If you missed Affiliate Summit East 2009 (“ASE”), you missed a great business opportunity. While sessions are educational, the best networking occurs after-hours. You can wait until you get to town to plan your schedule, but your best bet to maximize your time is to plan ahead, stay connected, and always follow up after the show.

Before you book your plane ticket, know what your goals are. What does success look like to you? Whether it’s developing new connections or taking advantage of open bars, keep your end goals in mind when planning your show strategy.

Take a look at the attendee list and pick three potential partners you’d like to do business with. Set up meetings during the show well in advance. It’s almost impossible to track down big names during the show and when you do, they’re overbooked and may not be able to chat before hopping on a plane.

Do your research in advance; know what your business goals are and who can best help you accomplish them. Find those people now, set up a meeting, and put together a business proposal. Don’t oversell, but do show up prepared.

If you want to make a big impact and get the most out of the show, get the word out that you’re attending. Announce your presence prior to the show on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and the Affiliate Summit social network.

While you don’t have to set up meetings with every person who replies, you can stay in the loop with the important events that allow you to make the most of the show.

The biggest thing I learned from ASE and really all the shows I’ve been to is that it’s a 24-hour event. There are keynotes, panels, dinners, and parties. If you don’t plan ahead, you end up missing some great opportunities for meeting unexpected guests.

Pack some Red Bull and save up cash for cab fare around town, because the longest nights are the best for getting to know people.

When you exchange contact information, keep notes on the back of cards of conversations or points you want to remember. If you did your job, you’ve ended up with so many cards you won’t remember every person you met.

Even if you can’t place faces with names, do not make any exceptions when it comes to following up. At the very least, send a courtesy email to each person and try to include something memorable about your prior meeting.

While you won’t end up working with everyone you meet, connections go far in any industry. The social media whiz you meet today could be friends with the super affiliate who helps get your campaigns to the next level tomorrow.

Approach each and every show like a business opportunity; at the end of the day, the goal is always the same – to make more money.

Dina is the Marketing and Social Media Manager at MarketLeverage Interactive Advertising, Inc., a performance-based online marketing services company.

Download the entire FeedFront issue 8 here – http://www.scribd.com/doc/20220412/FeedFront-Magazine-Issue-8
FeedFront issue 8 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/article00date/2009/10

Affiliate Summit East 2009 is taking place August 9-11 in New York City. The agenda is packed with three days of educational sessions. Here are some of the speakers and their sessions you can look forward to attending.

SEO Tools You Can Use Today
Wil Reynolds
SEER Interactive
Associate
Twitter @wilreynolds

What will attendees learn if they attend your session?
We’ll review the pros and cons of some of my favorite (and many unknown) web tools. Expect to learn how to use YouTube to build links, along with advanced tactics strategies like using no-follows and other tactics to help maximize your internal link power to the pages that need it most.

What are you looking forward to during Affiliate Summit East 2009?
If you’ve ever seen a competitor outranking you for some of your key terms this session will give you the tools and strategies to put up a good fight. The people, I look forward to interacting with and learning from are all of you guys!

Getting Noticed FAST
Lisa Picarille
LisaPicarille.com
Consultant
Twitter @lisap

What will attendees learn if they attend your session?
How a handful of savvy online marketers have leveraged the latest social networking tools, – along with good old -fashioned networking, – to go from virtually unknown newbies to instantly recognizable (and well-respected) names in the affiliate marketing space in just one year. Attendees will learn the tips, tricks and proven techniques that made these personal branding efforts highly successful.

What are you looking forward to during Affiliate Summit East 2009?
Affiliate Summit is always the perfect combination of education and networking that enables me to take away practical advice, expert opinions and real- world lessons that move my business forward. Plus, the show always manages to incorporate some fun implementation of cutting- edge technology that ends up being critical to me down the road.

Seven Deadly Sins of Landing Page Optimization
Tim Ash
SiteTuners.com
President & CEO
Twitter @tim_ash

What will attendees learn if they attend your session?
How a few simple fixes to common problems can skyrocket your conversion rate.

What are you looking forward to during Affiliate Summit East 2009?
Power networking and hanging out with positive enthusiastic people.

Organic Site Review Panel
Scott Polk
Bruce Clay, Inc
Sr. SEO Analyst / Evangelist
Twitter @scottpolk

What will attendees learn if they attend your session?
Real- world SEO recommendations on how to improve their organic listings in Google, Yahoo and MSN Live search engines. Attendees will have the opportunity to have their websites reviewed in real-time by a panel of experts in the SEO field.

What are you looking forward to during Affiliate Summit East 2009?
I am definitely looking forward to the Nnetworking opportunities, – both professional and personal that always occurs at Affiliate Summit. Also, new business opportunities and partnerships with some of the smartest people in internet marketing.

Social Media Marketing for Affiliates

Brent Csutoras
Brent Csutoras, Inc.
Social Media Consultant
Twitter @brentcsutoras

What will attendees learn if they attend your session?
A comprehensive understanding of the benefits to marketing within the top social media aggregation sites like Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon. Through the many examples and tips the panel will provide, attendees will learn how to use these social sites as a brand, visibility, and link building tools. Basically if you want to know what social media marketing is really all about, this is the panel for you.

What are you looking forward to during Affiliate Summit East 2009?
This being my first time at Affiliate Summit, I am really looking forward to meeting and networking with the attendees.

Web 2010 – Ten Trends Defining Your Future

Jay Berkowitz
www.TenGoldenRules.com
CEO
Twitter @JayBerkowitz

What will attendees learn if they attend your session?
The ten leading trends that will allow businesses, individuals and affiliates to succeed online in 2010 and beyond.

What are you looking forward to during Affiliate Summit East 2009?

I am looking forward to the affiliate marketing community taking on the Big Apple and shaking it up!

Register at www.AffiliateSummit.com – passes are expected to sell out within a couple weeks of Affiliate Summit East 2009.

Download the entire FeedFront issue 6 here – http://feedfront.com/feedfront-issue6.pdf
FeedFront issue 6 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/article00date/2009/06