What’s the Big Deal?

Hey Californians, did you hear? Our <sarcasm>beloved</sarcasm> Governor Schwarzenegger has cut 100% of domestic violence funding from the 2009/2010 budget. Money that helps protect the lives of battered and abused women (and their children) all across the state. This isn’t a reduction or an IOU, this is a permanent annihilation of the money. I was completely taken aback by the news, and disgusted at the fact.

It’s been weighing heavily on my mind that during this economic meltdown, as my friends are being laid off one by one, I’m sitting comfortably in my living room as I write this, without much worry about my immediately financial future. I want to do more, I wish I could do more.

What Can I Do? I’m Just One Person

A few days ago I came across an interesting blog post by Michael Martinez that talked about SEOs and the opportunity for and responsibility of giving back. It struck a chord in me that we are all platforms for voicing our opinions, viewpoints, and even outrage. So, beyond just internet marketers and bloggers, I’m calling on all of my readers, friends, colleagues, and family to choose a struggling non-profit and make a donation. It’s very simple actually.

Can you spare $10? The cost of lunch and an espresso. Can you spare $100? The cost of a new pair of Nikes. Can you spare $1000? The cost of a heavy night of partying in Hollywood. Can you spare $5000? The cost of a quick trip to Europe. I mean, come on, if you’re a successful marketer or business person, a professional, or even retired, there is a chance you can spare this amount. And putting it toward your favorite cause that will pay it forward is much more rewarding than accumulating one more pair of shoes, right?

Where Do I Sign Up?

If you don’t know where to start looking, maybe I can help. I’ve donated $50 to the Domestic Violence Center of Santa Clarita Valley, and plan on finding more worthy organizations to donate to. If you would like to donate to them, here is the DVC donation page. If your heart strings tug for other causes, here are a few alternate suggestions:

• Domestic Violence Organizations (Yahoo! Directory)
• National Coalition for Homeless Veterans
• American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA)
• Habitat for Humanity, New Orleans
• Natural Resources Defense Council (Help save the Earth!)

I Want to Help, But I Don’t Have Money to Spare

What is so wonderful about the human spirit is many people want to help others, even in their own time of need. My hat goes off to every person who donates even one item of clothing, one piece of furniture, a can of food, or a toy for a child. These are all things that could either end up in a landfill or be donated for future use.

If you want to donate, here are some ways you can help:

• Donate used clothing to your local Good Will (winter is coming!)
• Give away toys and games to your local school
• Encourage friends to donate and haul the items for them
• Give books, blankets, or canned food to your local homeless shelter
• Volunteer at your local soup kitchen
• Write a blog post on how you’re helping others in need, and how your readers can help

And if you really want to gain financially from your own situation, have a garage sale! Whatever’s unsold, you can donate to your local non-profit organizations. What you’ll have left are empty closets and a lot less clutter!

Feel Good About Doing Something Good

The whole point of donating your goods, time, or money is to help others, and I think helping others feels good (must be the sociologist in me). If you’ve been thinking about donating some money or helping out at a local shelter, it’s much easier than you think. Non-profits are in extreme need, and every little bit helps.

If you do decide to take action, a hearty “Great job!” goes out to you. Feel free to leave a comment on your favorite charity, a link to donate if you want, and the amount or items you’ve donated. Come on people, let’s help out our fellow citizens and do something good!

[photo: Xenia Institute]

You will not be able to stay home, brother
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out
…Because the revolution will not be televised

The revolution will be no re-run brothers
The revolution will be live

That was 1971. In a time when consumer identity was truly beginning to either mirror or oppose the images that were spewed out from TV land, subcultures of anti-establishmentarianist dissidents were forming around the country, and around the world. Scott-Heron’s revolution was about self-identity, self-awareness and self-awakening. Identity isn’t found from without, it is found within.

His concept that the revolution against superficiality and mass consumption begins from within one’s self is almost more relevant today with the collapse of the financial institutions. The public’s passive acceptance of its desire to live outside of its means only fueled the collapse more quickly. It was the zenith of what plagues us in Scott-Heron’s poem; the zenith of our inevitable downfall.

So what does this have to do with Twitter? Technology is changing, advancing, and growing by the minute. We no longer rely on TV to bring us our daily dose of advertising. The global youth is more savvy, can’t be “sold” the way generations before them could. Today’s youth puts out information, pulls information from where they can find it, and shares it with people who they’ve never even met face to face.

