Surprisingly, it was only a few years ago when video became popular on the web. A combination of technological factors and cheap bandwidth made it possible for anyone with a digital camcorder to create their own video brand. Some people are making a ton of money on web video sites. But the question is: how can you take their success and somehow translate it to your brand? Here are some ideas.Choose Your Platform YouTube? Vimeo? Justin.tv? Where do you start? YouTube has the highest popularity but also has the most junk. Vimeo is directed towards higher-quality streaming for video buffs. Justin.tv is where people go to create their own web channel that streams content all the time. Decide what site you want to focus on by spending (but not wasting!) time at each of them.Take The Dull, Make it Fun Videos that become popular on the web do so because they are usually funny, unique and/or interesting. They don?t have to be in that order, and they don?t have to be all three. A great example of this is the Blendtec ?Will it Blend?? series where gadgets are taken to the chopper. This guy sells blenders doing this!Screencasts People who are into technology love screencasts. The best part about these videos is that you can get started with this using no money at all. Just download a free trial copy of Camtasia Studio and post some how-tos. This is great for products related to PC software, games or web applications.Create Your Own Show If you own a site that has a following, devise a way to develop your own show. If people come to your site to see the words and pictures that you post, it?s likely they will come around to see video as well. Actually, you may find that your audience is better suited for video depending on your niche. You won?t know until you try experimenting.Stay Consistent Even if you don?t know what you?re doing with video, it?s important to stay consistent, just with any other web-based project. Sure, your first video likely will not be a hit, but those who have ended up being the most successful just kept going. iJustine, now a big YouTube star, began with videos of herself microwaving oatmeal and now has major deals with advertisers selling products because she just kept going.
It?s the Beginning! The most important thing to realize is this: it?s still the beginning for web video - we?re in the early stages of this technology. If you want to try to expand into new markets for your business, it?s not going to hurt trying web video. If anything, you?ll most definitely learn something new in the process.Daniel Cawrey is a freelance writer and blogger. In addition to writing about credit cards, he also has his own blog about Google Chrome and Chrome OS.
Day three at Affiliate Summit West 2011 was a great day. I started off the day with some coffee and decided to hang out with Luke Smith from Motive Interactive. Around 10am the exhibit hall?opened?up. Luke and I stopped by several booths and entered several contests wish us luck winning Ipads. After the exhibit hall I decided to go to the "Are You Buyers Mobile, Yet?" session. In this session they talked about how using services such a appmakr allow pretty much any business can make an app. Also how paypal and other merchants are making it easier for you to make purchases for pretty much anything using your phone to pay for food,clothes,apps etc. I'ts going to change the way we use our phones.
As I was leaving for lunch I ran into Shawn Collins Founder & Owner of Affiliate Summit. If you have never been to any of the Affiliate Summit events you should?defiantly?go to ASE in New York this summer.
Day 2 started off early I headed to the exhibit hall. I stopped by BlueGlobalMedia booth and shot a quick Q&A with Chris Kay using my Flip Mino. Chris talked about BlueGlobalMedia and how they recently upped the referral program to 7% . He also talked about how they have?exclusive?offers and publishers do really well with?their?in house offers such as?financial?services, "100 Day Loans" is one of the?biggest?financial?offers out there so be sure to sign up with BlueGlobalMedia.I ran into some of the wicked fire guys Ad Hustler,Pappa John to name a few. Then I decided to go to leverage your brand for affiliate success session with Jim Kukral. Then headed to the blogger lounge to meet up with Syed Balkhi and John Chow. The three of us decided to go to the SEO ? Ask the Pros session?with Todd Friesen, Greg Bower, Stephan Spencer. They gave some great tips!
Avoid domains with more than two hyphens as Google considers them spammy.
Don?t focus too much on exact match keywords. Google is getting good at detecting gaming of exact match keywords.
Never write any post about how good you are doing in Google.
After the Ask The Pros about SEO session I decided to make my last run of the day through the exhibit hall with John Chow & Syed Balkhi. We stopped by the ShareASale booth and John got a record breaking 750 points playing the ski ball game ShareASale had there.
Day one of Affiliate Summit West 2011 was pretty awesome. I decided to skip some of the sessions and head for the Meet Market since the Exhibit Hall did not open until Day two of Affiliate Summit West. It was packed. I stopped by the Media Trust booth and hung out with Peter Bordes founder and CEO of Media Trust he talked about?their?new platform for CPC and how this will?benefit?the affiliate industry. I personally think Media Trust is on to something big & will test out?their?new Performance Exchange?CPC bidding platform.
