  As an added bonus, Peter showed us a video that was just GOOD and so it went viral.  Here it is – it’s a bit longer than a video I’d normally watch, but it’s worth it.  Funny yet touching.  Enjoy!

Here’s the recording of Peter’s Keynote as well for your viewing pleasure:

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Guest Post by Dominic Fawver.

Session Description: Businesses may be changing the way they look at web presence. Can you just have a blog? Is a Facebook presence alone a good idea? Does Web 2.0 mean the demise of websites?   The panel consisted of:

• Shashi Bellamkonda, Social Media Swami, Network Solutions (Twitter @shashib) (Moderator)
• Kelly Harman, President, Zephyr Strategy
• Melanie Mitchell, SVP, Search Strategy, Digitas (Twitter @melaniemitchell)
• Ramon Ray, Editor, Smallbiztechnology.com

This session gave an interesting and entertaining look into how the role of a website has been changed recently with the advent of Social Media.  One of the chief points that I took from the session was that your website should be the anchor for all the other forms of social media which you use.  Ramon Ray brought out some points that are easy to remember and contain a lot of useful tips, these are:

• Focus on the customer.
• Have a plan of action.
• Have an easy to remember name.
• Be informative.
• Security -  have as much as is needed for your site.
• Easy customer contact = good customer service.
• Have fresh content.
• Be found.
• Be simple.

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Guest Post by Dominic Fawver.

Session Description: Regardless what your role in the industry is, it’s important to be noticed within the industry. Learn the networking and social media techniques that make it possible.  The panel consisted of:

• Lisa Picarille, Online Marketing Consultant, LisaPicarille.com (Twitter @lisap) (Moderator)
• Michael Buechele, Owner, MikeBuechele.com (Twitter @mikebuechele)
• Trisha Lyn Fawver, Affiliate Manager, Paulson Management Group (Twitter @trishalyn)
• Jen Goode, Doodler in Charge, JGoode Designs (Twitter @JGoode)
• Stephanie Lichtenstein, Affiliate Program Manager, Andy Rodriguez Consulting (Twitter @StephARC)

This session, Getting Noticed FAST, contained a lot of valuable information from people who have gone from being a nobody in Affiliate Marketing to being well known by many of the top people in just a couple of years.  Some of the suggestions were:

“Get involved in the response…go to other sites and comment”   Jen Goode

“Start blogging”  Stephanie Lichtenstein

“Don’t flame people”  Trisha Fawver

“Do something different the first time you meet in person”  Mike Buechele

Many tips were given on the importance of using social media to get your name out there.  Also mentioned was the importance of personal branding and being consistent between all of the different forms of social media that you are on.

From the standpoint of someone who is new to Affiliate Marketing, this was a very good session with plenty of examples from the panelist’s personal experience.  It gave me ideas on where to start on getting noticed so that I can further a career in Affiliate Marketing (if I so chose) by meeting people who are already successful in the field and learn from their experiences and mistakes, while at the same time possibly being able to help them out with my own expertise.  In many cases it is not what you know, but who you know.

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