Unique Blog Designs 1 Year Anniversary
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While at the Affiliate Summit in Boston a couple weeks ago, I sat in on the “Growing a Blog” session with Zac Johnson. Zac mentioned that his blog theme was custom designed by Unique Blog Designs. Back in June, John Chow said having Unique Blog Designs create a “custom theme for this blog has been one of the best move ever in terms of traffic, income and stickiness.” This has me really thinking about having someone (probably Unique Blog Designs) do a custom theme to take my blog to the next level.
Unique Blog Designs may have provided an opportunity for me to do this ahead of my planned schedule. They are currently celebrating their one year anniversary by having a contest on their blog where you can not only win an iPod Touch (I already have one that’s once again fully functional after taking a dunk in the pool with me, by accident), but they are also giving away a free premium theme! All you have to do is post a comment on this blog entry. Additionally, you can write a post on your blog, like this one 
and increase your chances to win one of the great prizes!
Blog World Expo
As Shawn Collins mentioned on Affiliate Tip last week, I will be speaking at the Blog World Expo in Las Vegas on September 20th. I’ll be on a panel with Sam Harrelson, Shawn, and Mike Allen speaking about affiliate marketing secrets for bloggers in the monetization track. This conference has an amazing line-up of speakers and I am humbled to be one of them.
The conference includes a huge array of bloggers from the political realm, military bloggers, affiliate marketers, personal bloggers, and so on. The conference also includes keynote speeches from an astounding number of online and offline celebritities, including Gary Vaynerchuk, Tim Ferriss, Mark Cuban, Hugh Hewitt, Steve Rubel, and Guy Kawasaki.
I picked out some interesting statistics from the Blog World Expo home page about blogging.
- Over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog
- There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day
- 51% of blog readers shop online
- 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs
Although the annual conference schedule becomes more cramped every year, this is a must-attend conference if you are at all serious about blogging. The list of exhibitors and speakers alone warrant the trip. If you are on the fence, I do have a few discounted full access passes available, so if you are one of the first five people to email me at timATtherealtimjonesDOTcom, you will get 20% the admission fee.
Also, I need your best tips and tricks for our panel! Please send me your best strategies, as affiliate marketers, for monetizing and promoting your blogs. I appreciate the help and of course, will credit my online friends.
IZEAFest Blogging Conference in Orlando
In three weeks, I’ll be traveling back down to Orlando (I really need a second home, there) for the IZEAFest Blogging Conference. As the IZEAFest site says, you will
Connect with other social marketers and content creators.
Meet Innovative and creative internet personalities.
Learn how to become a well-rounded blogger.
Personally, I think this will be a great networking opportunity. They are expecting only a few hundred attendees with some of the best and most well-known bloggers in the industry speaking and attending.
With this smaller setting, you will have a lot of great opportunities to talk and network with some of the best in the business. Plus, it’s a very reasonable cost — $65 for the conference (or you could use Zac Johnson’s discount code of “zacjohnson” and save $15). Additionally, the conference has discounted rates at many of the surrounding hotels and the Grand Bohemian, where the conference is being held.
I am really looking forward to meeting a lot of people at this event and seeing a lot of people I just met up at Affiliate Summit in Boston. I love going to conferences in Orlando, too. I lived in Orlando for a while and visit almost every other weekend, so it’s like going to a conference in your hometown. Plus, I don’t have to hop on a plane and go through the TSA security checks. :) Leave me a comment and let me know if you’re going to be there for the show.
New Tropical Storm Fay Footage
I decided to go out to the beach and get some video of what Fay is doing to the Jacksonville coast. According to the most recent update, the storm still sits off the coast near Daytona Beach, which is about 80 miles south of us in Jacksonville. However, this means the northern and eastern sides of the tropical storm and what’s hitting us and this is where the worst wind and rain occur.
I didn’t realize until I got home that you can hardly hear me over the wind in the video. The first part of the video shows a tree that came down in my backyard, overnight. It’s in a pretty unused section of the yard, so even if it continues to the ground, it won’t damage anything, thankfully. The first beach shots show an entrance to the beach that is completely flooded and getting worse. In the latter half, notice that the waves are going over the end of the Jacksonville Beach pier. This end of the pier is normally at least twenty feet above the surface of the water. There were a ton of people at the pier, including some that were playing in the rough surf while dodging concrete pillars supporting the pier.
Cory Booker at Affiliate Summit East 2008
As I noted in my recap of the Affiliate Summit East, in Boston, Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, gave the keynote address for the Summit. You can now watch a video of his speech at the Affiliate Summit website.
Mayor Booker keeps a very full schedule. In addition to his mayoral duties, he rides with the Newark police department after hours in an effort to reduce violent crime in Newark (something he mentions in the speech - giving more detail about the results of this effort) and he blogs at the Huffington Post.
