There has been a lot of discussion on the accuracy of the voting system and the exact definition of what a super vote is. Rather than typing about it all day long I thought it might be easier if I just explained it in a video. Take a look at the video below and feel free to post any questions you have as comments and I will get right on them.
The last of the voting system patches was installed today to take care of some cosmetic things (pages not loading on redirect properly, etc…) Every legitimate vote that has been cast has been counted. Remember that your overall score is based on an average multiplied by your base score. Depending on the number of votes you have and their value, you may need more than one super vote to effect real change in your score.
If you haven’t already done so, check out the strategy guide for some awesome super vote strategies. A few potential contestants have already bought theirs and are employing the lessons of the guide to get into the top 10 and stay there. As a side note, every person who has purchased the strategy guide is now in the top 10. What are you waiting for?
We have implemented a new system which should all but eliminate automated voting. Rather than trying to stop robo-voting from coming through the front door, we let it happen then eleiminate the fraudulent votes directly from the database.
The only thing you might notice is that now your scores update on 5 minute intervals instead of real time. This will prevent robo-voters from getting even a short-term benefit for their efforts.
I just wanted to let all of you know that we listen to your concerns and take the integrity of our voting system very seriously!
That’s right folks! The long-awaited Top Affiliate Challenge Strategy Guide is now available for purchase.
To buy your copy, visit
http://www.topaffiliatechallenge.com/strategy_guide.
The strategy guide is the “Top Affiliate Challenge Bible” and it explains everything you would ever want to know from EXACTLY how votes are calculated to suggested strategies for getting more votes and exposure for your video.
The guide sells for $49.99 and all of the proceeds from the guide go DIRECTLY into the needs of the show. This is NOT a profit center for us. Top Affiliate Challenge never has been about an info-product, and this strategy guide does not change that one bit.
The guide is about 50 pages long. Here are list of the chapters and some of the items that are covered in each chapter:
- Introduction by Thor Schrock
- This is a nifty behind the scenes story that helps you understand where the idea for the show came from
- What is Top Affiliate Challenge?
- Technical description of what the show is and how it works
- How the Audition Process Works
- Technical description of how the audition process works behind the scenes
- What Should I Include in my Audition?
- What the producers are looking for in an audition
- How to get a higher base score on your audition
- Technical tips on producing a good video
- How long should my video be?
- How the Voting Process Works
- Descriptions of the different types of votes
- Voting tabulation formula
- The MASSIVE importance of the base score
- Suggested Audition Strategies
- Some tips on how to make your audition stand out
- Suggested Audition Promotional Strategies
- How to get more people to watch your video (and vote!)
- Outside the box promotional efforts
- How You Can Help the Show
- Things you can do to help yourself and also help the show be a success
That is the guide in a nutshell, and as you can see it is JAM PACKED with information that will give you an edge. we estimate that about 1/3 of people who audition for the show will purchase the guide. The tips and hints in the guide will give those who purchase it a massive advantage over those who do not. Take advantage of this opportunity now!
The only thing left for you to do is decide if you think you can wing it on your own or if you believe that the producers of the show have thought of things you might not have. It will be interesting to see how many of the final 12 contestants in June ended up purchasing the strategy guide! (and no, we are not tracking that now)
Huge thanks to Eworldwire for putting together some great press releases for us. There are a few more in the pipeline already, but I thought I would let you know to take a look over at the Top Affiliate Challenge Media Page if you have the time.
The three releases that are out are some catchup work to get us current on their wire service. Eworldwire is more than a press release circulation system. They are actually a wire service, much like the AP and Reuters.
Their experienced copywriters are a joy to work with and crank out some high-quality stuff FAST! In fact, we are busting our rumps trying to keep up with the things they need from us to get is the coverage the show deserves!
The next time you are thinking about firing off a release, check out Eworldwire. We are all impressed and we think you will be too.
Ok folks, this is the moment a lot of you have been waiting for! The Season 1 Top Affiliate Challenge Strategy Guide will be available for purchase Monday!
