I’ve read many posts about whether social media can really help your business. The obvious advantage is networking. However, I’ve seen 5 ways that Twitter has specifically helped my business when it comes to “Right Place, Right Time” beyond just the general socializing most people do on it.

1. Getting instant help. A great example of this was when I was working on a new site recently and couldn’t figure out how to customize my navigation. I Tweeted what I was looking for and Amanda (@phillian) immediately responded that I needed to upgrade my Thesis. Problem solved in 10 minutes.

2. Quick feedback. When you are working on a project, sometimes you just need a fresh pair of eyes to take a look. Or even someone with a different browser than you are using. Two weeks ago I Tweeted about my new Percy Jackson site and within 10 minutes had feedback from 5 friends who happened to be online on a Saturday night. I was able to tweak some things on the site before officially rolling it out.

3. Unexpected mutually beneficial relationships. The other day I Tweeted about a guest post someone had done for me about Mystery Shopping. James from JustFreeStuff.com asked if he could use it in a newsletter. I said “sure” and didn’t expect anything back. The next morning I woke up and found over 1000 hits to my site from his site and newsletter! It worked out great for both of us because he got some content and I got some traffic. We weren’t looking to do business with each, it just worked out that way.

4. News you can market. I follow a number of people for very different reasons, but sometimes I end up with a marketing nugget I wasn’t expecting. For example, I follow @GameHouse because I promote their old “Real Arcade” products on my moms site. They other day they Tweeted about a Twilight New Moon game on sale that day only for $1 on iTunes. It made a perfect post for my Twilight merchandise website using my iTunes affiliate account. I would not have even known about the game (or the sale that day) if I had not been following them on Twitter.

5. Sales opportunities. At least once a week I see a Tweet where someone is looking to buy something that I sell on one of my sites. They usually say something like “If you have an affiliate link for X merchant, let me know so I can make a purchase” or “I’m looking to buy X, anyone know where I can find it?” If you’re the first to respond to them, you’ve got yourself an easy sale.

The one thing to note about everything above is that none of it is “in your face” marketing. It’s not me pushing my links or websites to anyone. Rather, they are just some of the benefits that you can receive to your business by being an active Twitter user and building your Twitter community. What other ways are you using Twitter to help your business?

I was noticing last night that of my 400 Facebook friends, 5 of them have a birthday on Thursday. That’s not including the ones that are businesses with a “start date” of the end of the year or friends who do not allow access to their birthday. I mentioned to my husband that it was improbable. With 365 days in a year, I should only have one birthday friend per day–two tops. He started talking about the “birthday paradox” and how if you put only 23 people in a room, you would have 2 people with the same birthday. I thought he was nuts. I mean, 365 days? Out of 23 people 2 will have the same birthday?

So of course I did a search for it. I found the “Birthday Problem” Wikipedia page, which explains that if you have 23 people together, there is a 50% chance that 2 of them will have the same birthday. If you get 57 people, there is a 99% chance that 2 of them will have the same birthday. It still doesn’t seem possible. 366 possible birthdays. 57 people and you have a 99% chance of the same birthday popping up?

Here is where YOU come in. I need a little help from my social media friends because I can’t get 23 or 57 people into a room today. Can you leave a comment below with your name and your birthday? I don’t need the year. Leave your name so I can verify you’re real people when two birthdays pop up the same and it isn’t just someone messing with me. I’ll make a little chart and we’ll see how many people have to comment before we get the same birthday. Curiosity has gotten the best of me now!!

Edited: It took only 18 people posting to get our first repeat birthday. We defied the odds! And my husband proved, once again, that he is better at math than I am.

I’ll admit from the start that I haven’t yet finished Trust Agents, by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. Between two conferences in the last week, travel, and the first week of school, reading time has been short. But combining what I have read so far with what I have SEEN in the last 7 days, I can unequivocally say that everyone needs a copy of this book.

A week ago I could barely tell you who Chris Brogan and Julien Smith were. What I could tell you was only from what I read others said about them. Fast forward a week and I could talk your ear off about why I believe in them not because of what they say but because of what they do.

I first saw both Chris and Julien speak at Affiliate Summit. They outlined some of the main points of their new book. That would have been sufficient enough to make me read it. However, actually meeting them and talking to them about what they do and how they do it made me not only want to read the book but also tell everyone I know about it. Chris and Julien have that way of talking to you like you are the only person in the room. You WANT to believe them not because they are buttering you up or trying to sell you something. Instead, they are giving you little pearls of wisdom about how you can be successful.

A few days after Affiliate Summit I had the chance to meet Chris again at Blog Indiana. How excited was I when he called on me by name during a Q&A session? It was a perfect example of how he operates. You build trust, in part, by empowering people. I walked away from that Q&A feeling like a million bucks.

Trust Agents is all about how you use turn personal connections to leverage your message–whatever that message may be. In a “virtual” world where you are more likely to come across someone on Twitter or Facebook than at your local coffee shop, it can be difficult to establish trusting relationships. Trust Agents teaches you how to become a trust agent yourself and how to build relationships with other trust agents (what they call the Agent Zero of each network).

If all of that above isn’t enough to make you want to buy your own copy of Trust Agents, just do a quick Google search and see what everyone else is saying. Learn from people who are DOING it and not just talking about it. Learn from the people who are building networks of trust all over the place–Chris Brogan and Julien Smith.