Twitter, along with Flickr, YouTube, and a host of other social media sites, have helped angry voters in Iran get out their messages and images from the last few days, in ways they would never have been able to even a couple years ago. People are making their voices heard using real-time technology. The world is aware, connected, and informed. The message isn’t what’s for dinner, what will make you thin, or why no one likes you. Whatever your beliefs, soak it all up and as my friend Jimmy says, “be mindful.” This is reality; this is life; this is history. This is no re-run, my friends, this is now.

Resources: 

• Gil Scott-Heron
• Tracking Iran Election through Social Media
• Media Clampdown Meets Internet Age

Why Are You Hiring?

I took a step back and asked him why he was hiring. An obvious question but one that needed to be asked. He was looking to expand on his affiliate business but needed help. Since many of us work individually in affiliate marketing, we sometimes don’t know what to do when we need help doing grunt work and freeing up our time. There’s always the option to offshore the work to some overseas company, but often that requires micromanagement of important tasks, not to mention the fact that by hiring an assistant you’re putting money back into the hands of someone in your local economy. Anyway, like many affiliates, my friend wants to hire someone to help, not to run his business.

If You Don’t Want Your Secrets Out, Don’t Give Them Away

My simple advice to him was, if you don’t want someone to take your ideas, don’t give them away. You can hire helpers (domestic or abroad) to do the grunt work without giving them the knowledge or foundational principles of how you monetize your particular business. They will learn parts of your business no matter what (the egg), but they won’t be able to take your business from you (the farm). The discussion reminded me of the book and slogan “Only the Paranoid Survive.” Until you’ve built your business to where it is making a greatly profitable amount, protect it with everything you have as best you can.

For instance, if you’re running newsletter campaigns and you want to jump them to the next level, hiring someone to manage your newsletters and reduce your unsubscribe rates would be a helpful use of time. Give the person a few Seth Godin books, and see what they can do to your retention rates. It doesn’t mean they will understand how the article content and links within the newsletters are tracked and how they convert. It’s your job to optimize the monetization side of the business.

Later on down the line, when you’re ready to expand from the business and relationships you’ve been able to establish with your newfound free time, you can hire a more trusted business manager. Just remember to pull out that trusty NDA/non-compete.

Be More Focused

I’ve mentioned a few times here on my blog that there’s a good chance I have ADD. I’m sure many of you can relate. However, it’s something that as I grow and learn more about internet marketing, can be very detrimental in the end. If untamed, your mind can constantly lead you to wander and waste time, forget important things, and under-perform during tasks. My goal of becoming more focused will help me absorb information more effectively, enrich the relationships I’ve created, and ultimately help me succeed in the goals I’ve set forth. Wait…what was I saying…?

Be a Better Risk-Taker

By nature, I’m a pretty cautious person, and caution can be harmful to achieving great success in personal internet projects, as the goal of most projects is scalability. Find something that works well and do a whole lot more of it! I want to be able to successfully guide a PPC campaignt that grosses $10k per month, just so I know I’ve acheived it. Even in a down economy, $10k per month in internet sales or CPAs is doable.

What are your resolutions, if you have any? Feel free to leave comments or links to your resolutions blog posts for everyone to read. Thanks!

5. Geeks Are Smart

This one is obvious, but it had to be on the list. The way I see it, geeks are very knowledgeable about specific areas of study. It could be music, technology, food, films, science, etc. Have you ever “geeked out” over your favorite restaurants or your favorite bands? I do it all the time and sometimes people are interested and sometimes they’re not. Well, when you’re on the same wave length about a particular topic with someone and totally geeking out, that’s hot.

4. Geeks Are Interesting

A very good friend of mine told me that in order to be interesting, one has to be interested in a variety of things. Ain’t that the truth. This comes from someone who is a doctor, musician, artist, foodie, and loves to mountain bike, sail, and snowboard. Needless to say, he’s extremely interesting. Wouldn’t you be interested in him if you were a woman? (Ladies, he’s single )

3. Geeks Can Solve Problems

I don’t know what it is about someone who can solve problems (real life or theoretical), but yea, that’s hot. Right?

