Missy Ward

SocialSpark.com Alpha Launches Its Affiliate Network

by Missy Ward

Today, SocialSpark.com announced their alpha-release of their “SocialSpark Affiliate Opportunities” and a bunch of new goodies, as well.

“Affiliate Opportunities” roughly translates to “an affiliate network exclusively for bloggers“. In a nutshell, advertisers can list their campaigns and payouts and bloggers get paid for generating sales and signups.

SocialSpark is requiring an in-post disclosure on all affiliate links and 100% transparency.

They have also added a ton of premium blogs and bloggers to the SocialSpark marketplace including ChrisBrogan.com, Shoemoney.com, Sparkplugging.com and QuickSprout.com. (This blog will also be featured in the marketplace.)

As far as release updates go, the homepage has been redesigned to be sleek, streamlined and load faster. Also, when you are logged in as a blogger or advertiser, you’ll have a much more relevant and cleaner view of the available information.

I’m excited to test this all out further and will let you all know my results.

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Social Soul

Doterati Event during Create Chaos Recap

by Missy Ward

Last night, Doterati (Central Florida's association for interactive marketers, media and the tech community) held a creative networking event during the Create Chaos Conference in Orlando.

While I didn't get over to Create Chaos this week (I've had way too much Chaos going on with being on the road for the last month), I did attend the Doterati event.

A session was held entitled “Juggling Creativity and Business”, which is so right up my alley on any given day. The panelists included Scott Allen, Chuck Southworth, and my local buddies and colleagues, Ted Murphy and Sterling Raphael. They all recounted the trials and tribulations of leaving their cozy corporate jobs working for “the Man” to strike out on their own and create their businesses.

There were several take aways for me but most importantly was one that was also a topic of discussion during a roundtable discussion at last week's ShareASale Think Tank — “Getting rid of slacker employees.”

It seems that a lot of first-time business owners struggle with personnel and the inevitable decison on whether to fire an employee. Ted Murphy apparently dealt with this issue when he was starting his company. He offered his advice to cut the cord quickly and stop spending time trying to justify an employee that isn't awesome.

The event was a Doterati recruitment instrument and I hope that some of the folks that attended actually signed up. As a founding member myself, I can tell you that annual dues are a mere pittance, compared to what you can get out of the association. I urge all Central Florida marketers to sign up.

Thanks again to Tara Lamberson and the rest of the Doterati committee for putting this gig on and I look forward to participating in future events.

Here are some pictures of the event.

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Affiliate Marketing

ShareASale.com Think Tank Recap

by Missy Ward

The ShareASale ThinkTank is just wrapping up now, and I for one am disappointed that I have to leave. Brian Littleton, CEO of ShareASale, outdid himself as usual. With the Grand Del Mar hotel in San Diego as the backdrop, the environment itself couldn't be beat.

I spent Friday afternoon on the incredible golfcourse riding around with Scott Jangro, Brian Littleton and Emilio Yepez. Not being able to play because of my broken foot was disappointing, but the views were great and the company couldn't be beat.

The evening opening gala was held outside and being in a room with 100+ top affiliate marketers sharing ideas over some great wine and food was nothing less then spectacular.

Morning came way to early but I became energized as I walked into the Main Session that was abuzz with ShareASale merchants, OPM's and affiliates sitting down providing feedback thru a series of one-on-one scheduled sessions. Sitting down with merchants that I promote to provide suggestions on how we can enhance our businesses was extremely valuable. I also evaluated the programs of two merchants that I wasn't promoting and gave them some feedback as to what it would take for me to join their program. The information sharing and enthusiasm during the one-on-ones sparked some great ideas and furthered the theory that affiliate marketing is all about relationships.

I spent the afternoon sitting at various roundtables discussing industry issues and brainstorming with some great people. The most engaging topic pertained to bloggers that were also affiliates and the we shared some lively debate on whether disclosure of affiliate links were necessary. Since so many bloggers are now finally beginning to monetize their blog through affiliate marketing I think it was very important that we opened up the dialogue to discuss this. Interestingly enough, we couldn't come to an agreement on it.

We had a free night on Saturday, so Lisa Picarille, Karen Garcia, Jen Goode and my girlfriend who lives locally, headed into La Jolla to take in a wonderful dinner at the Crab Catcher. We headed back to the hotel and caught up with our fellow ThinkTankers and enjoyed some more networking opportunities in the lobby bar until the wee hours of the morning.

Sunday morning's networking breakfast was terrific and I filled up on an egg-white omelette and multiple yummy cappuccinos. We spent a few hours afterwards in a general session discussing the format of this year's event and provided some feedback regarding the ShareASale network to Brian Littleton. What's great about Brian is that not only does he value the feedback that he gets at this annual event, but he actually acts quickly on action items that he's presented with.

ShareASale as always, was a gracious host and I for one appreciated the opportunity to attend once again.

Here are some pictures of the event:

ShareASale ThinkTank 2008

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Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Summit Social Media 2008

by Missy Ward

Affiliate Summit Social Media 2008 is now one for the books. As our first niche event, we were excited to present content that focused on leveraging social media in affiliate marketing.

The keynote was presented by social media and blogging expert, Don Crowther who provided a ton or great information. I walked out of there with 3 actionable items that can immediately help my marketing efforts on a couple of websites that I own.

After the keynote, there were four panels covering video, social media case studies, monetizing social media, and working with social networks. The sessions that took place can be found here.

The keynote and all of the sessions were videotaped and will be posted up at AffiliateSummit.tv in the coming weeks.

Thanks for everybody who came out and look forward to seeing may of you at Affiliate Summit 2009 West in Las Vegas.

Here are the photos from the show:

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