Anik Singal from Affiliate Classroom has started another beloved “tagging meme.” Normally, I sneer and auto archive the emails that I receive for this type of thing, but Anik is a good friend, Affiliate Classrom is a great company and this could be fun and/or educational.

Here?s how it works - I say 1 thing I learned at The Affiliate Summit then I tag 5 other lucky people and they have to reveal 1 thing they learned and tag 5 others!

Anik learned a few interesting facts about the affiliate vertical and conversion rates and price of purchases from Chris Henger at Performics. I was speaking at the same time as Chris, so I look forward to seeing his presentation on video.

As for myself, I learned something a little more esoteric and abstract (who would have guessed??). Basically, I had the extended realization that presence is meaning more and more both in the meat space and in the cyber space. What I mean by that is that no matter how good I was at doing affiliate management or paid search campaigns, I had a hard time breaking through the noise until I started this blog, started being on Twitter and recently started a presence on Facebook.

So, while some people look to “web2.0″ platforms like blogs, Twitter or Facebook and think that they are social networks only, I’ve begun to realize that they are effective branding channels for yourself or your company. That doesn’t mean I’m selling Clicks2Customers to everyone I interact with on those platforms, but it means that they are aware of who I am, what we do and if they want to work with me before we have our first one on one conversation.

It was a little arresting for people to walk up and start a conversation with me based on a post I made here two or three months ago, but then I began to realize the effectiveness of that approach and how that is far and above more successful than blasting out emails to Affiliate Summit participants after the show is over.

As a result, both Clicks2Customers and my own personal brand will reap the benefits.

So, my advice from what I learned? Get your voice out there. Start a blog, start Twittering, start letting people know who you are and what you think in ways that suits their own attention spans. You’ll find those contacts are of much higher quality and you might even make a few friends along the way.

So, to honor Anik’s wishes I have to tag 5 people. So, here you go:

Jamie Birch

Scott Jangro

Jeff Doak

Jim Kukral

Wayne Porter Oops… didn’t go.

Jeff Molander Oops… didn’t go.

Lisa Picarille

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