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.
Affiliate Summit East – Photo by Steve Hall
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.
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
Affiliate Summit East – Photo by Steve Hall
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
So you wake up in the morning and you want to access the online gift shop you visited last night on your laptop. You already emailed the link to your own email address and you are now on the subway on your way to work, eager to use your tablet or smartphone to click on the link again and place an order for your spouses’ anniversary. You are eagerly waiting for the page to load – when you start noticing some weird “things”. First of all, the page is taking quite a while to load. Maybe you have poor 3G reception on your way to work, even though the rest of the pages seem to load just fine.
You tend to ignore than and you eagerly start to browse the site. Wait, where did last night preview button’s go? Of, there it is! But it’s so small! If you could just click on it…zoom in just a little…more…that’s it! Oh no, you accidentally tapped on a different button and now a different page is loading! Did that ever happen to you? Well, my friend, that is because you have visited a so-called non-responsive website. Never heard of the term? Read on.
Responsive Web Site Design – An Absolute Present+Future Must
Responsive web sites are fully optimized web sites that feature a unique design which eables the sites to show up correctly formatted no matter what device you might be using. Laptops, desktops, tablets, smartphones – they are all part of your customers’ and prospects’ lives, and they are constant joggling tools in between site pages. So it is utterly important to provide them with the pages they need and boos their satisfaction, while considering improving your marketing results. An individual who has visited the sloppy, not optimized mobile version of a website that they have previously visited on his laptop is less likely to pay that site another visit.
Say No To Frustration!
The frustration of not being able to practically use the site, browse normally, see pictures or writing without having to constantly zoom in and out – all of these need to disappear. If we are to look at some important Google statistics, it would seem that more than 60 percent of mobile visitors who come across a sloppy mobile site go back to their favorite search engine and opt for a different site. Imagine how frustrating it is to get prospects on your site, and see them leave in less than 10 seconds because they cannot access your menus the right way. Moreover, a huge percentage of mobile users (close to 80 percent) want to be able to find the precise information they are looking for at the end of just a couple of taps, while scrolling left and right is not a viable option for these folks either.
Finding a responsive website designer is not hard to do – the important thing is that you need to fully grasp the crucial importance of stepping into the future. Align your site to the demands of the majority and success will come easier. Meanwhile, check out the slots-casinos.org site and try to hit some jackpots with some of the most popular online casinos you can read reviews for there. Read the news and the latest tips, watch the videos and become a professional slot player or play for fun – all from your mobile device or computer.
Want to get into Tracky early? Go to Tracky.com now and use this code “ontracky”
Once you know you have something of value to offer, profiting from social media is simple
Create great content
Make it easy to share
Listen and Love
At ProftiableSocialMedia, we like to focus on profitable ideas to help you grow your business, but sometimes all you need is a sponsor with a super prize. Read the sponsored promotion, then let’s talk about how you will use the 3 steps above to profit.
When the clock runs out, we award the prize. Tracky is a start up using the 3 simple steps to promote their upcoming launch. I saw a demo last year, and now I’m using Tracky myself (this promotion is coordinated on Tracky). Tracky has created great content. Once you sign up, you’ll see this. and want to share it. I know the people at Tracky know the value of listen and love,so they are already using the steps. But how do you get those first customers to see your product’s value? You sponsor a giveaway!
It’s Easy. Just Click to Win
Tracky want you to sign up free for their service. I’d like you to profit from the content I create. We both win when you are more profitable, so we went to RaffleCopter and created this simple contest. All you got to do is click on the buttons to share. Something I you would do anyway. As you click on the buttons to share, you will find more of the content. Even though it feels like you have seen this before, it’s very common that readers miss great content. I hope you’ll see some of the social media news, informative interviews (not just Social Media Radio) and more fun. Of course, it’s very likely that you’ll see Tracky pop up on some of my favorite sharing sites. We all have some fun sharing, you start thinking of how the 3 steps will profit you and projects get done faster by millions of people using Tracky. The world will be a better place
Did You Enter? Great. More About the 3 Steps
I like this age of authentic transparency. Once I got used to you seeing my “warts and all” and letting everyone inside to see how things work, I enjoy not having secrets. And, I discover that the more you share, the more you get
Whenever I take on a new client, set up a joint venture, or create a promotion. I use the same structure I shared in the Social Media Profit Checklist. First off, I had to check to see where the profits on this promotion. Giving away a Kindle will get some extra visits to my web site but that would be worthless if I did not have the book and business behind it. Tracky is run by some great people, is wonderful software and is at the heart of what I think is the nexus for future growth in the Las Vegas economy. The sponsored promotion they are doing with me fits, but that’s not a reason to be in business.
