Guide: Social Media & Affiliate Marketing (Speaker's Notes)

After the presentation that I did at the A4U Expo many people asked for more information so I agreed to flesh out my views here. So here goes. I do give some of my "secrets" or competitive advantage away so I hope that you wouldn't directly compete with me on all of my sites using the methods I detail below ;-). If you wanted to download it as a pdf then you can here.

Slide 1:


To me the biggest opportunities that affiliates have when it comes to social media is the ability to quickly monetise "Buzz". My view of buzz is the ability to monetise new product launches such as the new iPhone or the Zune MP3 Player. You can also monetise sporting buzz such as the qualifying for the Euro 2008 tournament or the football world cup. You can even do stuff that is just generally in the news such as the Chikungunya Virus that was sweeping across the Indian Subcontinent, people such as Carlos Tevez.

Social media allows you to base a whole site around or add features to a long-standing affiliate site. It's also important to note that you don't always have to update your blogs (if you use that method) regularly - but it helps).

I often start sites a couple of years or a year before they will be come "mass-market" to see how they're picked up. If I don't think they'll earn sufficient returns from my input I'll reduce the amount I post to them.

Also social media isn't new. Affiliates have been using it since the start of affiliate marketing by using newsgroups, bulletin-boards and email.

But it's important to note that with so many "routes to market" for affiliates, e.g. PPC, SEO, Email, etc. It is just one that will compete for your time, attention and money.

Slide 2:


There are just so many types of social media. Wikipedia lists 15, but I couldn't see blogging! Why? I have no idea.

Slide 3:


Just because people are going nuts over social media, it doesn't mean you should do the same. By all means try things out, but try and be selective before you get into the testing phase of your approach.

You may like to ignore Virtual Worlds, creating news aggregation social networks or implement vidcasting into your site. It's up to you, but do that time, attention and money calculation before you get too involved.

Slide4:


My preferred method is blogging and I use social networks, social news sites and social bookmarking to promote them. You could use sites like Squidoo as an easier "route to market" but I prefer the flexibility and control that hosting my own blogs gives me.

Take a look around these sites and see which appeal the most.

Slide 5:


This is one of the most important slides. I feel there are many pressures in the industry at the moment which mean that affiliates should at least explore the opportunities that social media offers.

First off there are Google's PPC squeeze. We all know they don't like affiliates and are trying to take control of the affiliate "space". Social media gives you the opportunity to forget the AdWords rules they bring in such as only one ad per URL, the minimum bids based on your quality score and landing page criteria. With social media, it's up to you what you put on your blog or Squidoo page.

Secondly, Google are also squeezing affiliates when it comes to SEO. You can no longer upload 50,000 pages in a lunchtime and expect them to rank well and last for a good few months. You need to build long-term strategies that don't rely on cross linking between your sites. Blogging is ripe for link-baiting or just providing useful, relevant content that other people want to link to naturally.

Merchant squeeze is something I feel is important. We're constantly talking about merchants creating rules that just aren't helping either party. Merchants haven't started creating rules that prevent you using certain types of social media sites - so give them a try.

Competitive Squeeze - there are so many other affiliates around competing using traditional methods, so it would be wise to try and compete using other methods that'll take them a couple of years to catch up.

You've also got closed bidding groups that you can't get in and have affiliates with massive budgets that can just shut you out of some industries.

Slide: 6


There are so many other factors that makes social media a useful approach.

Consumers are getting blind to traditional advertising. They also seek out product reviews from their peers as they can see that there are so many product options out there that they need to get confirmation from "experts".

Also if you're a newbie that doesn't have a budget to complete with PPC affiliates or aren't great at design or social media then you have an option to succeed if you have sufficient creativity.

Also social media is great as you can easily appear to be an expert in your field with no actual experience as you can leverage the knowledge of others with Google News Alerts, News Now, Blog Search, and Technorati.

Slide 7:


This is pretty much the most important slide. Basically social media allows you to be an opinion former at the end of the buying-cycle. The important note is that perhaps you should look to promote merchants that don't offer brand bidding as Pete has pointed out that 75% of content cookies are being overwritten by brand affiliates. Perhaps content affiliates, and that means social media affiliates too, should look to ignore working on affiliates that allow brand bidding to just some?

Slide 8:
I simply give an example of my Euro 2008 blog and how I use different monetising methods over the life-time of the site.

Slide 9:


This is a slide that brings a smile to my face. One of my competing sites had an image posted by a visitor which seemed to show the new England Football Kit before it was launched. I knew it to be a fake but thought I could get some good coverage by placing it in a post on my blog - that I did.

The first day I posted it got over 2,500 visits and loads of links across forums around the net. It helped deliver feed subscribers and seo benefit of those links.

So I think its wise for affiliates to think about Buzz and how they can created it about their sites at every opportunity.

Slide 10:


I mentioned in another post how important I feel adding "sticky content" to your affiliate sites to help in its SEO, but I feel its also great for increasing click-through-rates and also conversion rates.

Missy Ward was great, she allowed me to interview her about her and Shawn's WeViews.tv site and how they use video content to keep users coming back and converting them into sales.

You can see from the slide that it doesn't take them long to get a video together, they're easy to promote using TubeMogal and does help in sales creation.

Slide 11:


Some were probably going into the presentation hoping to see some stuff about FaceBook Applications and I didn't want to disappoint.

I profiled iSaved Cashback UK and their Facebook Application.

I mentioned that it might not be appropriate for all, but if you've got a few weeks and a few grand to spend and a great idea then it may be a good route to go down. But the important point to note, as many of you know, there's no point building some ting and expecting the people to come. You have to promote your application well and do most of the research before you even start on your "spec document". I also pointed to Adonomics as a great place to start your research, but you should also look at Appsoholic.

Slide 12:
Here I mentioned how I use a Facebook group to atract people to Pleo Toy blog and foster a community - it works well and should really be replicated by others. I've also created a "Pleo UK" Squidoo page to see how well it works! Now I've got the really difficult task of trying to built up traffic to my new site selling "tarot cards". The problem is that there's many retailers that are pretty much intrenched in the market and it'll be difficult building up links. The only way I can realistically do it is by writing fantastic content and hoping people will link to it because of that. Touch Wood, it'll go ok, but its not going to be easy!

Slide 13:
I then recommended people that they think "outside of the box" and look at sites like ZiiTrend which is a social predicting site. If you think about it, this is perfect for "buzz" sites as you can create a prediction about future product launches an events and attache your blog's news to each prediction and drive traffic that way.

I did it with the Euro 2008 site and whether England would qualify. I did it as a test, but as their user base grows, it should prove to be a useful too.

Slide 14:

This was to be my "killer slide". I've come across so many "social media knockers" - people that think its just a fad. Just watch this YouTube video and you'll see how you can leverage social media to dominate the serps:



Slide 15:


This the final slide and I could feel the relief in the room. I wanted to put across a succinct list of reasons why affiliates should be looking at social media. Hopefully you're a little more inclined that you used to be ...

I hope you did find it useful and think the information will help improve your affiliate profits. You could consider saying thanks by buying me a cheap Christmas present from my Amazon wishlist :-) I'm sure I'd say thanks!!

Don't forget you can get the pdf here.