Photo-A-Day #1745
Our second day in Vegas and it was time to get down to business. Allison and I got up and had a nice relaxing morning. I picked up some muffins from a little coffee shop in the hotel. We enjoyed them in the room while we relaxed before the long day ahead. Today I spoke on a panel, we went to Margaritaville and also Zumanity and then capped the evening with a charity bowling event.
First off, the panels. We went down to watch one panel on Social Media strategies and it was interesting. I was paying attention but also thinking about my upcoming panel. I was nervous again because while I do have knowledge that I love to share I sometimes struggle with the confidence to really promote myself. So this was a good thing that I was on a panel.
Our panel was called Monetizing Blogs: Affiliate Marketing & SEO. On the panel was Kristopher B. Jones, President, Pepperjam Network, A GSI Commerce Company (Twitter @pepperjamceo) (Moderator), Me, John Carcutt, SEO Manager, MediaWhiz (Twitter @JohnCarcutt), Tim Jones, Owner, TheRealTimJones.com (Twitter @TheRealTimJones) and Murray Ross Newlands, Founder, Affiliate Heat (Twitter @murraynewlands).
We prepared prior to the event by having a couple of phone calls. I also went and saw who was going to attend and contacted each person I could find and asked them why they signed up and what they expected to gain from coming to the session. The response was fantastic and the room was full.
We had a great time on the panel and we were even given the John Chow sign of approval.
I hung around and watched the next session which was called Start Monetizing Your Blog Today.
The people on that panel were Marty Fahncke, President, FawnKey & Associates (Twitter @FawnKey) (Moderator), Kristin Kinsey, President/CEO, MadHatter Consulting, Inc. (Twitter @KC), Tricia Meyer, Owner, Sunshine Rewards (Twitter @sunshinetricia) & Carolyn Tang, Director of Client Services, ShareASale.com (Twitter @catango). This panel was an introduction to monetizing your blog and it was approached from the perspectives of three distinct roles in the affiliate marketing space. The Affiliate company, an Affiliate Manager and an Affiliate. Very useful info.
I went back upstairs and Allison and I got ready to head to the strip. We caught the shuttle to Harrah’s and walked over to Margaritaville.
Allison has never been to one so we fixed that and we each had a nice meal of Cheeseburger’s in Paradise. Dinner ran a little long so afterwards we booked it over to the New York, New York to catch our show.
Thanks to the awesome Jessica Berlin of Cirque Du Soleil we had fantastic tickets to see Zumanity. Zumanity is Cirque Du Soleil’s adult show. It is sexy, provocative and overall amazingly fun. Leave your inhibitions at the door as you watch some incredible feats of athleticism from some very beautiful people. The show had so many different acts and each one more visually stunning than the next.
They were also broken up by the clowns of the show, they were very funny, they got the crowd involved in the action too. Both Allison and I loved the show and walked out really happy to have seen it. The more I see Cirque shows, the more I want to see other ones. It is funny because before my first show I had not had any interest in seeing a Cirque show at all. After Ka I was wondering what else I was missing form these performances. They are fantastic and that is not because we were comped the tickets either, the shows are that good.
After the show we walked back to the shuttle and then it was back to the Affiliate Summit Events. We went to the Karaoke party and then we participated in the Strike Out Breast Cancer Midnight Bowling Event Fundraiser over at the Gold Coast Casino. They have a bowling alley on the second floor of the casino, what a great thing to have there as an alternative to all the gambling.
The event was organized by Karen (@karengarcia) & Joel Garcia (@joeldgarcia) and Wade Tonkin (@affile8warrior) of GTO Management. They manage the affiliate program for BowlingShirt.com. I am an affiliate for that program and really like their stuff. We all got custom Bowling shirts for the event and it will be an annual thing. I am looking forward to the next one. We raised a great deal of money to fight Breast Cancer too.
After that. Bed. So Tired.
Another great day of activities! Glad you panel went so well.
