Leverage is something most internet marketers (especially affiliate marketers) simply lack. Leverage is the secret to creating an abundance of income beyond normal reach.

There is no way to make millions online (or even hundreds of thousands) without leveraging other people's resources. The truth is, you only have a certain amount of time, money and contacts which will only take you a certain distance down the path the internet riches...

...after which, you need other people.

If you have your own product, you can leverage other people's time by having them promote your product for you. Subsequently, you'll be leveraging their traffic, advertising costs and numerous resources that help to make you more sales.

However, what does that leave the mortal affiliate when it comes to leverage? Well, up until now, pretty much nothing.

In years gone by, affiliate marketers had to rely on other people sending traffic to their own websites which were built from the ground up. This was hard, time consuming work.

But in more recent years, there has been a shift in the way affiliates can drive hordes of traffic and subsequent sales to their offers, all thanks to social sites such as Youtube, MySpace, Facebook and a multitude of blogs and forums.

But how can these sites be leveraged by the small time affiliate?

It's pretty simple...all of these web 2.0 sites allow for comments and interaction.

That means that you can simply jump on a popular blog post, forum post, Youtube video, MySpace profile, or a network of friends or groups in Facebook and place your affiliate link right slap bang in the centre of all the action.

The great thing is, these sites already have the traffic and the eyeballs coming in daily. You didn't need to build up the sites, you don't need to worry about tomorrow's traffic...these sites take care of all that hassle for you!

The best part is, social sites such as Youtube, MySpace and blogging communities all rely on their own users to build the traffic for them (and for you!). This means that the potential traffic that will be exposed to your affiliate link will only continue to grow.

Placing your affiliate link on these sites however, must be done with precaution and respect. The last thing you want it to come across as a spammer. Here's 5 ways to get around this problem every time:

1. Read the blog posts and make a helpful comment
2. Watch the video and post a helpful comment
3. Get to know people on MySpace, build up a friends list and THEN send a bulletin or mail out to all your friends and networking groups
4. Participate in forums before adding your affiliate link in your signature
5. Make real friends on Facebook that are interested or will be interested in the same subject/problem/hobby as your affiliate product

These are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to leveraging traffic from the giant websites, without having to build your own websites yourself.

However, the fact still remains that in order to make sales as an affiliate, it requires a lot of people to be sent to a sales page, purely because most affiliate offers are not cheap enough to be impulse buys for the visitor.

They need to think about it, or really, really, really need it in order for a sale to occur. Sometimes a sales page that you send them to will not do the job of converting the visitor, so you're going to struggle either way.

All of these problems can be resolved, and the amount of leverage you can gain from other secret sources is going to blow your mind. Imagine being able to rake in literally thousands of visitors that go directly to offers that DO convert, without you having to try and sell anything to anybody?

Now that my friend, is not only a lazy but an incredibly smart way to truly clean up as an affiliate marketer in this day and age.