Our camera crew went around on the exhibit hall floor and spoke to attendees at Affiliate Summit 2007 East to get their opinions on the affiliate conference.

Hear what the following folks had to say…

• Jay Berkowitz, Ten Golden Rules
• Brian Littleton, ShareASale
• Brandy Shapiro-Babin, WebmasterRadio.FM
• Audrey Berheney, AzoogleAds
• John Engler, UnsubCentral
• Todd Crawford, oneNetworkDirect
• Victor Pitts, Moniker
• The Pepperjam Crew
• Tara McCommons, LinkConnector
• Paula Carlson, Avanquest Software

Save the Affiliate Summit video to view locally on iTunes.

Missy Ward (Affiliate Summit) and Connie Berg of (Flamingo World) have joined forces to fight breast cancer as Team Affiliate Marketing. Missy and Connie are going to be participating in the Twin Cities Breast Cancer 3-Day, taking place August 24-26, 2007.

The Twin Cities Breast Cancer 3-Day is a 60-mile walk where teams are committing to raise a minimum of $2,200 to benefit the Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the National Philanthropic Trust Breast Cancer Fund.

“The 60-miles definitely seems monumental on paper, but I know several people that have lost their lives to breast cancer. I can’t think of a better cause to support or a more challenging goal to take on.” - Missy Ward.

“There is no other walk longer than this one. It’s great that we’re doing this as a team because we’ll be a strong support system for each other. Representing Affiliate Marketing in this walk is an added bonus.” - Connie Berg.

If you would like to make a contribution, visit Team Affiliate Marketing’s site at 60-milewalk.com. If you donate $1,000 or more, you will be entitled to your company logo placed on the team’s shirts. Missy and Connie plan to take lots of photos and video, and blog the experience over the three days of the walk.

Affiliate Summit is matching all donations up to $5,000 to support Team Affiliate Marketing.

More details at http://affiliatetip.com/news/article001341.php.

Is it possible to submit affiliate links to search engines and have those links turn up in the search engine results?

I guess anything is possible. But I don’t think the search engines or their users want these sorts of results coming up.

In my opinion, it’s not a good practice, as you are not adding value anywhere.

Since you wouldn’t actually be serving a role with this strategy, but rather just gaming the system, I can’t see how you’d think you’d even be entitled to a commission.

You’d be insinuating yourself into a process where you are not providing anything.

I would suggest going back to the drawing board and devise a way you can add value to the process, rather than trying to capitalize on a situation where you are not providing anything.

What if you’re like me, and have to overcome online shyness issues?

Take baby steps.

These specific tips might help too.

• Strive a little more each day to be a more social blogger.

  Set a goal to comment more - pick a number that’s twice the number of comments you make per day and do that much commenting every other day this week.

  Talk about other blog posts on your blog and send trackback links.

  You don’t have to change your personality and suddenly become the life of the party. Take it slow and just say a few more words a little more often.

• This goes for forums, soical networking sites, and email discussion lists too.
• Start with places you’re already familiar with and comfortable, then add more places.
• Take the focus off what you’re going to say, and think about how much you’re contributing to the discussion.

  It’s not as much what you say as it is that you said something that contributes to the discussion somehow, that makes a publisher appreciate your comment.

• Ask a question.

  Sometimes you might read a post that’s really great, and you don’t want to just say “great post” because that sounds completely lame, and makes you look like you’re just hoping for link traffic. (Or link juice from a Do Follower.)

• Comment in other ways. If you’re too shy to speak, then share. Take a moment to save the post to delicious and tag it. Share it on Facebook. Make a PlugIM, BUMPzee or Digg entry.

  (Click on the Share This Post or Save It To Read Again Later! link for this post to get some more places you can submit articles to that you enjoy.)

  Letting more people know about a site is sometimes the best comment you can make.

If you want people like me, who often refrain from commenting 50% of the time due to shyness, here’s a few suggestions for how you can get us to post more:

1. Think of getting us to post like making a new friend. We may respond well to questions near the end of your post, polls, or anything that makes us feel like we’re helping by commenting or adding feedback.
2. Give us incentive to post. Install a DoFollow plug-in. Reward commenters who speak up.
3. Respond to the people who respond to you. It’s pretty easy for me to tell who just spoke up because they’re hoping for a link (instant deletion if the comment is not relevant to the discussion.) but for the majority of people, I will visit their site at least once. if I find something interesting, I’ll link out to them from a post.
4. Follow up privately the first time we post if that is appropriate. You know that you don’t bite, but we might not be so sure.

In my offline world, I’m shy around new people.

See, when I was growing up, we moved a lot, and as a bookworm, I didn’t have what you call “the social skills” as my fellow Waterboy fans will call it. Part of that little girl in me never grew up. In that way, I’m a lot like most people.

When I first came to the web, I was here to escape phone interactions and in-person chats, which makes me like a lot of people.

What makes me not like a lot of people was that I knew it wouldn’t last. I knew the popular kids would find a way for us to all interact online. And then…

I’d have to talk to people. Mon Dieu!

So I sucked it up and started letting people call me, write me, etc, until I got so overwhelmed by the constant barrage that I reworked my system of contact several times. I have a better handle on how to get my current clients in touch with me immediately. But it’s nowhere near perfect for anything else, and our team is constantly trying to make it better.

I’m not alone in this aliment either. Those with Anxpostcomitis are everywhere you go online.

I’m that person who thinks for about ten minutes before making a 3 sentence post to a forum.

I’m the person who reads your blog every day like it’s a religion, but has a paralyzing fear of responding to a post with a comment.

Even posting to my own blog was a struggle at first - I was so afraid of what people would say, and would often think about my post from now to three years from now that half of my best work never made it to my blog the first year.

So what does my fake ailment, AnxPostComitis have to do with you?

There are things that you can do if you want people like me to comment more often, and there are some you can do if you’re like me. And we’ll talk about that next.