Networking in the affiliate marketing industry is one of the most important things that I could stress to you. You really need to get out there and get known by as many people as you can. Whether they are affiliates, affiliate managers or network owners it doesn’t matter. Every connection you can possibly make is a good one. I was lucky enough to really make some great connections and find some great places to be early in my career.
I was barely a month into affiliate marketing when I first went to Izeafest since it was right near me. I was able to talk to and interact with a ton of bloggers and affiliate marketers and it has really helped me along my way. Since meeting a few people that day such as Ian Fernando, Shoemoney and John Chow I have been introduced to more and more contacts. A lot of them through Ian and others. With these relationships that I have built I have been able to get into networks easy, find business partners and get into private networks earlier than I should have been able too.
I really suggest that everyone that is in this industry is on all of the social networking tools you can find, and you should search for like minded individuals to help you with your business ventures. I am always searching for new people to talk to on a daily basis, and for new contacts that may help me one day down the road, and hopefully I can offer them some help and advice as well. So you need to get on twitter, facebook, myspace(meh not really myspace), linkedin for sure, and as many affiliate forums as you can find that are worth their salt.
I know that some people do not like these sites because they feel that they take away from their work day and that they could make more money if they got rid of them. You could also make a case that says you would be more focused if you got rid of all entertainment in your house, and got rid of all fun in your life. However that would make the money you make void of use, so whats the point? You really need to live life, make connections and keep interacting with people or this industry will bury you.
Here are some of the common sites that I visit, maybe you will find some good use to them.
Forums:
http://www.wickedfire.com
http://www.namepros.com
http://www.affpros.com
Social Networking Sites – My Links so you can connect with me:
http://www.twitter.com/coop56 as well as http://www.twitter.com/Katemiah for my company.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremiahcooper
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeremiah-Cooper/1436760077
Hopefully you can connect with me on a more personal level, I would love to help my readers out if anyone wants to contact me. You can find me on AIM most of the time at KatemiahCoop.
About the Author
I agree that there is great power with networking and social media. I do disagree to an extent about you comment on how everyone should be on all the social networking tools they can find. I think people need to use as many social networking tools as they can handle. If one can only devout a half hour per day to social media, then just being on Twitter may be suitable. There is no use in joining all the social networking sites if there is not time to be a committed user to all of them.
While I agree with you to a point, I still think that everyone should be on several networks. You should at least be on Linked In, Linked In is a network for professionals and I think that anyone who wants to be known in their field, or is just looking for business opportunities should be there.
Personally I go to school 40 or more hours a week, run this blog and I run a corporation so I think there is definitely time for everyone to sit down and work on a little social media.