Shawn Collins' Blog

Affiliate marketing and other stuff from Shawn Collins, co-founder of Affiliate Summit.

Archives for February 2017

Don’t Forget to Submit Your Affiliate Summit East 2017 Speaking Proposal

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Speaking proposals for Affiliate Summit East 2017, taking place July 30 – August 1, 2017 in New York City, are currently being accepted.

Don't forget to submit a speaker proposal

The submission deadline is Friday, March 24, 2017.

Two complimentary VIP passes are provided to speakers, one for the speaker and one for a colleague to join them. Travel and hotel are not included.

How are speaker submissions selected?

The speaker submissions are chosen based on the following:

  • Public voting scores and comments.
  • Voting scores and comments by the Affiliate Summit Advisory Board (including Affiliate Summit founders Missy Ward and Shawn Collins).
  • Past session feedback if you previously spoke at an Affiliate Summit.
  • Meeting speaker deadlines if you previously spoke at an Affiliate Summit.

What topics are preferred?

Submit a proposal based on your expertise, not what you think we want to see.

Proposals should be of an advanced nature. We are not interested in introductory material. Also, it must be original material – don’t propose a session you’ve already given at Affiliate Summit or somewhere else.

Submit your speaking proposal for Affiliate Summit East 2017.

James Thompson on Keto Pizza, @HillFarmstead, and Abandoning Google+

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James Thompson, Co-Founder of Daft Labs, joined me to chat on my podcast, This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins.

I wanted to learn more about the real JT, so I asked him a variety of questions I figured he had not been asked in previous interviews.

We discussed…

  • His Keto pizza
  • Living in Alaska and other places
  • An endorsement for Jenkins on LinkedIn
  • Losing interest in Google+
  • Learning how to drink bourbon
  • Hill Farmstead through a beer bong

Links from this episode

Subscribe to This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins on iTunes.

If you enjoyed this episode of This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins, please share it.

This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins is focused on the people behind the affiliate management/OPM companies, advertisers/merchants, affiliates/publishers, and affiliate networks.

On each episode, Shawn interviews a new guest related to the industry, so you can learn more about the people of affiliate marketing.

After all, affiliate marketing is about the people; not the companies.

This is How I Podcast

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I have been podcasting on and off for a decade, and I’ve used many different tools over time. This is what I am using now.

Podcasting

My podcasting process is bare bones – I record in one take and do minimal editing for my current podcast, This is Affiliate Marketing.

The format is a six question interview that runs 10-15 minutes, where I dig into social media accounts for my upcoming guests. I compile those questions and related links in Google Docs.

When it comes time to call, I use Skype (free) and the Amolto Call Recorder for Skype (free).

For my microphone, I have a Logitech Stereo Headset H110, which was about $15. The audio isn’t perfect, but it’s good enough for a podcast.

After I record the podcast, I use Audacity (free), which is easy to figure out, and if you hit any trouble areas, you can typically find solutions on YouTube.

I wanted to have an introduction and closing when I was getting started, so I went to Fiverr and found a gig to create those for me. I also used Fiverr for some promotional graphics for the podcast.

The company I use for podcast hosting is Libsyn. While you can use any hosting company for a podcast, I like Libsyn, because they make it easy to upload and manage podcasts, as well as to syndicate to iTunes and other places where people listen to podcasts.

Libsyn also enables you to schedule podcasts to go live in the future, they provide embed code, option to monetize, custom url, and stats.

That’s all it takes to get started. Let me know if you have any questions.

Michelle Held on @Toastmasters, Pictures on Instragram, and @BuffaloSabres

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Michelle Held, Owner of MetroNY, LLC, joined me to chat on my podcast, This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins.

Michelle Held

I wanted to learn more about the real Michelle, so I asked her a variety of questions I figured she had not been asked in previous interviews.

We discussed…

  • Her favorite things to photograph on Instagram
  • Being on the Board of Directors of Kind Quilts Inc
  • Her vacation board on Pinterest
  • Being in Toastmasters
  • Rooting for Buffalo teams
  • Her first Tweet

Links from this episode

Subscribe to This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins on iTunes.

If you enjoyed this episode of This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins, please share it.

This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins is focused on the people behind the affiliate management/OPM companies, advertisers/merchants, affiliates/publishers, and affiliate networks.

On each episode, Shawn interviews a new guest related to the industry, so you can learn more about the people of affiliate marketing.

After all, affiliate marketing is about the people; not the companies.