Nick Throlson & Peter Bordes
After hanging out at the Media Trust booth, I headed to one of my favorite networks booth Blue Global Media. They have grown into an amazing network over the last couple months. If your not with BGM you need to be! I highly recommend them they are very experienced affiliates & test the offers before they go live which is one thing I have not seen any other network do.
Blue Global Media Booth
Later that night I decided to go to the ShareASale Under The Stars Party. I had an amazing time Tryst club was packed John Chow & Syed Balkhi were on the dance floor showing everyone up. Syed decided to start break dancing, good times.
ShareASale Under The Stars Party @ Tryst
Overall the first day was a great experience. I met a ton of great networks and entered into every contest at the meet market so wish me luck on winning another Ipad 🙂
Affiliate summit west 2011 is just around the corner. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone. Here are some of the ways you can track me down @asw11.Twitter @nickthrolson
Foursquare http://foursquare.com/nickthrolson
GowallaAll my photos will be uploaded to my flickr acct so be sure to check out my Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickthrolson/sets/72157625647307433/I will also be posting live from ASW updating affiliates who could not make it with the latest pictures video interviews etc!
RockMelt is destined to change the way people surf the Internet. The new browser is built on the Chromium platform and integrates web browsing with social media sites. It?s the perfect solution for people who live on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Access to an early version of RockMelt is currently being offered ? just sign up for early access at http://www.rockmelt.com and you?ll receive an invitation.
RockMelt was founded by Tim Howes and Eric Vishria. The company is backed by the likes of Mac Andreessen, founder of Netscape Communications Corporation and co-author of Mosaic; Angel Investors founder, Ron Conway; Intuit Chairman of the Board, Bill Campbell; Half.com founder, Josh Kopelman; and VMware founder, Diane Green. The free browser, based on Chromium, is the open source project behind Google?s Chrome browser.The new browser is fully interactive and built around friends, feeds and search results. It works on Mac systems using 10.5 or newer, and PCs running Windows XP or newer. You can access your personal browsing experience from anywhere you happen to be. When operated in its incognito mode, no personal information is stored, just the sites you frequent.The friends portion of the RockMelt browser is located on the left and allows users to search, share with friends, find news, view videos and chat, all from a single browser window. There?s no need to switch back and forth between different pages. Users need a Facebook account to access all the features. The browser shows users which friends are online, their recent posts and updates, as well as profile photos. You can instantly share and publish on Facebook and Twitter. It also acts as an IM client using Facebook chat.News feeds and your favorite websites are on the right and works similar to a bookmark bar. RockMelt watches your favorite websites and content, then automatically notifies you when new information, updates and content are added. When you click on a site icon, the page pops up in the main, underlying browser window. There?s also a share button for every feed.Searches are significantly quicker and they?re viewed differently. Searching is as simple as leafing through a magazine. Using your keyboard, you can flip through Google search results and choose the one you want without opening new windows.People browse and surf the Internet differently than they did even two short years ago. RockMelt was developed to more accurately reflect the way people surf and communicate today, placing everything in one browser window for conveience and ease of use.For more information or to test an early version of RockMelt, visit the website at http://www.rockmelt.com.
Choose Your Platform YouTube? Vimeo? Justin.tv? Where do you start? YouTube has the highest popularity but also has the most junk. Vimeo is directed towards higher-quality streaming for video buffs. Justin.tv is where people go to create their own web channel that streams content all the time. Decide what site you want to focus on by spending (but not wasting!) time at each of them.
Take The Dull, Make it Fun Videos that become popular on the web do so because they are usually funny, unique and/or interesting. They don?t have to be in that order, and they don?t have to be all three. A great example of this is the Blendtec ?Will it Blend?? series where gadgets are taken to the chopper. This guy sells blenders doing this!Screencasts People who are into technology love screencasts. The best part about these videos is that you can get started with this using no money at all. Just download a free trial copy of Camtasia Studio and post some how-tos. This is great for products related to PC software, games or web applications.Create Your Own Show If you own a site that has a following, devise a way to develop your own show. If people come to your site to see the words and pictures that you post, it?s likely they will come around to see video as well. Actually, you may find that your audience is better suited for video depending on your niche. You won?t know until you try experimenting.Stay Consistent Even if you don?t know what you?re doing with video, it?s important to stay consistent, just with any other web-based project. Sure, your first video likely will not be a hit, but those who have ended up being the most successful just kept going. iJustine, now a big YouTube star, began with videos of herself microwaving oatmeal and now has major deals with advertisers selling products because she just kept going.