During the design of our voting systems, the establishment of the audition and contestant rules, and the integration of our sponsors, our team identified several ways a contestant could gain a leg up by using the rules to their advantage.
We assembled much of that experience together into the Season 1 top Affiliate Challenge Strategy Guide. The $49.99 strategy guide is nearly 50 pages long and contains suggestions for video content, video promotion, voting strategies and more!
In fact, if you have wondered EXACLTY how votes are scored in the system, the EXACT formula used in calculating scores, and EXACTLY what we want to see when we assign high base scores on videos.
One example of a simple tip included in the strategy guide is a Super Vote strategy. If you buy a Super Votefor yourself, you must also apply it to two other contestants. But if you had the strategy guide, you might realize that if three contestants team up, each contestant can buy a Super Vote for themselves and then apply it toward the other two partners. This way, each participant gets three Super-Votes for one $5.00 investment.
Did you think of that one? There are tons of great tips on all sorts of subjects, including a heads up on what to expect if you make it on the show in July.
All of the revenue collected for the strategy guides will be invested in the show itself - this is not a profit center for us.
Our goal was to create a strategy guide that will give those who buy it a huge advantage over those who do not, so give it some thought over the weekend and be one of the first to lay hands on this masterpiece on Monday!
On a more positive note, the much discussed Super Voting system is now live on the bottom of all Top Affiliate Challenge Auditions!
For a super-detailed description of the super voting system, see this thread in the forum. In a nutshell, a Super Vote can be purchased for $5.00 and is worth 25 perfect ‘10′ votes that are added to your score’s average.
The catch is that you must also apply the same value to the scores of two other auditions. This is done to help prevent one person from buying their way on to the show entirely.
You can buy a Super Vote on your audition, or ask your fans to by one on your behalf. Just go to the URL for your audition and look to the right of the scoring scale. Right after the ‘10′ button is the super vote link.
Click the Super Vote link to select the audition as the Super Vote’s primary recipient. Next you will be asked to select two other auditions to benefit from the super vote you are purchasing.
After you have selected the two secondary recipients for the Super Vote, you will be taken to a confirmation page to make certain you have selected the auditions you intended.
After you have reviewed the Super Vote details, click on the Make Payment button. This will take you to a PayPal page where you can use your PayPal account or any major credit card to pay the $5 for the Super Vote. After your payment is complete you will be taken to a confirmation page confirming your purchase.
There are no limits to how many super votes you can buy, or how many others can buy for you. The Super Vote an be used to almost instantly propel an audition into the Top 10 widget in the site’s sidebar. This dramatically increases your exposure on the website and helps you get additional votes.
Since one person can only vote on each audition once per day the Super Vote is the only way to get a massive number of perfect ‘10′ votes into your average fast. What kind of strategies can you use to get the best value out of Super Votes?
We are proud to announce that one of the largest affiliate networks in the world has signed on to sponsor Top Affiliate Challenge!
AzoogleAds purchased the show’s $15,000 primary sponsorship and will be prominently featured throughout all aspects of auditions and promotion.
In addition, Azoogle will be helping Top Affiliate Challenge reach out to affiliate marketers by contacting their massive network of publishers on our behalf.
This is a HUGE development for the show as well as everyone involved. If you have not signed on to be an Azoogle Ads publisher, take a moment to do so now. There is no charge to sign up, and you definately want to get familiar with the companies they represent and the offers you will be promoting on the show!
This isn’t a fun post to have to write, but we knew things like this would happen eventually. We have our first confirmed case of robo-voting by a contestant.
Robo-voting is using a piece of software to cast large volumes of votes through our website on behalf of an audition video.
I am not going to disclose the name of the contestant involved - we are not even informing that contestant directly. They know what they have done. Over 649 perfect ‘10′ votes - by far exceeding the audition’s Revver views - were cast for their audition video within a 10 minute period.
We have purposefully been vague about the countermeasures we have in place on the website to detect vote fraud because the less we divulge about our detection methods, the more difficult it is to defeat them.
This contestant has LOST all 649 votes that were cast on their audition video during that period. We have chosen not to disqualify this contestant at this point, even though the show’s terms clearly allow us to do so.
