Affiliate Summit Social Media 2008: Valuable Facts!

Article By: Joshua ‘The Red’ Russak (Red@aclion.com)

I recently attended the Affiliate Summit Social Media Conference in NYC. It took place last Sunday, October 5th at Baruch College. It was a rather small venue compared the Affiliate Summit East in Boston, but their goal was clear: “Social Media Success!” And to be honest, I picked up mixed reviews from the affiliates in the crowd.

The summit started off with Keynote speaker, Don Crowther, Social Media and Blogging Expert. His advice was very effective for Experienced and Beginners alike. In reference to Social Media Marketing: “If you do it wrong in this business, it can be a huge dissadvantage!” He went on to bring quite a few surprising key facts: Facebook almost equals the amount of Google pageviews, Myspace actually got more page views than google last year, YouTube almost doubled Google! Then he went on to discuss strategy. I wasn’t too happy to hear his opinion that Movable Type Publishing was better than WordPress because it had better search engine rankings. When asked why? “B/c it’s paid for”. Unlike WordPress, you pay for MTP which means better quality service. Well – according to everything else he was telling the audience – if you apply these social media tips, it won’t matter which platform you use! “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist, just do it appropriately!” (~Don)
He ran a very interesting test. He took 5,000 of the top terms in Google (Money terms worth 50 cents or more for the #2 spot) and he found that “18% of all first page results were social media – 2 sites per page!” And he showed us quite a few examples where the social media site outranked the actual company. From this he derived that all a company needs is GOOD SEM on one side and SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING on the other. And here are the tools he referenced: Squidoo, HubPages, WetPaint, Twitter, StomperNet.com, Google Keyword Tool, Last.Fm, Digg, and many more (MANY MORE!). As for Video, you should be doing Video Reviews, Video Blogs, etc. . He referred the audience to Camtasia and Screenflow. It’s the software you use to record your Desktop. Very applicable for training, powerpoints, presentations, etc. Also, bringing in Guest’s for interviewing creates amazing content. Then promote it in one of 2 ways. You CAN go to each video site and upload each video individually or use TubeMogul to do it all in one shot and manage your trafic.
One final warning from Dan. “Follow the Best-Practices: DO NOT USE AUTO-BOOKMARKERS, ONLY BOOKMARK YOUR A+ BEST STUFF, SUBMIT OTHER PEOPLE’S STUFF (6:1 ratio), DON’T COPY AND PASTE THE SAME DESCRIPTIONS”.
In my opinion, I could have easily left at this point feeling accomplished. But there was no way I was going to miss the next session: “Gain Friend and Infuence, With Video – Learn how to leverage video to increase brand engagement, time spent on site, and page views. Explore the tools and techniques to use when testing out video” Totally worth it. The session involved the following:

• Jim Kukral, Owner, ScratchBack.com (Moderator)
• Steve Rosenbaum, CEO and Founder, Magnify.net
• Melissa Salas, Director of Marketing, Buy.com
  

Not as valuable for me as the first session, but the audience remained hooked and interested as I looked around the room. I particularly enjoyed Melissa’s participation. I knew I recognized her. Besides acting as Director of Marketing for Buy.com, she is also Co-Host of the TV show, BuyTV, that airs weekly on G4. And I’ve seen Steve Rosenbaum at quite a few local events including the most recent Jeff Pulver Breakfast. To properly cover this one, I took down quite a few valuable quotes:

• Steve: “I think you’ll see longer videos as time goes on”
• Steve: “The advantage of short = you leave the audience wanting more”
• Melissa: “If it’s not Rich Media, it’s not interesting!”
• Steve: “There’s an enourmous amount of money out to find quality pre-roll!”
• Steve: “YouTube is a failed Social Network!”

Yea…as you can see, they covered quite a few areas of video. And it was worth getting a picture in with Melissa as you can see in the flickr SlideShow at the top of this post. At this point there was a break for lunch and networking. I met up with Jim Kukral and found that to be quite valuable. He was one of the main reasons I took my blog in a new direction (as you’ll start to see in the coming weeks).
The sessions I attended after lunch included:

• Michael Jenkins, CEO/Founder, MarketLeverage
• Michael Jenkins, CEO/Founder, MarketLeverage
• James Keating, VP of Marketing, ShopWiki
• Jivan Manhas, President, Advaliant, a Division of MediaTrust
• Larry Bailin, CEO, Single Throw Internet Marketing
• Shashi Bellamkonda, Social Media Swami, Network Solutions
• Jay Berkowitz, CEO, Ten Golden Rules

…but at that point, the room was starting to clear out! I mean COME ONNNN, it was a Sunday! Half of the crowd was probably hung over form the night before. All I can say was that from what I attended, it was well worth it in terms of quality training and networking. Check out their next event in Vegas if you can make it!