2. Geeks Are Passionate

While geeking out about your favorite songs, do you start singing it out loud and humming the guitar riffs? When you’re discussing quantum physics, do you paint pictures with your words? Well showing that you have a true passion for something shows depth of understanding and it’s usually linked in some way to your life that affects you in a tangible way. Passion is for sure hot.

1. Geeks Don’t Know They’re Hot

Most of the geeks I know that are really hot don’t even know they’re hot. In general, that makes them even hotter. What’s more unattractive than some non-geeky Joe Schmoe who thinks he’s God’s gift to the world? Not a lot. Therefore if you think you’re a geek, there are a lot of people out there with their eyes on you. Hey, you can’t help it if you got it going on.

[Post inspired by Geeks are Sexy]

A good friend of mine told me he wasn’t going to vote, and that he hadn’t voted in the previous two elections. When I asked why not, he said, “I don’t really know what’s going on.”

I think that’s a common sentiment shared by people who haven’t looked at the issues yet. When it comes to voting for new registrants, I look at it as being pretty black and white. Look at the issues and see who either has more positives or negatives to swing your vote. I understand that people look at Democrats vs. Republicans as choosing “the lesser of two evils” and may shy away from voting, but in the same token, one party may have more pluses than minuses. Looking at the issues from the start may help pull you in one direction or another, and from there you can do further research.

To help you decide, I’m posting links to the candidate’s issues, as well as some factchecking on the recent convention speeches. I’m not going to air my political views here, I’m just asking you to do your part.

*REGISTER TO VOTE HERE*

• Official sites of Barack Obama and John McCain
• Factchecking Obama and Factchecking McCain

Now I’m not claiming to know how many affiliate companies existed in 2006 versus now, since I don’t know that number. All I know is I’m continually learning about more and more. Last week I ran across an article at adotas titled “Can 314 Ad Networks Really Thrive?” which touched on a recent concern of mine. Author Michael Sprouse addresses the growth of the internet advertising management space and wonders if the number of networks will scale down in the near future. His conclusion is No, which for the most part I do agree. However, the one thing that wasn’t addressed in his article, which is a growing concern of mine is, How do we manage the growing number of networks that were born out of our need to scale down management?

My conclusion is that we will need middle men to accomodate the middle men. In other words, let’s say I am a publisher trying to push sales to Merchant F. That makes me an affiliate, or a middle man. The affiliate company, Network C, tracks my data and dispenses the proper commissions to me on behalf of their client, Merchant F. That makes Network C a middle man.

Now, there are an endless number of publishers and an endless number of merchants (or advertisers, in the case of ad networks), both sides of which are growing exponentially every day. How can a small business attempt to manage a large scope of merchants and/or advertisers with the growing and ever-changing landscape of the networks. In the grand scheme of things, they are still in their infancy.

When thinking of the magnitude of online advertising and affiliate marketing, there are so many networks out there that are succeeding that, as Michael Sprouse says, “As long as there is still opportunity for networks to exhibit a fuller value proposition, then fast consolidation … is not necessarily a certainty.” In short, we’re going to continue to see more networks because there’s no reason why we won’t. I believe that beyond that, we will see an additional layer of middle men emerge from this same need that created networks, which is basically a need for additional management. Sprouse notes that “networks were born out of demand in the marketplace,” to which I add, network management companies will also be born out of great demand. It looks like this in my head:

The Norm Now

The Future

In an age where segmenting and growth is as infinite as it is possible, I think this growing class of middle-middle men will be born out of need. Affiliates and publishers will need management companies for their networks, since one company alone might need multiple affiliate networks, ad networks and exchanges to maximize ROI. How many middle men will this industry see? Only time will tell.

[Tell us what you think about the growing nature of online advertising and affiliate marketing. I find it absolutely fascinating!]

This is Sharp’s commercial slogan in Japan — referring to how solar energy can and will provide all the energy needed for consumer daily life. I was immediately intrigued by the sound and visuals of the commercial’s ominous yet inspiring tone, my first reaction being, Do we need saving?

As someone who’s not a Sharp enthusiast, I didn’t even realize it was a Japanese company. Then to find out they’ve been developing solar cells since the ’50s and are now attempting to lead the charge into this new “clean energy era” was an eye-opener to say the least.

Unlike oil, coal or other fossil fuels, there is no danger of it running out. And it produces no CO₂ emissions or other downside for the environment. In contrast to energy resources buried beneath the ground only in certain regions, solar energy can be found anywhere. And there is no need to transport or burn it.

