Affiliate Marketing's Evolution Through Social Networks

There's an old sales adage about how people shopping for shovels don't really want a shovel. Cause really what's the purpose of a shovel, other than to dig dirt or move it. So I guess you could say what people shopping for a shovel really want is a hole.

What made me think of this is the rise in people advertising Affiliate Marketing systems around the internet. The evolution of traditional network marketing as it expands on the web, affiliate marketing combines the principles of basic network marketing and the idea of residual income.

It's a beautiful synergy to be honest, because it allows most people with internet access the ability to begin building a residual income. And residual income, traditionally stock and real estate investments, is the little known secret that keeps growing the wealth of the wealthy exponentially.

But for these programs to truly be effective in building you a permanent residual income they have to involve affiliate companies and products relevant to the market desires. An important factor in choosing the right affiliate marketing system is understanding the items available to you to collect commissioned sales on.

If they are products pertaining to meeting the demand for internet or technology needs, you are on the right track. Programs based around items that require real time participation (ie- movie store subscriptions, food/restaurant vouchers, physical items that require shipping) may prove to be difficult when you deal with international contacts or people with limited access to larger commercial chains.

The moral of the story? Make sure the man who comes to you with a nail and a piece of wood leaves with a hammer, not a saw, a retractable screwdriver and a tool belt. Its the guaranteed way to make sure he comes back to you when he needs that shovel.

It occurred to me while watching CNN the other day, that somewhere in the world there are several newsanchors who are fuming over the fact that their airtime got slashed to make time for Twitter reports. It isn't something I could put a number on, but at any given point during, CNN newscasters invite their viewers to log on to Twitter and Tweet about the story they're running.

What many people may be surprised to learn but Twitter's tweets piqued the most interest last fall within hours of the Mumbai India attacks. While terrorists held the city under siege for several days, people tweeted with a new kind of intensity, recording both their and the terrorist locations, what was happenning as they were seeing it inside the city.

Believe it or not, but the Indian government actually released a statement asking people to stop posting Twitter messages until the situation had been resolved. They were worried about instances of the terrorists using Twitter to identify more targets.

For the first time, a government anywhere on earth was forced to reckon with the ability of a social network to connect people. Shortly thereafter Twitter began to explode as people realized the true power of accessing such a fast paced, ever changing community.

And whereas Myspace and Facebook may have been dominated from the outset by the 13-23 set, this new politic muscle Twitter proved it could flex, opened the door for many adults to hit the keyboard and start tweeting. Hence its popularity not only with news broadcast stations but with talk show hosts as well as tv personalities.

It may all seem strangely innocent now, but mark my words, these are the type of technological milestones that end up in our grandchildren's history books.

Provided by that point there are still books.

Even for those of us that don't hail from Texas, the word "brand" delivers a very visual image, usually involving hot metal and someone's unfortunate hind quarters. So some of you may be surprised when you hear the word attached to successful people and their stories of the rise to power. Why would rich people voluntarily stick themselves with hot irons?

While there are stories of tattoo enthusiasts looking for the next thrill, who actually do submit to being burned with a hot iron poker, the other 99.9998% of people talking about "Branding" are referring to the growing trend of creating a brand literally around yourself.

The use of brand here is as you would when go food shopping, if you were talking about the difference between generic and you guessed it-- NAME BRAND. And while the concept itself has been popular since the early Coca Cola and Wonder Bread days, the concept is relatively new on personal levels.

Or is it?

Over the years we have gone from seeing celebrities lend their fame to a variety of advertising campaigns. But in recent years stars of tv, music and film have discovered the merits of moving out of the store window and into the production room. And its all a part of the theory of self promotion that's quickly blasting ordinary people towards success as well.

A classic example and one most of us have grown with are the Olsen twins. By elementary school, these girls had full hair care product deals, clothing and accessory lines and a wealth of movies and toys. But the fascinating point was unlike the Gerber baby, who represents baby food so succinctly for most of us, these were products that arose around the packaging not the other way around.

Think about Barack Obama's charismatic rise through the '08 election. At a time when most people felt they couldn't trust large political organizations, he stepped forward as a singular person, identified himself with change and revolutionized the way the public looked at politics. They saw the man before they saw the party.

Sites that offer video upload have made TV stars of CollegeHumor creators Josh Abramson and Ricky Van Veen. They now have their own syndicated cable show through MTV, Pranked, exclusively featuring the type of content that launched the 10 year popularity of their now infamous site.

On American Idol, they judge based on what Simon calls "total package". Its a harsh marketing term but an effective tool at measuring how successful someone can become.

So if it was you on that stage, in front of the judges, would he see it in you, that "total package", that's necessary?

Better question is do you see it in yourself.