(Chris Brogan and I at Blog Indiana after his keynote)

Now that almost 24 hours has passed since I left New York City, I am finally getting around to decompressing and reflecting on Affiliate Summit East. When I tell people that I have been to 7 Affiliate Summits, they always ask me if it is still worth it every time. “Don’t you just see the same people and hear the same things over and over?” Yes, and no. I see the people that I like to network with again to touch base and find out what is new with them. But I also meet new people each time and learn more than I can every imagine.

I could blog about all of the great friends I met with, the merchants that I now want to add to my site, and the swag I brought back for my members. I could drop in a few digital pictures (even video!) or complain about my feet hurting. But I would rather step back and give you the big picture that I ended up with.

Every Affiliate Summit turns out to be a different experience depending upon where I am in my career and what my goals for the conference are. In the beginning, I learned about affiliate marketing in general. Then I started making connections. After a few more, I started working on getting out the name of my business. Last time, I worked on getting out my personal brand.

For ASE09, my biggest takeaway way in getting up the courage to introduce myself to more of the “heavy hitters” and learning by their examples. For the first time ever, I introduced myself to the keynote speakers. I actually met and chatted with Chris Brogan, Julien Smith, and Peter Shankman (HARO). I even introduced myself to Ted Murphy (CEO of IZEA) at an after party and managed to get a couple of pictures with him. Each of them was engaging and conversational and made me feel like he was pleased to meet ME.

As I clean up my email and start sorting through business cards, I can’t help but keep peeking at Trust Agents (by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith). It really sums up my experience at Affiliate Summit this year. I trust some industry professionals because of the way that they act and the information that they provide. I do NOT trust some of the people in my industry because I see how they act when they think no one is looking (at least not the people who are important to them). I want to build a business that people trust because I treat people right and give them something of value in some way. Thanks to ASE09, I’ve got more tools to accomplish just that.

Let me start out by saying that I didn’t even know that there was such a thing as a Social Media Butterfly until this morning. I was thinking about what I wanted to blog about and it kept coming back to me that I seem to be spending half of my time these days social networking on different sites. In my head I kept equating it to being a “social butterfly” and I decided to title my post “social media butterfly.” I did a quick Google search only to discover that lots of other people thought of this term long before me.

In essence, the Social Media Butterfly is the technical equivalent of the traditional Social Butterfly. You move from group to group networking and socializing. You may do it for fun or to futher your business. You know a lot of different people in different circles and enjoy making friends.

I wouldn’t say I’m exactly a social butterfly in my real life, but a big part of that is working in a home office and spending a lot of time and energy raising two kids. But lately I have absolutely become a Social Media Butterfly. In addition to my time on the Sunshine Rewards forum with those members (and the corresponding Twitter account and videoblog), I spend a good deal of time on Disney sites talking about both friends and business. I keep my Facebook page open constantly (partaking in a little Farkle, Mafia Wars, and even Farmville). I couldn’t get into Twitter much until I installed TweetDeck, and now I am addicted. Add to that my Ning sites (like TwitterMoms and Smaller Indiana). Oh! And my actual job…networking on various affiliate marketing sites and commenting on blogs. I even got a new phone that I could better text on because my other one was too hard.

It remains to be seen whether all of my time as a Social Media Butterfly is going to be profitable. It’s hard to figure out an ROI on the time that you spend Twittering. I guess I’ll give it a go for the rest of the summer and see where it takes me!

Once upon a time when I was in the corporate world, I loved reading “Who Moved My Cheese?” with my teams. I loved when things changed because I saw opportunities. But I didn’t think that the book applied to me now that I am an affiliate and own my own business. I couldn’t have been more wrong!

As it turns out, the cheese gets moved more in affiliate marketing than when I worked for Lexis. I have to remember that every move means a new challenge that can take me down a different path. Look around. Isn’t the new Shareasale toolbar policy really just someone moving my cheese? It means not only evaluating my own company’s non-use (or use) of toolbars but to what extent we need to educate our visitors better about them. It means looking at where we are in industry and where we want to be.

But toolbars aren’t the only thing. I was reading Scott Jangro’s post about affiliate links in Twitter. Extending it out to other conversations now going on is the use of affiliate links on Facebook. These are new opportunities for us. We can choose to follow the path of monetizing our Twitter and Facebook accounts or continue along the road of viewing them only as pure social networking.

Each twist and turn in affiliate marketing can be scary because it’s my livelihood. On the flip side, it keeps my business fresh because I always have to be on the lookout for the next big thing. So go ahead and move my cheese. I’m up to the challenge and, in fact, looking forward to it!

I was in Facebook tonight creating an ad for Sunshine Rewards when I saw the “coupon” button under Funding Sources. So of course I Googled “facebook ad coupon.” Much to my surprise, there were quite a few out there. However, most were for people brand new to Facebook ads. Because I have created a Facebook ad before, I could not use them.

Then I came across people talking about getting a $100 Facebook ad credit for signing up for the Visa Business Network on Facebook. Sure enough, after I added the application and completed my profile with them (which took about 5 minutes), I received an email with a coupon code for a $100 Facebook ad credit. I entered it into my account and it is showing up.

I can’t speak to whether or not the ads will actually work, but I liked that I was able to use the “Social Actions” check box to tie my advertisement to people who are “Sunshine Rewards Fans” or part of the “Sunshine Rewards Group.” From my own use of Facebook, I know that seeing my friends’ names and pictures over the ads on the right does make me look at them more closely.

So if you are looking for some free advertising, give the Visa Business offer on Facebook a shot. I’ll be anxious to hear what you think about the effectiveness of the Facebook ads. And let me know if you come across mine!