Affiliate Summit NY Social Media 2008 Wrap Up

Affiliate Summit NY Social Media 2008 was the first Affiliate Summit I have attended.  it was a great experience and I got to meet some new peeps which is always a plus.

Location: Affiliate Summit NY was located in NYC at Baruch College Vertical Campus Conference Center.  This college was actually quite nice.  When in the conference center it did not feel like being in a college.  The college is located near 24th street which is very easy to find free on the street parking on a Sunday.

Organization: Affiliate Summit runs one of the best organized shows I have ever been to.  When they say session 1 ends at 12:15pm and session 2 starts at 12:20pm they mean it.  The whole thing ran on time and Affiliate Summit did a great job of keeping it organized and treating attendees right.

From my understanding, this Affiliate Summit is quite small compared to Affiliate Summit East or Affiliate Summit West.  There was only 3 “exhibitors.”  The majority of this Summit was presenters in a lecture and Q&A type environment.

Now to the good stuff.  Let’s talk about the speakers I heard at this conference.

Opening Remarks

Jim Kukral (ScratchBack.com) – Jim was the master of ceremonies/moderator throughout the day.  I only have good things to say about him.  He is energetic and passionate about internet marketing (particularly through Social Media/Video).  He did a very good job of calling out speakers when they weren’t actually answering his questions.  I don’t know if this guy is always the big kahuna at Affiliate Summit’s but he should be because he is good and interesting.

Session #1 – Social Media and Affiliate Marketing

Don Crowther (Stompernet.com) – Don was up next.  He did a session on using Social Media to drive traffic and better rankings to your website.  Don touched on tons and tons of social networks including Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Digg, Propeller, Squidoo, Hub Pages and much more.  This guy shared a lot of useful info and seemed to really know the Social Media landscape well.

Session #2 – Gain Friends and Influence, With Video

Steve Rosenbaum (Magnify.net) – I wasn’t overly impressed with this guy.  Made a lot of jokes that were not remotely funny.

Melissa Salas (Buy.com) – Melissa is the Director of Marketing at Buy.com.  She is not just another pretty face.  Melissa has the smarts to compete with any ecommerce director of marketing out there.  She is well spoken and really seems to know Social Media well.  She made some excellent points about how video SELLS.  It bridges the gap between the people who are ok with just looking at a picture and buying online and those who need to see, touch and feel the product.

Session #3 – Social Media Case Studies

James Keating (ShopWiki.com) – James seemed very nervous while speaking.  He spoke about his site, ShopWiki.com, and how they use a web 2.0 interface as well as video reviews to sell products through affiliate links.  One point he made that was interesting is that if a user views a video review before clicking their affiliate link, the conversion rates double.  Might be time to do some testing on this theory.

Michael Jenkins (MarketLeverage.com) – Michael Jenkins is the CEO/Founder of Market Leverage.  He spoke about their push using social media, forums and blogs to develop a brand image and recruit new affiliates.  Michael told of their huge success in this department and seemed enthusiastic about Social Media.  They seem to put their money where their mouth is because during the entire Summit they had a women taking video of everything.  I’m sure this video will end up on their blog or facebook or something.  Michael seems like a smart cookie and also looks like Doogie Howser, so keep an eye on this guy.

Jivan Manhas (Advaliant) – Jivan is President of the affiliate network Advaliant.  He also spoke about how Advaliant used blogs and forums to get their message out.

Session #4 – Making Social Media Make Money

This session got pretty boring….probably because of the speakers.

Jay Berkowitz (Ten Golden Rules) – This guy was incredibly boring.  He decided to run through a 50 slide powerpoint presentation in 15 minutes.  His speech seemed self serving to me and he handed out papers to everyone to subscribe to some of his offerings.  His presentation/aura reminded me of going to a Rotary meeting.

Shashi Bellamkonda (Network Solutions) – What did this guy say?  I think it was something about making social profiles for potato chips?  I’m not surprised that he works for Network Solutions.

Larry Bailin (Single Throw Internet Marketing) – Larry was the most interesting out of the bunch.  He spoke about some interesting social media campaigns that he developed.  I dug this guy.

Session #5 – Leveraging Social Networks

I was looking forward to this session all day so myself, Jon From Wickedfire, Ian Fernando and a few other guys grabbed first row seats.

Sachin Agarwal (Dawdle.com) – Sachin is President AND CEO of Dawdle.com.  Sachin is also completely obnoxious to listen to and is redesigning his video game website to look like a skin care website.  He hogs the microphone and I suspect that his parents didn’t give him enough attention growing up.  Sachin did however have the Ad Hustler approved quote of the day.  An audience member asked the panel if they ever tried Second Life as a social network.  Sachin’s response went something like this:

Everything in Second Life is just flying penises….it’s just flying penises!

Zac Johnson (ZacJohnson.com) – I know this guy claims to be a super affiliate and all.  He very well may be, BUT he is not a great speaker, nor does he really seem too confident in whatever it is that he’s trying to say.  He tried to make a point about how you can target girls who like to fish and serve them dating ads on Social Media, but it didn’t really make sense.

Adam From Azoogle (AzoogleAds.com) – This was the first time I ever met Adam.  He was quite an articulate and honest speaker.  If someone asked him a question he didn’t know the answer to, he simply said so rather then trying to come up with a stupid response.  He spoke about how Azoogle publishers are using Social Media more and more as a traffic source, to where that may become an actual traffic source on affiliate networks just as is Web, Search, Email etc.  It was interesting hearing about buying Social Media and how publishers are using it to their advantage from the Network point of view.

I had to leave Summit around the end of this session to go to a prior engagement.  Overall I liked being at Affiliate Summit.  It was a great place to gain some knowledge and do some networking at the same time.  If you have not been to an Affiliate Summit yet, I highly suggest buying your tickets to Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas immediately.  I will be there and hope to meet some new people.

Please Note: I do receive a Press Pass to Affiliate Summit which get’s me in for free however, all statements and thoughts are my own opinions.

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