The best opportunity for building your social media network is to mingle with though leaders in your market.

For affiliates and online marketers, that makes Affiliate Summit a must attend event.

There is always plenty to learn from speakers, but the best reason to attend events is the long term relationships that develop from interacting with other attendees.

This is why I love going on the Affiliate Summit. The serendipity of meeting with other publishers, advertisers and vendors means you will find many opportunities through the conference.

As I went through my preparation to network, I thought it would be interesting to document some of the ways why networking with speakers and attendees works so well for me.

Know Who Will Be There

As soon as I book a trip, I look for social media connections.

Start with your own social profiles. Post that you are planning to attend and ask who else is going. Then search Twitter and Facebook for connections in your network. Make sure you’re registered in the Affiliate Summit Forum and look for posts that resonate and and those participants to your list.

When I first started attending Affiliate Summit, I knew no one, but instead of looking at the agenda for topics, I used it to find the speakers.. followed their Twitter feeds and read their blogs. I quickly found that the people I wanted to meet were active online.. and I know what to do to make any blogger take notice. I read their blogs and tweet and commented.

Do a blog search for people talking about your niche, or a topic you want to learn about. Try adding “Affiliate Summit” or “ASE12” to the search. You’ll be amazed how many are talking about the exact topic you are looking for.

 

If you can’t find a social media connection, try the members tab in the forum

I have been doing this for a while, so most of the attendees are already friends on and off Twitter. For the few that I couldn’t recall, I used a Google search. Here is the syntax I use to find a user on Twitter using Google.

twitter.com “warren whitlock’

Google searches for occurrences of the text between the quotes on Twitter. Usually, you’ll get only the most active use with that name. Click on the link, see the profile and FOLLOW the person. While on Twitter, be sure to read their recent tweets and click through to their blog and bio links.

Making a List and Checking it Twice (a day)

I created a list of these user handles to follow. I use Hootsuite, where I’ll column open between now and a mid August to see what others are tweeting about. I’ve found that Hootsuite is the fastest way to add people to a group, and it allows me to keep it outside of Twitter, where the limit to lists is only 20.

I’ll add other attendees to my Hootsuite list as I find and follow them. You’ll find plenty more to choose from is you do a Twitter search for “ASE12”

Don’t wait for them to start talking about the event, and actually prefer to find out what they are talking about besides Affiliate Summit, since I want to have a relationship before and after the event. I already know we have that in common, so I look for what else we can connect on.

Building Relationships Before the Event

Using the links I get from Twitter feeds, I’ll find links to blog posts about whatever expertise the person has, along with other interests on Facebook, LinkedIn and anything else they talk about.

What I’m looking for is their passion. I’ve learned that it’s best to put off my interests for as long as possible and focus on what the other person needs and wants. Many of the famous people I network with are more interested in a charity, cause or avocation than you might think. Some might spend all their time talking about their niche or making money.. that’s okay, but what I’ really want to know is what passion they would follow if they had all the money they ever need.

That’s where the real connections lie.

Attack With a Preemptive Love Strike

Here’s where the real fun begins.

Once you have spent a few minutes getting to know a person and their passions, you’ll find at least one thing to love about them.

Now we get to put my listen and love marketing strategy into play.

Look for a question asked, a poignant comment, a shared life story or desire from the person you want to know better. I rarely need more than a few minutes to find at least one question or something to provoke a positive comment.

Now, do something nice for them. Instead of reading and thinking “that’s nice”, TELL THEM in a comment, tweet, or message.

Please don’t settle for “nice post” or “I’m a fan” (I use that when I’m nervous.. it rarely gets a positive reaction). Take a couple of seconds more and think of something specific and personal that you can say. It doesn’t need to be long, but it has to show you really mean it.

My friend Dr. Ben Mack is calling this a preemptive love strike, which means that you don’t wait for others to reach out to you, you look for ways to show love.

Since I’ve used Twitter and social media to help me show love and appreciate to others, I’ve learned to do it much more often… and now find ways offline to do the same.. handwritten notes, a book from Amazon with a note enclosed, a phone call when it’s not expected.. I can’t imagine ever running out of opportunities.

This works. I just set up a joint venture from sending one post card, I have sold consulting to someone who watched how I tweet positive ideas, and made new friends while strengthening bonds with many others from using these love strikes.

Watch for the HashTags

Attendees to the Affiliate Summit were encouraged to tweet and talk about the event and add a hashtag to the end of each post. This triggered a link in their posts and allowed others to click and see a stream of every tweet with that tag. They were also able to view this on the web using cool tools like TwitterFall.

TwitterFall allows you to click on a photo to see the current stream, or use the site to set up your own instant updating stream with whatever search term, with a list of people you want to see.  It’s great for projectors or monitors at events.

Using the hashtag, you can also set up a stack or column in nearly every Twitter client. On the web you can follow us from any browser with Twitter Search.

Come to the Tweet Ups

 

Many events around Affiliate Summit have pre-events the night before the official start time. This is often the best way to get a leveraged fast start on meeting speakers, promoters and experienced attendees for a head start.

Go to Twitter and watch for announcements following the #ase12 hashtag. When you see the invite, you’ll be able to access a list of attendees and follow them.

By the time you get to the Tweet up, you’ll already be seeing friends you met online.

Help Promote the Event

When you tweet about the event, you’ll be doing a preemptive love strike on the promoter, the speakers and other attendees who will benefit from meeting you at the network.

This can be done even if you can’t make it to the live event.

When you tweet about an event, point your followers to the appropriate website, and let them know the handles of the cool people who are speaking or attending.

This preemptive love strike is about as direct as you can get. Everyone wants to be loved.

Keep in Touch After the Event

As you begin to use these tips, you’ll find that it takes a lot less time than you might have thought. Pretty soon, you’ll have new friends and connections, a network of people that will remember your preemptive love strikes, and be looking for ways to help you.

It’s natural to think that you have to sell something to them or perhaps it might be a waste of time. Actually, the reverse is true. The more times you can reach out and help (love) your contacts, the more apt they will be to ask you how they can help you.

When they do, be ready to engage them and move into whatever you need.

Of course, you want to keep your goals and desires in mind. I know we can’t do an individual love strike on every contact every day, but I have doubled, doubled again, and am still increasing my capacity to do this. So far, I can’t see any time that I will want to love less.

These are just a few of the quick steps I take when attending ASE12, or any live event, and every day. I know each of these work because I’m using them. Do you have other ideas? Please share them with me. Leave a comment, Tweet about the show, and let’s discuss what works and what hurdles you see. When you do, I feel your love

Imagine a time when you’ll have so many asking to engage you, wanting to reciprocate for the love you’ve show and anxious to see you do well.

Listen and Love.. it’s as simple as that… See you in New York