Affiliate Summit West, one of THE premier conferences on affiliate marketing, provided 3 days of rich, golden content. The hashtag and Twitter were premier online marketing tools used throughout the conference, making the information a gold mine for those who know where to search.
Are you interested in making money online? Pan for gold nuggets by sifting through the #ASWO9 hashtag. You’ll find tips, tricks, tools and insights into the lives of affiliate marketers.
Hashtag 101
A hashtag is a way of marking up a tag with the pound sign, aka a “hash” – #. People who send messages via Twitter can use a common term (keyword or acronym) to ensure all messages related to the topic of the hashtag can be grouped together for reference.
Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They’re like tags on Flickr, only added inline to your post. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag.
Hashtags were developed as a means to create “groupings” on Twitter.
#ASWO9 = Affiliate Summit West 2009
Attendees of Affiliate Summit West posted their notes, emotions, current happenings, and emotions by appending #ASW09 in their <=140-character tweets. These tweets into Twitter were sent through laptops and mobile phones. The #ASW09 hashtag grouped all these updates together for viewing in Twitter search for #ASW09.
This screen shot was taken on Jan 15, 2 days after the conference. (Yes, the conversation continues after Affiliate Summit West ended.)
- Twitter search was displayed on many projector screens throughout and during conference sessions. To say “the crowd was engaged” is an understatement!
- Speakers received questions while moderators watched Twitter for #ASW09 during Q&A.
- I panned for gold throughout the conference by checking my mobile phone and watching the stream of #ASW09 nuggets. (I was unable to take copious notes, because my laptop battery wouldn’t charge. The hashtag was my lifesaver.)
I posted a tweet to let others know about one excellent note-taker:
Read @VegasBill tweets for good ASW09 notes.
(I later met Bill and learned he is quite well known in Las Vegas and is a real estate agent and entrepreneur who keeps his followers informed about local Vegas news!)
The #ASW09 hashtag was also the method of letting others know about “after parties” and networking events.
Thanks to #ASW09, I knew where @rickgalan, one of my friends on Twitter and fellow winner of Copyblogger’s Gold Passes to Affiliate Summit, was during the conference. We met up a few times, thanks to this shiny Twitter hashtag.
Twitter Marketing
Affiliate Marketers know the power of Twitter as a marketing medium. It’s obviously a strong, if not addictive, aspect of many marketers’ business models. Moderators in a few sessions asked how many people in the room were on Twitter, and the show of hands was almost unanimous!
Many who attended Affiliate Summit West without a Twitter account left understanding the power of Twitter. They setup their accounts immediately or discussed they needed to “get on board” this Social Media phenom.
Peter Shankman (@skydiver) of HelpAReporter.com mentioned there are two types of Twitters:
- Yogurt tweeters - those who post they just purchased a yogurt
- Information tweeters - those who share information
Sifting through the #ASW09 hashtags will prove this true. You’ll find insightful notes about Affiliate Marketing and also learn that some ate or drank too much while others left with extra money in their pocket from the Black Jack tables.
Pan for #ASWO9 Gold
Panning for gold is a process of separating the nuggets from the dirt, the worthless material. You can pan for gold and find nuggets that can help you make money online by sifting through the ASW09 hashtag.
Here’s where you can pan for your own Affiliate Summit gold:
- Search through links Twittered during Affiliate Summit.
- Check out profiles of usernames of active Twitterers.
- Spend hours reading through Twitter Search for #ASW09.
- View a few of my photos from Affiliate Summit West.
Did you attended Affiliate Summit West? Please share your golden ASWO9 nuggets.
Tags: Affiliate Summit, ASW09, Hashtags, Twitter