Affiliate Summit East 2010 Archives - Motherhood, Marketing, and Medical Mayhem

Haiku for Sarah Evans

: Haikus relax you and Journchat gets you wound up! from Crestock Creative Photos

Perhaps we should rename this portion of my blog, “Contests From The Woman Who Can’t Turn Down A Dare.”

I mentioned #journchat in my favorite Twitter chats post several months ago and along with it #journchat founder Sarah Evans. I’ve chatted online with Sarah a few times both during #journchat and at other non-#journchat times and I’ve always been amazed at how knowledgeable and genuinely nice she is. But this isn’t a post about Sarah. I got an email from Liz Pope, Media and Research Manager at Sevans Strategy, who read my blog and double dared me to enter the contest to join Sarah during a special edition of #journchat live from the NBC News Studios in NYC on August 9, 2010. The contest and #journchat are sponsored by Cision who makes public relations software – you’ll see why you need to know what Cision is in just a few lines.

I enjoy #journchat because PR is not something I learned in school or something I’ve done often in my 22+ years of advertising and marketing experience. I’ve only worked on the edges of doing public relations activities, but I think that with social media becoming more important in many companies’ marketing strategy, public relations lessons go a long way toward teaching the right things to do in social media. Companies need to treat everyone as if they were a journalist, because with social media they are!

Soooo…since I can’t seem to be able to turn down a double dare, here’s my Haiku for Liz Pope and Sarah Evans:

Smart Sarah Evans
Journchat NBC Thrilling
Cision software too?

I’ll be in NYC for Affiliate Summit East 2010 the following week, so I’m not sure that either my boss or my family would appreciate me heading up there twice in the same week! With that said, I did think the contest was a great idea and hopefully if Sarah is still around from the 14th to the 18th when I’m in New York, I’d love to connect!

I’m looking forward to meeting with so many of my affiliate friends during #ASE10 – will you be there? Drop me a note, or post a comment below letting me know when you’re there and let’s set something up! Want to attend #ASE10 but don’t have a pass? I have ONE Gold Pass that I’m happy to give (at no charge) to the first person who asks for it – either via a comment below, or by sending me an @ or DM on Twitter, but don’t wait too late because I hear #ASE10 will be sold out soon and then my Gold Pass offer expires.

: #SMchat Global communication from Crestock Creative Photos

In November 2008, Dr. Ralph Wilson interviewed Affiliate Summit co-founder Shawn Collins and the video of that interview contains several great ideas that are still relevant and able to be implemented successfully today! Shawn talked about being a part of the community on Twitter (and all social media) and since it’s the last #SMchat I’m moderating before Affiliate Summit East 2010 so I wanted to find out the prevailing attitude of my community about affiliates in the social media sphere.

Are you an affiliate, merchant, network, in-house or outsourced program manager? Don’t know anything about affiliate programs, but want to learn more? Please share your opinion and your insights on affiliates and social media during #SMchat, Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 from 1-2P ET, and/or meet me at Affiliate Summit East 2010 (an affiliate link in honor of my affiliate friends) and let’s chat in person!

After introducing yourself and letting everyone know what your interest is in affiliate marketing (“just curious” is definitely an option here…), I’d love to know how you feel about affiliates using social media marketing. Here’s what I’m wondering:

1 ) Should affiliates be able to promote using social media? Why or why not?

2 ) Is there a social media channel that is better for affiliates to use? Which one(s)?

3 ) Can a merchant’s Terms and Conditions exclude affiliates advertising via certain social media activities? (How does that impact affiliate sign-ups, etc.?)

4 ) How should affiliates disclaim the FTC Revised Endorsement Rules in social media? Do they need to do it at all?

5 ) How do you monitor use/abuse of social media by affiliates? Are they allowed to link directly to your site similar to direct-to-merchant pay per click (DTM PPC)?

