The Inbound Marketing Summit is a new media marketing conference that focuses on the latest strategies and best practices to utilize to grow your business through the new media channel.

The “fathers” of this conference are Chris Brogan, David Meerman Scott and Paul Gillin. Chris also happens to be the keynote speaker at the upcoming Affiliate Summit 2009 East, taking place this August, in NYC.

There are three conference dates scheduled for 2009, including:

• San Francisco – April 28-29
• Dallas – May 27-28
• Boston – September 30-October 1

Shawn Collins and I will be speaking at the Dallas Conference during our session, “Five Successful Strategies for Monetizing Blogs”.

I’ve also negotiated a $300.00 discount off of the registration fee for Affiliate Summit attendees (both past and present) to attend any of the three scheduled shows. Simply enter “afvip” when prompted during the registration process.

Whether you’re just getting your feet wet in new media or looking for new ways to increase your reach, the Inbound Marketing Summit is the perfect venue in which to do so.

I hope to see you there.

There is no doubt in my mind that Chris Brogan epitomizes all that is good with Social Media and as far as I’m concerned, his resume speaks for itself.

That is why I asked him to deliver a keynote address at the upcoming Affiliate Summit East 2009 this coming August, in New York City.

For those who need a brief backgrounder on Chris, here it is.

Aside from being one of my favorite social media peeps, Chris has a new business book coming out soon, co-written by Julien Smith entitled “Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust“.

As Chris describes it, the book is about “people who use the web in a very human way to build influence, reputation, awareness, and who can translate that into some kind of business value.”

In a nutshell, I gather that they will talk about how to effectively build meaningful connections using social media and how to monetize those relationships.

Since Chris is an expert in this area, I can say with utmost certainty, the the $21.40 pre-order price through Amazon is going to be money well spent.

I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy! Congrats Chris and Julien.

I just finished reading a post that my business partner, Shawn Collins had up on his blog, entitled Cynical Marketing, which really hit home.

In the post, Shawn talks about how there are some marketers out there that simply don’t get the fact that not everything they do has to revolve around making money. They forget that sometimes, it’s more important to just give back.

The timing of his post couldn’t be more relevant to me. You see, today I was approached by someone who read my post regarding me coming out of affiliate management retirement to help support breast cancer research and treatment – a cause that is very close to my heart.

This marketer had the chutzpah to ask me what my angle was and why on earth would I bust my ass to grow someone else’s company when there was absolutely nothing at stake for me.

Rather than chastising him for his ludicrous implications, I simply told him how I felt.

Giving is in my DNA and since affiliate marketing is what I do best, it seemed like a natural fit.

He followed up with a “you’re nuts.”

You know what, Mr. Cynical Marketer? Maybe I am.

But I keep very good company.

Aside from the folks that Shawn mentioned in his post that give back to the online marketing community without ever asking for a thing back (Haiko de Poel, Jr., Scott Jangro, Jim Kukral, Melanie Seery, Kellie Stevens), I can think of dozens of marketers (including Shawn, who neglected to name himself) who do the same.

Chris Brogan who takes the time to answer every single questions he’s asked on Twitter; Brian Clark who provides amazing free content on CopyBlogger.com everyday; Brian Littleton of ShareASale who takes the time to educate his merchants and affiliate marketers to both make the affiliate marketing industry better and push it forward; all of the folks that walked 60-miles with me to raise money for breast cancer research; Jeremy Schoemaker who provides dozens of case studies and tips to marketers to grow their businesses — the list goes on and on.

Now, it’s not to say that I’m averse to making money. I think I do a pretty good job at it. So do all of the people that I’ve mentioned above.

Maybe I’m just an idealist, but I believe that when one does well, there is an inherent responsibility to give back to the industries that have helped us get to where we are today and to help the less fortunate.

So, to all of the other idealists out there that give so much, with no strings attached – I salute you. Please keep doing what you’re doing. You ARE making a difference.

Luke 12:48 “From everyone who has been given much, much will be required, and from the one who has been entrusted with much, even more will be asked.

Affiliate Summit attendees are in for a special treat when Chris Brogan and Peter Shankman offer up their exciting keynotes during the upcoming Affiliate Summit East 2009 in New York, taking place August 9th-11th.

Chris Brogan is President of New Marketing Labs, a social media agency and events organization. He is a ten year veteran of using social media and technology to build digital relationships for businesses, organizations, and individuals. Chris speaks, blogs, writes articles, and makes media of all kinds at chrisbrogan.com, a blog in the top 10 of the Advertising Age Power150, and in the top 100 on Technorati. He is co-founder of PodCamp, the international new media conference series. Chris won the Mass High Tech All Stars award for thought leaders for 2008. He has been quoted in US News & World Report, The Montreal Gazette, Newsweek, and some other places.

Peter is the founder and CEO of The Geek Factory,
a marketing and PR firm. He launched HelpAReporter.com to connect journalists with sources via social media. He launched AirTroductions, which was acquired and re-launched as TripLife. He is the author of "Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work and Why Your Company Needs Them."
 

Chris will take the stage on Monday, August 10th and Peter on Tuesday, August 11th.

I can’t be more thrilled to have such powerhouses at the conference. I just love watching them speak.

Want to find out more about Chris and Peter? Follow them on Twitter at @chrisbrogan and @skydiver.

Today, SocialSpark.com announced their alpha-release of their “SocialSpark Affiliate Opportunities” and a bunch of new goodies, as well.

“Affiliate Opportunities” roughly translates to “an affiliate network exclusively for bloggers“. In a nutshell, advertisers can list their campaigns and payouts and bloggers get paid for generating sales and signups.

SocialSpark is requiring an in-post disclosure on all affiliate links and 100% transparency.

They have also added a ton of premium blogs and bloggers to the SocialSpark marketplace including ChrisBrogan.com, Shoemoney.com, Sparkplugging.com and QuickSprout.com. (This blog will also be featured in the marketplace.)

As far as release updates go, the homepage has been redesigned to be sleek, streamlined and load faster. Also, when you are logged in as a blogger or advertiser, you’ll have a much more relevant and cleaner view of the available information.

I’m excited to test this all out further and will let you all know my results.