Contact Us Now

My latest venture into affiliate marketing is a little blog designed to promote the uniquely designed Joby Gorillapod camera tripod. I have learned this year that if you make a website with the sole intention of making money it will probably fail, so it's important to give something back to the people that you hope will become your customers.

To begin with, it seems safe to assume that the potential buyers of Gorillapods will be into photography. This made me think that the perfect way to reward people who visit my site and give them an enjoyable challenge would be to run a photography contest with a Gorillapod theme.

I decided that a prize would be awarded to whoever took the best photo of the tripod in action to show off what Gorillapods can do and some of the more unusual ways they can be used. As an example I used an official press photograph of an SLR Gorillapod with its legs wrapped around golf clubs poking out of a golf bag.

As this was a bit of an experiment I kept the prize money quite low. Unfortunately I got several people telling me the prize was uninspiring. I'm sure there were many more that thought the same and didn't to let me know about it so I appreciated their feedback.

Next time I will definitely have a larger prize but at least it got a few entries and I had a handful of people tell me they were excited about entering the contest which makes it all worthwhile. As I write this a winner hasn't been picked and I think it'll be too much pressure for me to pick a winner so I would prefer to interact with the audience further by asking them to select a winner.

There's more to the site than just a competition though. There are currently 5 different versions of Gorillapods on the market. The website goes to lengths to explain the differences between the SLR-Zoom Gorillapod and the Gorillamobile for example.

There is also advice on how much you should expect to pay for them. The blog takes a look at the recommended retail price and also lists some of the lowest prices for various models. This can be useful for shoppers of course but it also helps support the website because anyone who buys a Gorillamobile or any other variation of the Gorillapod after clicking a link on the site will, at no cost to them, earn the website a little money in referral commission.

On a more personal tip, the blog also contains some stories about my personal use of my original Joby Gorillapod. One story tells how I took my tripod all the way to the Czech Republic to take some photos of their beautiful capital city but before I got a chance to demonstrate the abilities of the tripod, my camera's battery ran out and I had forgotten to bring my recharger. I had to take my photos the old fashioned way by finding a solid surface to rest the camera on which is near enough the right height and position.

There is also the occasional news story posted on the site. The first example of this is the news of the Gorillapod Go-Go being renamed to the Gorillamobile. I doubt many people will be interested in this but there is scarce news when your subject is a particular type of camera tripod so I have to add whatever I can find and it gives me a chance to think about the marketing and reasoning behind such a move.

Finally I have a post on the blog which shows some people playing with their tripods by attaching a Gorillapod to their face. They have wrapped the legs of their tripods to their faces in an effort to make them look like they have been attacked by a face sucking space alien. The images were all found on Flickr and I asked the permission of the photos owners before posting the images.

To attract people to the website who do not already own a Gorillapod Focus or any other type, the title of the page lists the sort of prices you would expect to pay. This shows people that the website is useful for people that do not already own the product.

In this last section I'm going to give you an overview of the various types of Gorillapod available. You can get a more in-depth look at them by visiting the website.

Gorillamobile

This is almost exactly the same as the original version except the Gorillamobile comes with a strong suction pad. This means it can be used as a normal Gorillapod and also be used for attaching things you might not normally to a camera tripod. The main use of a Gorillamobile is to attach a camera phone so your camera phone has a tripod which is not usually possible. Another great use of the Gorillamobile (Gorillapod Go-Go as it used to be known) is to give support to portable media devices. This means if you have a mobile video player such as a phone or ipod, you have a stand for it so you don't need to hold it in your hand while you are on the train. The Gorillamobile adds a lot of usability to the tripod at very little extra cost.

Gorillapod Focus

The Gorillapod Focus is the top end variation. It is designed to hold professional video cameras more than photo cameras. They can hold up to 5 kilograms which is heavier than any camera I've ever seen so you can be sure they will hold just about anything very securely and at a fraction of the price of other professional level tripods.

SLR-Zoom Gorillapod

The next strongest type is the SLR Zoom Gorillapod which is designed to hold heavy SLR cameras with a large zoom lens which would normally topple the camera over with any weaker form of tripod. The SLR-Zoom Gorillapod is the strongest of the photography tripods and is able to support up to 3 kilograms.

SLR Gorillapod

The SLR Gorillapod is the one for you if you have a large SLR camera but only require a smaller lens without the large size that is required for an optical zoom. Because this type of lens will not displace the centre of gravity from the camera to the extreme that a zoom lens can, this tripod is only required to support up to 800 grams.

Original Gorillapod

Finally we have the very first model that was released. This is designed only to hold a lightweight compact camera. It does the job well and at a low price. As with any other forms of the tripod, it can use its legs to attach itself to just about anywhere to give you some really interesting photographic angles. Unlike the others, it comes in a range of colours including grey, red and blue. Since compact cameras are so light, this original Gorillapod only needs to hold 325 grams, which makes it sound weak in comparison with the other models but it works perfectly with compact cameras.