Mayor Booker attended Stanford University, as well as played football for the University. Somehow, he also found the time and energy to become a Rhodes Scholar and complete his law degree at Yale Law School. You can learn more about Mayor Booker in an Academy Award nominated documentary titled Street Fight
LOVE My New Blackberry Curve
Well, love may be a strong term for a cell phone, but this thing is amazing! There are more features and uses for this phone than I can use, right now. I wish I’d had this thing at Affiliate Summit when my laptop died on me. I could go days without a laptop, as long as I had my Blackberry. I now understand the whole “crackberry” terminology — kind of similar to “It’s a Jeep thing, you wouldn’t understand.”
I’ve already loaded it up with the Google Apps, TwitterBerry, and Facebook. Any other must have applications that you recommend? I’d love to hear any tips and tricks my readers have, so I can really use this thing to it’s full potential.
*****Shameless plug warning*********
I ordered the phones through LetsTalk.com on Sunday. This is the second time we ordered our cell phones through LetsTalk. Two years ago, we had a friend that recommended Wirefly.com, because they had a bunch of exclusive Wirefly discounts. There was a reason Wirefly had all the discounts — their customer service sucks so much that they have to discount the products to get people to buy from them. In the middle of our bad experience with them, we checked the BBBOnline to find they had hundreds of complaints over the previous three months.
We finally called after over a week without a change in our order status from “picking order.” After many hours on the phone with someone in India, we canceled the order. We still needed phones, though, so I just searched for online cell phone companies and found LetsTalk.com. LetsTalk got us our phones faster with their normal service than Wirefly “promised” to get them to us after hours on the phone and free overnight shipping (they apparently had no way of speeding up the “picking” process).
With the end of our two year contract on Monday, I decided to get a head-start and check out LetsTalk for our new phones, again. Once again, I was not disappointed. Their prices were great, they offered an exclusive LetsTalk discount that actually makes me $100 after all the mail-in rebates (something we did last time, also), and when I called with a quick question, they gave me two free carrying cases, also! Remember, I made this order on a Sunday. The sales agent said our phones would ship on Tuesday. Cool. By Monday morning at 10:18AM, my phones had shipped by Fed-Ex Two-Day shipping for free and by Wednesday at 11AM, I had my new phones.
Yes, this was a shameless plug for LetsTalk.com. However, I try to give credit for the good experiences I have with businesses when they happen. Quality customer service seems to be disappearing from business and I want to congratulate those businesses that still provide a quality, seamless experience as a normal part of their business model. This company excels at customer service.
Yes, those are also affiliate links (what can I say, I’m an affiliate marketer), but if you do not want to give me credit for any purchase you make from LetsTalk, please just go directly to http://www.letstalk.com — I would rather they get a new, happy customer than turn someone away, just because I added affiliate links. Businesses that do right by their customers deserve to grow their business and beat the competition.
Tropical Storm Fay - Orlando Report
Well, we drove headlong into Tropical Storm Fay, yesterday to go to Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort and at least one park. I did a little video taping of the conditions, but there really wasn’t much to tape. We went to EPCOT and it seemed as busy as ever (well, not really, but definitely not empty), just wet and windy. It actually was kind of nice, as we would normally be soaked due to the heat this time of year. Instead, we were soaked, but cool from the rain. The rain did pick up a bit around dinner, so we headed back to the resort for some rest. The wife and I planned to go to Pleasure Island Tuesday night, but an outdoor, club environment did not sound appealing in a tropical storm.
The latest track has the storm turning right around and passing back through Florida quite a bit south of the Jacksonville area. We’ll get some wind and rain, but nothing major. The forecast changes almost hourly, though, so who knows what might end up happening. All part of the fun and adventure of living in Florida.
Hurricane Fay - Calm Before the Storm
Well, we have Hurricane/Tropical Storm Fay on the way to Florida and I’m trying to get my house ready and I thought this would be a great opportunity to do some video blogging.
I’m in northern Florida, so it will just be a nasty storm by the time it gets to my house, but I still have a lot of debris from a bad storm we had just last week. I just want to get any possible projectiles cleaned up before another one blows through town. I really do not expect much from the storm, as we get a lot of nasty storms here in Florida. Tomorrow, however, I am driving into the eye of the storm as it’s supposed to pass through Orlando. I have to go down for some training that has not been canceled and I hope to visit Pleasure Island before it closes. We’ll just have to see how that all pans out, but I will get some more video when I’m down in O-town.
You will hear a lot of noise in the background. It’s just a bunch of cicadas making noise. They go non-stop during the day.
Affiliate Summit Boston Day Three Recap
Day three started out with “Ask The Experts” roundtable discussions. The roundtable I initially selected lacked a speaker when the sessions started, so I headed over to Zac Johnson’s session on growing a blog. Zac had a lot of great information and has me convinced that getting a customized blog template makes a big difference in separating your blog from the crowd. I’ve followed Zac’s blog for a while and have written about him before the conference. His progress with his blog in such a short time is amazing.