Fortunately, I’ve been through the Simple Social Media Profit Formula and know how valuable each reader can be. The contest was a no-brainer for me.
Usually, I tell clients to avoid buying readers with a contest, but the content of this contest was a match and I saw how I could tailor it to a message I want to share with you (you’re reading it) and stay consistent with my brand. Easy sharing is built into the contest by Rafflecopter. Even so, I like offer you a easy sharing on anything here. There’s a floating bar to the left to click whenever you want, and the meme I talk about are specifically worded to make them sharable.
Again, it’s pretty easy to say “prize” or “free” but I spend more time writing headlines and tweets than anything else. The message need to be as simple as bacon and eggsThe other secret to sharing is reciprocity. Make sure you are sharing more of about other people than you share about yourself. This has a huge added benefit in that everyone you know plus everything you read is way more interesting than what you are selling. It’s like Chris Brogan says:
“Always have something to sell, but don’t always be selling it.”
I’ve saved the best for last. These two words sum up what I think will be the best business strategy for the future. It’s been taught in many ways for thousands of years as the way to live. Finally, technology allows us to listen and love like never before.
LISTEN: Every customer, phone call, email, comment, tweet is an opportunity for a conversation. If you listen, you will hear people looking for help. When you help them get what they want, they invariably will be more prone to get you what you want. We were taught business in the 20th Century, a unique time when one way communications made broadcasting and marketing a game of big towers and giant numbers. There wasn’t a way to listen to the TV viewer or newspaper reader in real time. Today, all that’s changed. And you are in on this early. Learn to listen and you’ll be ahead of the competition
LOVE: It simple. Treat people like you would treat the people you love. I’m not talking about romance here. I’m talking doing what you know is right. Sometimes, it’s as simple as that. Think about a time when you called a corporate office, got put on hold, then transferred to a phone that wasn’t answered. When you tried again, you heard “that’s not my department” Is this how you want to be treated? No one else likes it either.
Once you have learned to listen, you’ll know what to do. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Think about the experience that they have with you, your social media content, your sales process, products and company. Make every interaction with anyone a reason for them to say WOW. Like @Zappos says, you want to be delivering happiness.
On April 17th, Warren Whitlock will present a "lunch and learn" training for Las Vegas business owners with web marketing authority Brian Williams.
The workshop (which includes catered lunch), "Three Steps Any Las Vegas Business Can Easily Implement to Guarantee New Customers and Get Existing Customers to Buy More Often" is geared toward the business owner who knows that the Internet, social media, search engines and mobile devices and changing how business is done but leery of the way new technologies are preached as "cure-all’s."
According to Brian Williams,
"The goals of business have not changed. We want more customers, and more business from existing customers. Once we peal away the mumbo jumbo and tech jargon, there are some real tools that any business can use to grow in this economy."
Williams mission is getting real business results from new technology. His short seminar was designed to help business owners learn how to evaluate vendors and marketing programs so that businesses can focus on delivering their valuable service rather than needing to become a marketing expert.
The "Lunch and Learn" event is limited to 20 Las Vegas business owners. Tickets are available online at http://brianwilliams.eventbrite.com, or by calling 702-582-9366.
"Lunch and Lean" seminars are produced by Warren Whitlock, social media marketing strategist and best selling author of Profitable Social Media: Business Results Without Playing Games to bring new ideas and profitable strategies to our fellow Las Vegas business owners. Whitlock is the host of "Social Media Radio" and is presenting a these events to train business owners strategies to profit.
The best opportunity for building your social media network is to mingle with though leaders in your market.
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. 
The workshop (which includes catered lunch), "Three Steps Any Las Vegas Business Can Easily Implement to Guarantee New Customers and Get Existing Customers to Buy More Often" is geared toward the business owner who knows that the Internet, social media, search engines and mobile devices and changing how business is done but leery of the way new technologies are preached as "cure-all’s."