Affiliate Summit Social Meetup: NY

This past Sunday I attended the Affiliate Summit Social Media Meetup. I wasn't planning to attend this particular Affiliate Summit, but hey its next door to me and it has been a while since I visited New York. So I decided to go and I had a great time. I met up with GeekBlogger and we drove up to New York. I preferred public transportation, but Benny wanted to sport off his little Scion. Its cool.

The only bad part is he messed up on the address and we ended up in Staten Island first, I was like this doesnt look like the New York area. Finally he entered the address correctly and we were on our way. Once in the city we found the Baruch College Vertical Campus Conference Center, but couldn't find parking. We drove and drove and I was telling Benny to park at this little edge of a corner, finally he listened and we were parked literally next to the college.

We came in a little late and I missed the keynote, other were saying the keynote was very powerful. Damn. Well I sat down and just listened in to the session. The sessions was Gain Friends and Influence, With Video. I listened in, since I do video. There were a couple things that caught my ear. The interesting part is Melissa says she has a team of people uploading videos to all the video networks, then Jim chimes in and says heard of TubeMogul? Well I kinda feel sorry for those employees uploading videos all day - fired!

Prior to this sessions I met up with one of my mastermind group, Ad Hustler. Great to see him again since it has been a while since our real face to face meeting. We just talked and updated each other on what we were running and what campaigns worked, update on the offers we were all testing and running, just keeping each other up to date.

The Sessions

I came in late and since there was just one room for social marketing stuff, there were good panels. I liked the video and social marketing case studies. I got to see familiar faces and familiar panelist. There were some good points to some sessions. One person was just strange, Sachin - definitely came out strong when he was on the panel. He was strongly talking about how Second Life is all about 'flying penises', interesting concept.

He just kept repeating it because a question was thrown at the panel about Second Life and if they should get social on there as well. The panel who knew about second life, which was just Sachin, just talked about how poor it is. I think differently on that since people have virtual stores that sell affiliate related products on there and not just watching the sky for 'Flying Penises'.

There was only one sessions I didn't really enjoy, which was the Making Social Media Make Money. The first guy, Jay Berkowitz, had a slide of multiple pages and ran through them in 10 minutes. We even had copies that were passed around just so we can reference to it. I am unsure of who he is but the packet had some good points too bad it was time limited and he had to rush through it. Also some points he made didn't even make sense. He even tried to get the audience to optin with a contest of free consultation service he will provide to a random winner.

Besides the sessions, I got to meetup with my Business Development person from NeverBlueAds. She updated me and I updated her on my new web service I am soon to be releasing. We also talked about some offers and updated me on specific aspects of my account. I was glad to finally meetup with her and say hi.

I also was approached by a fellow reader and entrepreneur, Vlad at SageBlogger.com, picture below. The great part is he is from New Jersey as well, just didn't know what part. We talked about new projects and what he has been up to. I also told him about my New Jersey IANteract Meetup.

Overall the conference was exciting, then nightlife came and that turned out crazy. When Brian Littleton throws a party gathering after the Affiliate Summit, it gets crazy. Even though there was not a lot of people at the gathering, I made it worth while. I met up with past friends from prior affiliate summit and just drank into the night. I got the opportunity to talk to Melissa Salas of Buy.tv and just talked about video and what more she does. I also just started to talking to random people and random people would just come up and join into conversations.

By the end of the night I was tired, Benny and I started to head back to Jersey and it was a wrap. I as glad I attended and thanks to Shawn Collins and Missy Ward for inviting and having this event.

-> View more Photos Here