We want this to stand as an example to those who feel they need to cheat to get on the show. Our system logs all activity, compiles that data and analyzes it for trends. Don’t even try to game the system. You will be caught.
Situations like this complicate our job because we understand that if the integrity of our voting system is compromised, the entire show is compromised. Fraudulent actions force our coders to do work that closes loopholes rather than adding new functionality to our website. It’s not fun for anyone involved to put it bluntly.
In the coming week we will be installing new anti-flood countermeasures as well. These new anti-flood measures will prevent mass voting by any single person. That means that even if you decide to robo-vote, you won’t receive the benefit of those votes at all - not even for an afternoon.
To reiterate, you are allowed to vote for your own audition video once every 24 hours. People who vote on your audition video can vote for you once every 24 hours.
For those of you who are honest and playing by the rules, I’m sorry you had to read this. Thank you for your integrity.
What in the world are you waiting for? We have more than 100 people who have established audition accounts on the Top Affiliate Challenge website but have yet to upload an audition video.
This afternoon the producers batted around ideas as to why people are taking their sweet time.
One of the biggest reasons was that people might want to have a look at the competition for inspiration. We thought we would point out again that you can submit multiple audition videos. If the first one you submit doesn’t cut the mustard, you can send up another, and a third, and a fourth, until you are happy with the result. You can even switch between them at will.
Ian Fernando was the first contestant to use the multiple auditions rule to better his base score. Ian was slipping fast out of the top 10, so he threw together a second audition video that played to the egos of two of our gurus, John Chow and Shoemoney.
The video was given a higher base score because of its creativity and that was enough to instantly put him back into the top 10.
Are you having trouble getting inspiration for your video? The best thing we can suggest is submit whatever you can now - even if it is just a here’s my name and what I do video. You can always improve it later.
If you are one of the many who have already submitted a video, remember that a second video can boost your base score dramatically if it is better than the first. Since the base score is a multiplier of all of your other efforts, improving your base score is key to getting into and staying in the top 10!
With all of the egos flying around between ShoeMoney and John Chow, we thought we should make sure there was one guru who would keep everything grounded but have an equal desire to compete and win.
The only man on the internet to fit that bill was the man who has been dubbed “The nicest guy on the internet,” Ken McArthur.
Ken McArthur, best-selling author of “Impact: How to Get Noticed, Motivate Millions, and Make a Difference in a Noisy World
The popular host of jvAlert Live — a series of live events that bring top-level marketers together to create multi-million dollar joint venture relationships — he creates incredible, intense impact for product launches and multi-million dollar profits in surprisingly short time frames.
Regularly asked to speak at leading marketing events, he has managed product launches ranked in the top 400 sites on the Internet. Ken McArthur is also the creator of AffiliateShowcase.com, a pioneering affiliate program search engine and directory system and the founder of the MBS Internet Research Center, which conducted the world’s largest survey ever attempted on the subject of creating and launching successful information products.
Ken was the official mentor for Sterling Valentine as he took his launch from ZERO to over $100,000 in less than 8 days. Ken and Sterling documented the process as a “proof of concept” for Info Product Blueprint a massive home study course that is the “bible” of info product creation.
Ken offers top-level coaching and mentoring programs designed to help individuals, corporations and non-profit organizations reach masses of people using the techniques, tactics strategies and systems that he has developed specifically to help people spread their ideas, products and services around the globe.
If anyone can hang with John and Shoe, Ken is the man for the job. Here is what Ken has to say to the people who make the mistake of underestimating him:
I’m absolutely thrilled to be asked to participate in Top Affiliate Challenge, the web’s first real-time reality program. I’ve been involved in affiliate marketing and joint ventures since the “dark ages” of the Internet and I’ve been championing the philosophy that partnerships and collaboration build value for everyone for years, so this show is a perfect chance to prove that when great people get together they can do some amazing things. Jeremy Schoemaker and John Chow are great competitors, but this old guy still has a few tricks up his sleeve, so hang onto your seats!
Anyone who can make $100,000 in eight days is a man who shouldn’t be underestimated.