The answer at the end of this post (no peeking).

What started this off was Revenue editor-in-chief’s post about video blogging and wondering why the majority of video bloggers seem to be male.

Is it an issue of looks? Or vanity?

Internet Geek Girl Stephanie Agresta weighed in:





Shedding some insight was Shawn with some disturbingly (more…)

• Video Marketing
• 0 comment

Or should that be “Words”?

However, you cut it and define it, there’re marketers out there who do their best to make use of Twitter, Squidoo, Hubpages, MySpace, Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr, Metacafe, Youtube, Revver, forums and other social networking site (of the “Web 2.0” ilk) to generate adsense or affiliate income.

Some of them are spectacularly successful, while others just flame up and die, and have their accounts deleted en-masse.

So is Web 2.0 a “dead” technology for marketers?

Are Web 2.0 site destined to become a dead graveyard populated by “internet polluters“?

I don’t think so.

This issue came up during the taping of a Friday Podcast session with Affiliate Classroom’s Marketing VP and affiliate marketing industry veteran Rachel Honoway.

I was pretty impressed that Web 2.0-based affiliates ranked alongside SEO, PPC, Coupon, shopping comparison and other types of profiled affiliates in Affiliate Classroom’s new AC Certified program for Affiliate Managers.

If you recall, Jim Kukral presented a session on “Bloggers as the Next Generation of Super Affiliates” at Affiliate Summit West 2007.

And it’s great to see these new generation of affiliate marketers being profiled in the new program, and even better, there’re tips for new and experienced affiliate managers to reach out to these marketers.

But back to “Web 2.0” for a second.

If you’ve been reading this blog over the last couple of weeks, you’d pick up the thread that this (more…)

• Internet Marketing
• 5 Comments

I’ve landed in Singapore after a gruelling 17 hour 30 minute non-stop flight from LAX to Singapore (considerably shorter than the 20+ hour flight with a stopover in Tokyo or Hong Kong) and promptly took a 7-hour afternoon nap. I do love working my own hours…

At Affiliate Summit West with ASW co-founders Shawn Collins and Missy Ward

If it was your first Affiliate Summit or you would like to get more out of your trip, here’re my suggestions:

• Follow Up

Yes, you can mass mail all the people you met, but social marketing/conversational marketing is what’s going to give you an edge in building relationships and bringing your business to the next level. Include a personal note, talk about winning (more…)

• affiliate marketing
• 2 Comments

With the Affiliate Summit just days away, here’re a few pointers especially if it’s your first time to the summit:

• Vegas Throat: Specific to Las Vegas, you will lose your voice very easily if you don’t take care of your throat. The dry desert air creates a lot of static electricity, it also dries out your throat and you’ll find yourself losing your voice at the end of day 1 or day 2 if you don’t drink enough liquids or take throat lozenges to give your throat a break. Also worth trying a a honey drink at the end of the day (real honey, not that cheap honey-flavored sugar syrup typically sold at grocery stores). I’m bringing a herbal throat syrup that I expect will do wonders (known in Chinese as “Nin Jiom Pei Pa Koa”.
• Camera/Video Camera/Flip Camera: Do the touristy thing and take lots of photos during the summit. Better yet, take lots of pictures with people so you can remember what they look like. It’s fairly safe to assume that 90% of bloggers will look NOTHING like what their avatar looks like. (present company included).
• Business Cards: Yes, the reciprocity thing takes place. I give you my card, you give me your card. Generally a great practise, although if you live in the US, you can expect to get lots of follow up calls over the next week. The most important thing about collecting business cards is to follow up within a week after the summit, something that Stephanie Agresta (AKA Internet Geek Girl) is great at. On another note, if you’re like me and collect a couple of hundred business card each year, be sure to carry a pen and scribble “ASW08” on the back of the card, especially after you put it in the huge pile in your office later.
• It’s COLD: Expect a low of 32 deg F according to the weather forecasts, so bring a heavy coat if you get chilly.
• Networks ahead of the summit: Contact people and companies you’d like to meet, especially if you go through the exhibitors list, or if you know that a particular affiliate or blogger is headed over. Some of the people I’m looking forward to meeting: Heather Paulson, Stephanie Agresta, Sam Harrelson, James and Arlene Martell, Jim Lillig, NeverblueAds’ Samantha Brachat, Revenuewire CEO Geordie Carswell. I talk to many of these folks on a daily basis, but it’s always great to meet up in person.
• Take the shuttle bus: If you’re not in a great hurry, the shuttle bus at the airport costs $7 and goes to the major hotels. The taxi ride costs $20 and is a whole lot faster, but you’ll not see as much of the Strip as you would from the bus.
• Plan your schedule: There’s lots of exciting stuff going on at the summit at any single point in time, so you need to work out a schedule of where you want to be at what time. Else there’s a good chance you’ll miss a meeting or miss a workshop session because you were out on the show floor talking to people.
• Get enough rest: With the summit lasting three days, it’s not too bad. But by the morning of day 2, you’ll start to see people dragging themselves along, or mysteriously disappearing in the afternoon to catch some rest. If you rest up on Friday and Saturday, you should have enough energy to last through the event (even with some parties going on till 4am…)
• ***Most important***: Have a goal and an agenda in mind: Are you at the summit to check out a specific affiliate/CPA network? Visit their website, talk to other affiliates before you attend the show. Are you there to network with a particular individual or company? Visit their blog, find out if they haunt a specific forum and read their posts there. If I were an affiliate manager, and if I was motivated to recruit new affiliates, I’d compile a “hit list” of the top 50 (or if I was really motivated top 100) affiliates, I’d visit their blog or website, and check them out, make some notes. Contrary to popular belief, just having ONE canned presentation doesn’t cut it. Sad to say, but going to every booth and being told “we have the highest payouts, and we have many exclusive offers” makes for quite the yawn-fest. I think being able to present your product and your network in a unique fashion, helps pique the interest of experienced affiliates who’re already have accounts on 10 other CPA networks. So please, have a little pow-wow before heading to the summit, figure out a plan of attack that goes beyond “highest payout, exclusive offers” and you will definitely hook more than your fair share of super affiliates.

Does anyone have other advice?

• affiliate marketing
• 9 Comments

I got a short and sweet question today “Is blogging dead?
I was planning to start a blog, but I heard that I should create and optimize a Facebook profile instead.
What’s your advice?”

–
That’s an interesting question and let me do my best to you an interesting answer.

If you read Stephanie Agresta (AKA Internet Geek Girl’s) post “Blogging is not dead (but I am really busy)“, you’d realize that like a lot of popular bloggers (eg. Sam Harrelson, Wayne Porter, Jim Kukral and Co), Steph has reduced the frequency of her “long form” (eg. WordPress blogging), in favor of micro-blogging (eg. Twitter and it’s companions).

So blogging is not “dying” nor will it “die” anytime soon.

The significant issue at hand is to get a grip on your long term business growth.

Are you being overly tactical – looking at the micro level of your business – whether you should set up a squidoo page, a hubpage, a facebook profile, throw up a social community site…

When really you need to be more strategic in nature!

If you need an analogy – strategic or being long term-focused means looking at the forest, and fashioning a master plan.

Being tactical means you’re looking at an individual tree and trying to optimize it. Taking care of the day-to-day. so to speak.

Don’t get me wrong, you NEED to be tactical in nature when you’re going into a new niche and building up your skills, but you shouldn’t be (more…)

• Internet Marketing
• 1 Comment