2007 AMWSO Year in Review

2007 was a year of innovation and evolution for AMWSO, and especially toward the end of the year, the door was opened for some exciting developments and opportunities in 2008.

In 2007 we launched over 10 new programs, including Baghaus, Ecampus, Sonoma Diet, Jillian Michaels, along with several more. We had great success with these launches along with the affiliates who joined up and started promoting them. We helped Ecampus have their best year ever during the back to school season, and we helped Baghaus spread their brand and become a premier handbag focused merchant. Diet season is starting right now, and we have primed our diet and fitness programs for affiliate to reap the whirlwind in January and February.

We had tremendous success in regard to innovations using affiliate videos with the Gaiam program. Our client Gaiam won the prestigious 2007 LinkShare Golden Link "Innovative Merchant Of The Year" Award due to affiliate trackable video files that we helped introduce.

We also met with some challenges in 2007. One particular program that we launched for an air filtration and water filtration system proved very challenging. We learned that having an outstanding product was not enough to make a program successful. Brand marketing support is needed along with an affiliate program, so that not only the public learns about a product, but the affiliates become more familiar as well. All of the cogs connect when building a successful affiliate program, including paid search initiatives, natural search and media buying.

In recognition of this, we introduced new services to offer our merchant partners in 2007.  Services including PPC Management, Social Media Marketing and SEO Services. We're especially excited about our Social Media Marketing service, as there are few companies out there that can do this as well and as effectively as AMWSO. When compared to CPM banner advertising, Social Media marketing can achieve volumes more "bang for the buck." This effectiveness should not only be measured in terms of raw traffic numbers, but targeted and engaged traffic.

Toward the end of the year, AMWSO announced it's affiliation with Syntryx. Syntyx is a powerful tool allowing AMWSO to delve deeper into the web to find great affiliate partners and to help our merchant partners better understand where their traffic comes from and use this as a competitive advantage. I'll be writing much more about Syntryx in a blog entry in January.

The core team at AMWSO remained unchanged throughout the year, and we're excited and motivated going into 2008. We have new ideas that we'll be working on to grow our partners businesses, and we'll be bringing on some great new partners in the coming months.  Definitely stay tuned to this blog for some great stuff in 2008!

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How can micro-blogging programs enhance your affiliate marketing efforts?

Micro-blogging/messaging platforms like Twitter, Jaiku or Pownce allow you to put a short blurb out there online that can be viewed by friends, by widgets, or by anyone (if you choose) who has the address to your micro-blogging page. They allow you to keep in touch, or just give some news to your friends or associates, without getting to heavily involved in a conversation, or writing a blog entry or email. They provide one place, to update people in a quick short burst.

As an affiliate manager running an affiliate program, I've already started considering the uses of how I can leverage these platforms for enhancing the news dissemination for the affiliate program.

When Twitter first hit the scene, people were using it to send all manner of things. What they were eating for breakfast, where they were driving too, what movie they were thinking about going to see. The ease of the platform, and the ability to update via SMS (in the case of Twitter), allowed people to just post anything that came to mind. Now, this of course appealed to many people, but it also turned a lot of people off. A common negative response was, “Hey, what do I care what John Smith was eating for breakfast?”.

However, one should not discount these platforms idle chatter or a useless time waster. How useful they can be is really up to you..

Let's take the case of a blogger. What a great way to get the word out, in a quick burst, that you've just put up a new entry on your site! Not everyone has the same abilities as Robert Scoble with his talent of digesting 500+ RSS feeds on a regular basis. Your blog may have a few dozen RSS subscribers, or it may have hundreds, but I can guarantee you that there are more people reading your blog than are just subscribing via RSS. Twitter can provide a great means for getting the word out to some people that you have a new entry on your blog, and suggest to them tot come by and have a read.

Now, let's consider a different angle. Some of the heaviest users of micro-blogging platforms are your fellow bloggers. One of the best ways to get traffic to your blog (other than search engines of course), is to befriend other bloggers, get links from other bloggers, and get other bloggers to talk about or mention your blog. Micro-blogging platforms provide one with another way to befriend fellow bloggers and communicate with fellow bloggers.

Bloggers link to blogs that interest them, or to blogs written by people they have a connection to. Micro-blogging platforms give you a means to better get the word out about your blog, but also communicate beyond just your entries, and creating a shared experience with your “colleagues.” So get out there, build a good network of friends, and network with other users.

Once you build a network of your readers, and your fellow bloggers, well they you can start asking questions, gather information, and just get involved in the conversation to get some ideas and fuel for your blog.

Micro-blogging doesn't have to be just about idle chatter. They can be highly useful tools, it all just depends on how you choose to use them.

I personally have started using Twitter more for personal type of postings, and my Pownce account I've reserved for affiliate business. I haven't used Jaiku that much yet. If you're a Baghaus affiliate, feel free to check me out on Pownce, as I've started putting up some program updates there.

If you sign up, then feel free to add me on Twitter or Pownce:

http://www.twitter.com/daveoli

http://www.pownce.com/davebkk

Dave

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