I can’t argue anything that they’re attempting to do — harness the sun’s energy and produce emission-free electricity, reduce global degradation from traditional forms of energy generation, create global awareness of the benefits of solar energy and its impact on energy production. I’m just not sure if / when this perspective would ever be adopted by the United States. It’s a complete understatement to say that “we use a lot of energy.”

But as ominous as it sounds at first thought, will we inevitably be looking to the sun to be our savior? I mean, the bigger picture, saving the earth. Because that’s what Sharp is claiming: “Convinced that the sun will save the earth, today and in the future, Sharp aims for the dissemination of solar energy systems as part of our corporate objective of minimizing the burden on the global environment.”

It’s not a far stretch to say that the sun currently is our “savior.” Without it there is no plant life, no food, no anything. The world wouldn’t exist as we know it and for the most part we take it for granted that the sun rises each day. And the reality is that in 2010 Sharp will be operating a solar energy manufacturing complex that will generate energy for hundreds of thousands of homes, harnessing this power on a massively large scale. I only wonder what it would take for the world to follow. This is huge food for thought, and I’ve only scratched the surface.

What do you think of Sharp’s initiative? Check out their site (link below) to see what they’re doing. I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Resource:

• Sharp Solar Campaign (with sound)

When I was a kid, I was a pretty good student. For the most part, I got A’s, but it wasn’t easy for me. I tried very hard to study the lessons I was given and finish my homework so I wouldn’t get stink-eye from my mom. I’d read chapters three…four…five times over just to remember the basic information I needed to pass whatever test I was taking the next week. I tried and tried and tried to battle the distractions of the tv, radio, phone calls, and whatever else generated the slightest bit of noise so as to not sacrifice my studies.

Meanwhile my brother would breeze through text books with the tv on, in the middle of the living room, answering the phone and eating all at the same time…and still pass with flying colors. What am I doing wrong? I need to study harder…

Little did I know that I probably had ADHD. During class I’d be the kid with her head in the flip-top desk, rummaging around for something to scribble on, listening to the teacher, and talking to my desk-mate all at once. Really. And when someone walked in the door, it didn’t matter who, I had to look and see who it was. It’s like someone was waving a shiny coin in front of me and I had to look. (If you have ADD tendencies, you know exactly what I’m talking about.) Thinking back on these instances, I was the only one in class that would look up, even if it was during a test. If something or someone was moving, I was immediately distracted. This continued through high school.

Twitter is the mystery person walking through the door. More specifically, the little Twitterrific window that pops open every so often…. Who is it? Why are you here? What do you have to say? Are you here for me? Why won’t you let me finish my test?!

I resisted joining Twitter for a long time and I had a feeling this would happen. It’s so distracting, but I just can’t lock the door. What if they have something really important to say, and they have to say it to me? I want to know. I need to know. I have to know.

Have you unlocked the door for Twitter?

[This has been a dramatization by your friendly neighborhood marketer, MsDanielle. Follow MsDanielle on Twitter at your own risk.]

Here are the reasons this irks me:

• I am to receive their “PayPal Periodical newsletter and Product Updates,” which should (in my opinion) contain PayPal related news and product and service updates.
• There is no valuable content relating to my PayPal account or PayPal services in this email. They could have easily included something of value to me, and included the aff links post content.
• The entire purpose of this email is to push sales from users who use PayPal at checkout for these  merchants, not to provide valuable information.
• PayPal is not an affiliate coupon site.

I am also an affiliate of Eastbay and if I fired out an email to everyone who subscribes to my blog with my affiliate links and codes, I bet a lot of people would be pissed off too. I know, PayPal is the merchant and is using the newsletter to send out deals you might not be able to find on their site. I get it. But I have to emphasize this is their monthly newsletter, their one opportunity to reach out to their users, not their coupon feed and I expect they would want to provide some valuable information.

I allow many of my service providers to contact me with updates and surveys since I know the value of keeping the communication channel open, and I like to know if there are changes in their service as well as provide them feedback. I am just especially disappointed with PayPal since their product newsletter appears solely as a means to push sales. As a marketer I feel there are better ways to optimize it and provide value, and as a user/affiliate I feel they’re taking advantage of their right of contact. Disclaimer: This is purely my opinion and I’m not saying PayPal is doing anything illegal. What do you think?