.-= Look at what Deborah wrote blog ..Welcome to FeedBurner =-.
Deborah,
Yes, it was a great day, we had such a fun time. Sad to go home and leave everyone.
Thanks for coming to our session! I have to admit that I was a little bit intimidated having you there because you are so good at what you do. 🙂 I can’t wait to catch your session on the videos. I was too nervous to sit right before our session. LOL!
Oh…you’re standing right next to me in the Blogger Lounge now. Guess I’ll talk to you in person. 😉
.-= Look at what Tricia wrote blog ..Presentation Fun at Affiliate Summit =-.
Tricia,
Intimidated by me, you are the one who intimidates me, you run a very successful program and that is your job, that is something I have yet to achieve. I’m sorry I missed you in the lounge. We should talk more, I’d love to hear more on how I can be a better affiliate. Good job on the session once again.
You and I need to jump on a call someday and compare notes. I have a feeling that there is a lot that we can learn from each other. 🙂 I can’t wait to catch the video of your session. I’ve read a couple of posts about it and it sounds like you all gave some great ideas for programs and plugins that I am not yet using.
.-= Look at what Tricia wrote blog ..Learning to Take Chances at Affiliate Summit =-.
Tricia,
Please forward me along any posts about the session, I seem to be missing them and would love to see what people are saying. I would love to do a call sometime, let’s set it up, record part of it and post it on our blogs, maybe a tips session or something. That would be fantastic, e-mail me and we’ll set it up.
Ben,
Glad you enjoyed the session. They should have switched the order to the “101” was first, and the advanced session was second, but I oh well. I attended your session and learned a lot. Thanks for hanging around for ours!
I too had a lot of fun at the bowling event. I’ll definitely plan on doing that again.
Take care,
Marty M. Fahncke
Hi Marty,
Thank you for attending my session. I did enjoy your session and I did learn much from it. I was tempted to ask for feedback on my blog too but chickened out. The bowling event was a great time, I won’t miss that one at future Summits, it was so fun.
Hey Drew,
Kris mentioned on your panel that you’d be putting up the list of plugins that he zoomed through. Can you shoot that to me somehow so I can include it in my recap of the panel? Thanks!
Good job on that, btw, and thanks so much for the awesome water bottle :). It was good to see you in Vegas!
Trish
.-= Look at what Trisha Lyn Fawver wrote blog ..Affiliate Marketing Fanatics 18: Jason Ruckaby =-.
Trisha,
I will get that post up later today, thank you for reminding me, I will get going on that. I’m glad you liked the session.I was very nervous about it. Also you are welcome for the WB. It was good to see you as well.
FYI – I posted the list of the plug ins. Thanks for reminding me.
I’m realizing now looking at your pictures that you and Allison were bowling on the lane right next to mine. Funny, what a small world 🙂
.-= Look at what Shannon wrote blog ..Scaling Article Marketing for Affiliates =-.
Shannon,
That is awesome and at the same time sad because we didn’t meet. That would have been great. I would have loved to have met you, you did a fantastic write up of the panel too.
It was my first Affiliate Summit, but definitely not my last. I’m hoping to attend the next one in New York for sure.
.-= Look at what Shannon wrote blog ..Scaling Article Marketing for Affiliates =-.
Shannon,
Let’s keep in touch because I think you had some great insight and would like to meet you in New York.
I got here by looking for blogs mentioning “Cheeseburger in Paradise”, just to check on my own recent post. Strangely fascinated by your site. I’m guessing that Margaritaville is a Jimmy Buffet themed restaurant?
Pete in Canberra
.-= Look at what Skyring wrote blog ..Cheeseburger in Paradise =-.
Pete,
“Cheeseburger in Paradise” is a Jimmy Buffett Song. Margaritaville is a Jimmy Buffett Song and the restaurant is a Jimmy Buffett themed one. They are in many places and you need to stop in on during your journey.