What other questions do you have? Please feel free to leave them in the comments below or ask them when you join us on 7/14/10 from 1-2P ET on the Twitter chat #SMchat – see you then!

: Sharon and T2 visit the Grand Canyon prior to Affiliate Summit West 2010

As you know from my post on January 11th – Affiliate Summit West 2010 Here I Come – I attended the Affiliate Summit conference in Las Vegas last week. It all started at the end of 2009, when Jason Rubacky from ShareASale sent me a direct message on Twitter: ‘If I can get you a pass, would that help?” Since he was replying to my lament at MEDEX’s new affiliate program not having the budget to go to Affiliate Summit West 2010 (ASW10) this year, my answer was a heart-felt thank you for the kind offer! From that auspicious beginning, I knew ASW10 would be a lucky conference for me!

My husband, T2, and I flew in early so we could enjoy some time together before the conference began. We decided to play in a cash poker tournament on Saturday morning to practice for the Affiliate Summit Charity Poker Tournament to benefit the National Breast Cancer Foundation being held Saturday night. I’m not a very experienced poker player, but T2 really enjoys it so I’ll sometimes play in a tournament situation (where I know I’ll only lose a set amount of money) with him. Am I ever glad I did! We ended up coming in first (T2) and second (me) in the tournament! The winnings paid for an amazing helicopter trip to the Grand Canyon on Saturday afternoon (see the picture from our trip above)!

After our helicopter ride, T2 and I were invited to the ABestWeb.com party, where I proceeded to win a goodie bag from Team Loxly Marketing! Then it was off to the Charity Poker Tournament where T2 came in 11th and I came in 6th out of nearly 100 players! By the time the tournament was over, it was nearly 2AM Sunday so it was off to bed so T2 could make his plane the next day and I could head for the Meet Market and the first sessions of ASW10.

I was lucky enough to see Brian Littleton trying on his handmade ShareASale-logoed sweater while picking up my ticket to the amazing ShareASale party on Sunday evening. After Sunday’s sessions it was off to meet my ASW10 mentor, Karen Garcia, from GTO Management. After the Mentor Meet-up was the ShareASale party, where you didn’t have to be lucky to enjoy fun, food, and games ranging from Wii Sports to darts to craps, roulette, blackjack and poker because ShareASale picked up the tab for everything! They even had a moon bounce if you were so inclined…

Although it was midnight on Sunday night/Monday morning, several of us headed from the ShareASale party to the Strike Out Breast Cancer Midnight Bowling Fundraiser sponsored by GTO Management where sometimes being UNlucky is lucky! My team won the “Low Score” award and I won the “Most Gutterballs” award, plus a “Spare When It Counts” award – all from Things from Another World, a GTO client and sponsor of the event along with BowlingShirt.com who provided great retro bowling shirts for all attendees.

I got a few hours sleep before Monday’s keynote and sessions began. After the sessions and a trip around the Exhibit Hall, it was time for the Affiliate Summit Trivia Tweetup. Although my team had a few technical difficulties (ask our team captain Brent Elias about that great football event called the Triple Crown…) we pulled off a come-from-behind win and received Gold Passes to Affiliate Summit East 2010 in August!

And my luck didn’t stop there! After another full day including the Pinnacle Awards presentation, keynote, and sessions on Tuesday, I found out that I won a gift card from the NY Times Store due to my visit of the buy.at booth! Heading to dinner from that unexpected luck, I was fortunate enough to meet up with Jen Goode in the hallway and get an invite to dinner with her and about a dozen of her nearest-and-dearest friends (or at least those lucky enough to catch up with her before they ate) following the Blogger Meet-up. A nice, interactive dinner with a mix of people I knew already and new people that I just met was the luckiest part of the trip!

Were you as lucky as I was at ASW10? Please let me know by posting a comment below!

Haiku for Sarah Evans

Affiliates & Social Media: #SMchat Topic July 2010

The Luckiest Girl In Vegas!