Hey there my fellow affiliates!  I’ve got a great guest post from a very well known face in the UK affiliate marketing scene  for you all. I’m sure most of my UK readers will either know or have worked with the lovely Hannah Swift who recently left Existem-AM to forge out on her own.

We all know Hannah as one of the best affiliate managers in the UK, but did you know she’s also more than a little bit good at Social Media as well?  Her newly launched business Bright Digital Minds offers social media management amongst other things, so I thought it’d be great if Hannah could show off her knowledge in this area in the form of a guest post.

Social Media And Affiliates

There are a number of good reasons why affiliates should begin to embrace social media, if they haven’t already. Forget the instant sales and start thinking of social media as an extension of your brand, a traffic generator and a direct way of communicating with your users and potential ‘customers’.

There are a number of key social media tools that all affiliates should begin to use, from the oldest form of social media – the blog, right up to the more current channels such as Twitter. I could talk for hours about the many ways in which affiliates can use social media, but for now, I thought I’d pop down a few ideas and examples to get people started.

LinkedIn

Whether for you as a person, your company or the site, LinkedIn opens up a world of opportunity. From finding other affiliates to swap ideas with or maybe the odd link, to creating a buzz about what you do.

Did you know there are over 100 million LinkedIn users? What better people to network with than with these people, like-minded business people or entrepreneurs. As an example, if you have a sports or adventure holidays website, then joining groups like (http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Adventure-Sports-Holidays-3798645?gid=3798645&mostPopular=&trk=tyah) this one, can give you inspiration for articles and new contacts, new merchants to get in touch with and perhaps even new content writers.

YouTube

We have all seen a YouTube video at some point, from replays of our favourite sporting moments to celebrities disgracing themselves for our amusement. However the power of YouTube goes beyond that. YouTube videos are an incredible way of visualising a product, giving a brand a personality and generating traffic.

Getting your readers to upload a video or share it or even comment on one can add an additional dimension to your site. There are a number of affiliates already using YouTube, one for example has a staggering 51,025 channel views, with their videos being watched a total of 132,441 times! Used on site to aid conversions and for viral campaigns, this affiliate has truly embraced the power of video. Despite what you may think, video is actually quite simple to create – with free software such as windows movie maker and iMovie. Why not try it and see what happens!

http://www.youtube.com/user/mydeco

Twitter

Great for having a good old moan at your utility providers, stalking celebrities or keeping in touch with the rest of the world, Twitter is now dominating our lives. It’s not only a way of instantly getting your message out there, but it also provides a great platform for 2-way communication, firstly with your merchants; watching what they are promoting and keeping in touch or sourcing new ones.

Secondly, your readers and site users will have their own thoughts and experiences they want to share, they might have questions about products or more importantly they might become ‘brand advocates’. Re-tweeting and sharing your messages to their followers, they will help to promote you and your site. As an example @chocolatereview has a great mix of tweets to readers, merchants and promotional messages. Easy to read without being bombarded with sales, sales, sales!!!

Facebook

Although not an affiliate, my favourite Facebook campaign at the moment has to be Vinnie The Panda (http://www.facebook.com/vinnie). Not only do I keep getting free biscuits in the post, but you can take lots of useful ideas from it. The first page you land on gathers your data, so not only can you be marketed to by Facebook (in the hope you share the love) but Vinnie can now continue his message to your email.

Carefully handled and well executed Facebook can bring you more than just inactive fans. Facebook can deliver data, brand advocates and of course, high quality traffic.

Blogs

The founding tool of social media, the humble blog should not be forgotten, from helping with on site SEO to giving you the chance to discuss wider topics. Take the Olympics as an example; if you own a site about the Olympics, mainly focused on places to stay. Then your blog becomes a chance for you to discuss London visitor attractions, flights, the clothing the athletes are endorsing, memorabilia (did you know they have Olympics branded tea towels!) It gives you a chance to let those creative juices flow, perhaps pick up a few additional sales without flooding your main site with ‘irrelevant’ content. You might even pick up some links too!

How To Get Involved?

The best way to get involved with social media is just to give it a go. Think about what you would like to see as a customer, how would you like to interact with a company? What information would you like to know and most importantly, how often? Shouting ten times a day for a few days and then nothing for weeks is not the best way forward. To quote a dear friend ‘less Billy Connolly, more Billy Joel’ be remembered for the fun things, not the inaudible rants!

