After going on a jog at 5:30 AM with the man himself, Peter Shankman, Alhan Keser attended his keynote on the 3rd and final day of Affiliate Summit East 2009 on behalf of Blue Fountain Media.

A visionary in the world of Social Media and PR, Shankman is the founder of HARO the largest free source repository for journalists anywhere in the world. During his keynote, he made some great points on the importance of listening and connectivity for brands, individuals, and corporations–in real-life or on the internet.

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I attended the session entitled “7 Deadly Sins of Landing Page of Design” presented by Tim Ash, President & CEO, SiteTuners.com (Twitter @tim_ash). Here the seven deadly sins of landing page design, outlined by Ash in a very humorous fashion:

1. Unclear call to action.

Focus your visitors on one thing. What it is that you want people to do on each of your pages? 1-800 Flowers is one of the big companies that was messing this up (on their product detail page).

Use Attention Wizard heatmap to find where people are looking on your page.

2. Too many options – steps.

Reduce the friction between the user and the product they are seeking. Show main categories that are most popular on your page – not every subcategory and product on each page.
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President of New Marketing Labs, Chris Brogan, delivered the keynote speech at Affiliate Summit East 2009, focusing on his new book, Trust Agents. As Brogan put it very well, the importance of social media is not about how to Tweet, or how to use Facebook. The real question is, “How do you connect with people online where you don’t have personal interaction?”

More and more Fortune 500 companies are having trouble connecting to their target audience. What it comes down to, as Brogan said, is an attention war against “everything in the world” – spam emails, real world events, and their friends. Companies are in constant competition against other attention grabbers. The way to reach them is ultimately by building trust.
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Blue Fountain Media will be represented at Affiliate Summit NYC this year by head of marketing, Alhan Keser. The event which lasts from Sunday to Tuesday will consist of a panel discussions with insight on affiliate marketing techniques. If you wish to follow the news from the summit as it happens, follow Alhan via twitter or search twitter for the hashmark “ase09″.