“Digesting” The Affiliate Summit Social Media Event
Having never attended Affiliate Summit in the past, I had very little expectations going to Affiliate Summit Social Media event that took place this past Sunday in New York. Needless to say the event surprised me on many levels.
I hope some one else writes detailed review of the conference. I am sure Shawn will have videos of the event ready soon as the cameras were rolling all day long.
I did not count how may times Twitter was mentioned during the event, but if I were to estimate I would say it was mentioned about 100 times every hour.
But what impressed me the most was that whenever “video blogging” was mentioned and the fact that most of us affiliates don’t utilize this medium enough in our work- I felt they were speaking directly at me.
What downed at me, thanks to Steve Rosenbaum, that those videos don’t have to be necessarily my own so I highly recommend his Magnify.net and maybe there is an idea or two for you as well.
It was also great to hear that some merchants are taking video technology to the next level as well. In fact I joined Buy.com’s affiliate program just because what I have heard at the conference during presentation by Melissa Salas . But there are more reasons why you would want to join their program besides what these guys are doing with videos (hopefully I will get to it one of these days).
Of course you can always make your own videos. Heck Jim Kukral managed to moderate the event while recording his, I suppose, next daily flip. However you can consider creating “screen cast” if you are not conformable to put your face out there. Few screen casting applications were mentioned during the keynote by Don Crowther, such as Camtasia (Windows) and Screenflow (Mac). I am currently comparing several solution for Linux/Ubuntu, hopefully I will update this post when I decide which one I will end up using.
The theme that resonatted with me the most was “video”. More than one merchant on Share A Sale now offering affiliates video creatives.
However if you asked me what was the best part about the event. I would have to say it was not the presentations. As informative and educational as the entire event was, it would mean nothing if if wasn’t because of the people behind the event and those who attended. Finally I got to meet the affiliates from the great state of New Jersey face to face instead of just crossing paths on Internet: Zack Johnson (I am ashamed to say that I have not attempted to meet him sooner since we live literally 5 minutes away for each other), Ian Fernando and Benny Tejeda. What can I say, New Jersey is the best! 
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