I really hope my quick snap shot into social media for affiliates helped! If you have any questions or want to find out more – get in touch!

I’m sure you’re all very much aware of the Google Panda update that’s caused many a heart attack in affiliate land since it was launched 6 long months ago.  My own sad experience has seen me almost completely lose a very large site which was IMHO largely because Google never did work out the difference between my original content and the stuff that had been stolen by oodles of horrid scrapers. I had to remove 1100 pages of a 1300 page site and consign most of it to the internet dustbin. Ouch.

Despite the fact I had other sites with much better EPCs I could have thrown my effort into to replace the income I lost I’ve sweated blood these last few months to go through the painstaking process of rebuilding my site. To date, I’m about 25% of the way there and have a lovely uphill climb over razorblades to look forward to.

However, I decided to persevere with Panda and these are the reasons I think it was the right thing to do: -

1. I Need to Understand Google’s New Way Of Thinking – Yes it’s tempting just to consign an apparently unsavable site to the rubbish bin. But if I don’t take time to understand the fundamentals of what Panda needs to see from me I’m not going to have an affiliate business at all in 2 or 3 years. Working on my hammered site may not be the best short term use of time from a revenue point of view but I’d rather use this experience to improve my business than focus on short term gain.

2. Let Google Get The Better Of Me? Get F**ked! I’d rather stick hot needles under my fingernails than admit to myself that Google took one of my favourite sites. I will fix it, the Panda will not win! Someone mentioned to me the other day that I may or may not have sadistic tendencies when it comes to things like this.  If I do, more power to my elbow.

3. It’s Sort Of Fun Whenever things like this happen I always have a renewed appreciation for my SEO roots, I love the problem solving aspect of algo changes.  To be fair this has been the toughest one to date because it’s had a huge and admittedly depressing effect on Lingerie Brands in particular, and to a lesser extent two of my other main sites.

4. I Can Use What I Learn on My Other Sites – I had two other sites hit by Panda in the June update.  Not badly, but enough to annoy me quite a fair bit.  I used what I’d laboriously learned with my other poorly site to immediately make some key changes I thought could help.  In the August update I recouped about half of what I’d lost. Cheered me up immensely that did!

5. They Might Not be Bloody Done Yet! Like all Google’s wonderful ideas, they’re working hard to refine it.  If I don’t take the time to be up to date with it and they raise the bar again, things could get really gnarly. By working hard to recreate an improved site and passing all I’ve learned into my existing sites I hope to avoid any further traffic upsets.  Incidentally, I really hope we’ve seen all the big changes go through that will affect affiliate content sites – I don’t think I can take any more Pandalisation in my fragile pregnant state, LOL.  MMMM Morning sickness and Panda – thanks for nothing Google

Well, those are my reasons for Persevering with Panda. I could have made this post why “YOU” should persevere but I know a lot of people have just been totally stumped by this. I guess I’m lucky I found a path forward with my sites.

Good luck to all my Pandalised affiliate pals

Greetings!  I’m pleased to report the recovery from the horrors of pregnancy is progressing nicely, I know you’ll all have been worrying about me   I’ve got my 19 week scan on Friday of this week and hope to find out if my little child will be selling princess toys or Bob the Builder merchandise!

In other news, I’ve found the time to do a couple of interviews recently and thought you guys might be interested in hearing from me in a second hand sort of way. I haven’t forgotten about you all honestly, I will get to all my planned posts in the end.

Interview 1 – Webtistic

I had a bit of a chat with the lovely Dave Bird of Webtistic fame (for all your SEO, PPC and affiliate management needs – now I want a discount  for that Dave, you know you want to!!!!).

I talked a bit about my current affiliate marketing goings on, what I like and dislike about it, and I didn’t even get cross when they referred to me as a Super Affiliate. As you all know I’m happy being “Pretty Good” but apparently that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it

You can read the interview here.

Interview 2 – Google Panda & SEO Type Stuff

This is basically a rehash of an e-mail conversation I had with someone about my SEO strategies as an affiliate and a bit about Panda recovery related efforts. It was put up after we realised we’d been talking about some pretty interesting stuff! It’s not as detailed as the Panda post I’m planning to (eventually!!!) do, but there’s some interesting content in there that some of you might find interesting or useful. I also mention just how terribly affected by Panda Lingerie Brands really was – get your hankies out because it’s truly bloody tragic.

But will I let Google have the last laugh?  Come on guys, you know me better than that. I’ll get her back in the end

Check out the interview here.