Social Media Best Practices for Affiliate Marketers with Dave Taylor

Dave Taylor of AskDaveTaylor.com speaks at Affiliate Summit West 2012 in Las Vegas

Affiliate marketing used to be all about launching a blog or website to promote products. In today’s age of social media, affiliate marketers can tap into channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus to promote products as well.

At Affiliate Summit West 2012 in Las Vegas, blogger Dave Taylor of AskDaveTaylor.com offered some great insight how the role of social media has affected shopping trends of customers and how affiliates can use social media to connect with customers in the changing market.

“We use social media to make purchase decisions,” said Taylor during his session ‘Affiliate Marketing in the Age of Social Media.’

He noted that people are increasingly using customer reviews and review sites before making a purchase. In addition, people are sharing products on Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter, as well as becoming fans of and signing up for social media channels in order to receive special offers and coupon deals.

Taylor says affiliates need to look at how their business can leverage these new shopping trends using social media.

“You need to build a relationship with your community and your customers” says Taylor. “Nurture a trust relationship. If you want customers to buy your product they need to believe in you.”

Taylor recommends using social proof such as Facebook Likes as a recommendation method for brands or products.

Affiliates should also disclose any relationship they have with a product they are promoting, such as whether they received the product for free.

“Market things to people the way you would want them to be marketed to you,” Taylor said. “As long as your straight-forward you can build a relationship with your community.”

One major benefit of social media Taylor pointed out is that affiliates don’t necessarily need to have large numbers of social media followers because social circles often link to lots of subsets of people.

Dave says he prefers Google Plus because it has higher interaction than Facebook. Google Plus shows ‘ripples’ for shared, and re-shared content.

In closing Taylor highlighted the importance mobile will play in the future, citing that smartphone adoption is increasing in nearly every international market and that mobile apps are a top online retail trend.

“Its an increasingly mobile world. Join it.”

Great advice Dave, thanks!

Be sure to also check out Dave Taylor on Twitter @DaveTaylor.