I then went to the session called, “Lessons Learned Using Video for Affiliates” by Jonathan Stefansky of Qoof. I was actually a bit apprehensive about the session, since the speaker worked for an online video company and thought it might be an hour long sales pitch. In fact, it was the exact opposite. Jonathan gave an excellent demonstration that included good vs. bad video examples, information on how to set yourself apart from the crowd (even if you self-produce the video!), and actually couched a question that referred to his company specifically to discuss outside the session. He could not have been more professional and this speaks volumes about him and his company that could never be accomplished in a sales pitch and helps set Affiliate Summit apart from other conferences.
Next, I attended “Lead Generation for EMarketers.” This session was so “pitchy” and off-topic that I actually left the session early, but not without turning in my evaluation. There were a few exceptions, but they could not overcome the downsides of the presentation. Worse than that, I skipped the “Copywriting Clinic” that received raves from attendees to see this session. Oh well, I guess I’ll catch up when the videos come out.
After some more Wii bowling in the blogger’s lounge, I went to the ethics panel. What an experience. This topic clearly produces significant, conflicting emotions and opinions, with good reason. I don’t have enough experience to speak much to this topic, but it appears that the topic keeps getting brushed aside and emotions tend to boil over due to a lack of discussion and direction. This panel got a lot of ideas and opinions out on the table and hopefully, something good grows out of the session.
Finally, I got to experience the “Un-Keynote” with Jim Kukral hosting a feedback session for Summit attendees. Jim “provided” me with an opportunity to speak and give my feedback on my first Affiliate Summit. I enjoyed this opportunity, as I’m always looking to improve my speaking skills, especially on impromptu topics. I have already covered in the blog what I said at the un-keynote, but I must repeat that Shawn and Missy put on a great show that provides good information and fantastic networking opportunities for everyone involved in the conference.
I ended the day with a trip to a Boston Red Sox game at Fenway (my first), but that’s enough for another post, so you’ll just have to wait for that one.
Affiliate Summit Boston Day Two Recap
Day two of the Affiliate Summit started off with a fantastic speech from the Mayor of Newark, Cory Booker. I had my reservations about a politician speaking at a conference for affiliate marketers, but his speech was inspirational, motivational, and full of emotion. As Trisha Lyn noted after the speech, if you weren’t ready to conquer the world after that speech, you weren’t paying attention.
For the first session, I wanted to go to all three morning sessions and I ended up going to content that kills. Fortunately, Shawn and Missy record all the sessions, so I will be able to watch the other two when they come out in video! Content That Kills was a great session with Lisa Picarille of Revenue Magazine moderating and Angel Djambazov and Kim Rowley on the panel. Unfortunately, Lisa lost her voice in an incident with a flower arrangement from the night before, but she soldiered through the session with great professionalism. All three provided great ideas and action items for me to take away from the panel.
I decided to try to go back to my room to attempt to fix my broken computer during the next session, at which I was limitedly successful and then I started seeing Tweets about the ethics panel that made it sound like things were getting pretty heated in that session. So, I ran over to the conference to catch the tail end of the discussion and comment/question section. This was clearly a topic about which people have very strong feelings about and I’m sure we’ll continue to see these feelings as the industry grows.
Then I went to the session titled “How Social Media Is Changing Affiliate Marketing.” Ted Murphy of IZEA headed up a panel of Chris Brogan, Rob Key, and Stephanie Agresta. A couple of key points from this session that I took away were that disclosure adds value through trust and influence, thereby increasing sales and that it’s difficult to track ROI (return on investment) from social media. Until the very end of the session, I felt as though the panel felt social media fails due to the inability to track ROI. This was the impression I had from the session, overall, that social media is just a bunch of gossiping among friends and acquantainces, rather than true business development. Does everything need to have a tangible, measurable ROI to be valuable? I don’t think so and the panel seemed to reverse course near the end, however the majority of the session focused on the former stance.
For the last session of the day, I went to see Jay Berkowitz talk about the Ten Hottest Strategies for Internet Marketers. I always get a lot from Jay and his Summit presentation was no exception. As always, Jay turns you on to new sites, breakthrough strategies, and motivates you to action when you leave his sessions.
After this last session, I went down to find out what was going on for dinner and catch the Affiliate Road Rally. The winning car one by over two laps, I think. Not much of a race, but very fun, nonetheless.
Throughout the day, I met many people that I’d only chatted with online and a lot of new friends. I’m sure I would leave some out if I tried to name them all, but I will say that I got my picture taken with a penguin, got to eat a fantastic dinner with the Ultimate Foodies, and discuss physics with an MIT grad. Overall, a great day two of the conference.
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