Beth Kirsch on Road Trips, Being Endorsed for Awesomeness, and the Grateful Dead

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Beth Kirsch, Vice President, Marketing at Freedom Financial Network, joined me to chat on my podcast, This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins.

I wanted to learn more about the real Beth, so I asked her a variety of questions I figured she had not been asked in previous interviews.

We discussed…

  • Beth being endorsed on LinkedIn for Awesomeness and General Awesomeness
  • Long road trips with audio books
  • Following the Grateful Dead
  • Her first Tweet

Links from this episode

Subscribe to This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins on iTunes.

If you enjoyed this episode of This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins, please share it.

This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins is focused on the people behind the affiliate management/OPM companies, advertisers/merchants, affiliates/publishers, and affiliate networks.

On each episode, Shawn interviews a new guest related to the industry, so you can learn more about the people of affiliate marketing.

After all, affiliate marketing is about the people; not the companies.

The Affiliate Marketing Cowboy

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The affiliate marketer is a unique animal. It takes all kinds and there are many paths of an affiliate.

Street Meat in NYC - Joe Sousa, Wade Tonkin, and Shawn Collins

We’ve got those focused on blogs, mobile, PPC, content sites, video, SEO, coupons, email, and any number of other methods to do it.

Some wear a white hat. Others wear a black hat. We’re all working the frontier together and apart for some sort of common goal… starting up and building something of our own to pay the bills and enable us to live this life.

I think country music artist Tim McGraw captures us all pretty well in his song, “The Cowboy in Me”.

I don’t know why I act the way I do;
Like I ain’t got a single thing to lose;
Sometimes I’m my own worst enemy;
I guess that’s just the cowboy in me

Let’s admit it, we’re not rocket scientists. More like mad scientists. We know what we should do, but we don’t always do it.

Like many of you, I’ve got a past littered with PPC campaigns that blew out credit cards, because I wasn’t paying close attention; or years of valuable content lost, due to a failure to back things up.

Affiliate projects started and abandoned; blog posts, Tweets and forum posts made without thinking — those will be around long into the future; great ideas left on the drawing board.

I got a life that most would love to have;
But sometimes I still wake up fightin’ mad

Working from home, flexible hours, freedom. It’s a great arrangement if you can make it work.

Though it’s not easy and nothing is a given. Of course, you know that already. Maybe that’s why we get a little tense some days.

The urge to run, the restlessness;
The heart of stone I sometimes get;
The things I’ve done for foolish pride;
The me that’s never satisfied

We’re a competitive bunch. If there is an average EPC for an offer, we want to do plenty better. If our competitors are making X with a network, we want to hit 2X.

Trying to be top dog for the sake of it isn’t prudent business, though. No matter, we’re driven by our super-ego.

At the end of the day, we are our business, so we’re bound to be unsatisfied by anything less than self-actualization.

You’d never know I just took one intro psychology class back in college. Actually, it’s pretty clear, isn’t it?

We ride and never worry about the fall;
I guess that’s just the cowboy in us all

We didn’t get into this business to be safe. It’s a constant gamble with so many variables, but that’s part of the beauty.

We’re constantly trying to tame the wild horses of affiliate marketing. Yeehaw!

Greg Hoffman on the @Cubs Winning the World Series, Sea Monkeys, and Fancy Pencils

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Greg Hoffman, President and CEO of Apogee, joined me to chat on my podcast, This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins.

I wanted to learn more about the real Greg, so I asked him a variety of questions I figured he had not been asked in previous interviews.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Greg Hoffman on the @Cubs Winning the World Series, Sea Monkeys, and Fancy Pencils.” quote=”Greg Hoffman on the @Cubs Winning the World Series, Sea Monkeys, and Fancy Pencils.” theme=”style1″]

We discussed…

  • Watching Game 7 of the 2016 World Series
  • Giving a bad rating to a comic book store
  • A cam showing Sea Monkeys
  • 3D Movies in the 1980’s
  • Working at newspapers
  • Being endorsed on LinkedIn for Using Pencils and Listening to Vinyl
  • Why he is known as the Gorilla

Links from this episode

Subscribe to This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins on iTunes.

If you enjoyed this episode of This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins, please share it.

This is Affiliate Marketing with Shawn Collins is focused on the people behind the affiliate management/OPM companies, advertisers/merchants, affiliates/publishers, and affiliate networks.

On each episode, Shawn interviews a new guest related to the industry, so you can learn more about the people of affiliate marketing.

After all, affiliate marketing is about the people; not the companies.