Last night, before going to sleep, I was watching a video from the previous affiliate summit in Las Vegas. One part of the summit, affiliate marketers get the chance to talk and answer some questions on how to go about the affiliate marketing industry. Right after that talk, there were A list bloggers get the chance to speak and go about how they earn money in blogging.

I just noticed, John Chow, wasn’t with the bloggers that earns money, he was a speaker with the affiliate marketers. lol. Just proves what he really is about. Making tons of money not by blogging buy by affiliate marketing.

Now on to the topic, there was a question from the audience that brought my attention… You see, the Social Bloggers are promoting social interaction with people with other blogs, building relationship and says that building relationship takes time (and reputation). I agree with that… Now, what really hit the spot is the question “Don’t you think its kind of time consuming to build a relationship with people, answering blog comments, posting blog comments, posting to twitter, promoting your blog and still you get that $30 adsense check per month?” The panels said, “Well yes, its time consuming… But if you want to really build the relationship and trust with people, you’ll do this things.”

I am amazed, and I realized how much these people spend time with their blog. For me actually, this is kind of the extreme… Twitter is extreme. Its a micro blog that let’s you tweet a one liner post and let the whole world know. It is the extreme because it kills the “REAL” social interaction. Phone calls, dinner, going out. And most importantly, they starve! $30 adsense check (coming from an A list blogger!)… This really proved that you won’t earn a lot of money with adsense on a blog (a personal, blog about anything blog). But with affiliate sales and direct advertisements.

Now on to affiliate marketing, this is my favorite part of the whole summit. Super affiliates earning 5 digit ($) a day sharing their secrets and tips. What I noticed is that these people are off high intelligence (geek as they say) but with a business sense. One speaker, Amit (forgot his surname), a Ph.d in Physics, an affiliate marketer, using his knowledge in physics to get that tons of dollar a day. What I like about affiliate marketing is that they focus on methods, efficiency and most importantly, time.

Comparing social blogging and affiliate marketing in few words:

Social Blogging

The How :

• Build trust, socialize. Hence, social blogger.
• Transparent.
• People know you as a person, what’s your business, how you make money.
• Doing things for the passion of it. Money is secondary.

The Money : Direct advertising, Contextual ads, Affiliate sales

The Bad : Too much time needed! Too much!!!

The Good : Very rewarding, fame and popularity. Lots of money from direct advertisements.

Affiliate Marketing

The How :

• Build sites that caters to the needs of consumers.
• Most of the time, anonymous.
• You don’t want people to know who owns this site or how you make money.
• Money and time is the primary goal.

The Money : Pure affiliate sales

The Bad :

• Too much competition.
• Sites being ripped off.
• Needs to have programming, copywriting, designing and marketing knowledge.
• Lots of loop holes.
• Will cost you money if you fail (lots of it).
• People don’t know you.
• Will cost you time and not sure of the profitability (high risk).

The Good : Tons of money to be made, I mean tons. People don’t know you.

I think the fact that if you want to make money online goes for everybody in what they want to be like. If you’re passionate about writing, socializing or just blogging, you can make decent amount of money by being a social blogger. But if you focus on the business, efficiency and lots of money and want to take risks, go for affiliate marketing. There are also some ways to earn money online but these two are pretty popular so far.

In terms of making money online, what will you choose?