We've all seen @mashable's fantastic reporting, how-tos, and breaking features. They deserve the millions of views they get everyday. The have people like Ben who are always ready to find and report key stories. They have people like Jen who are always interacting with the news makers to get the first scoop. And they have people in ever corner of the social media space that support them.

And yes, you already have all these people already. Already.

So you might think, "I'd have a big successful website that gets mentioned by CNN too if I had that kind of network!"

Well, you do.

All you need are:

1. Five writers

2. 25 web partners

3. 50,000 readers

And yes, you already have all these people already. Already.

@suredoc created http://humantrafficingwatch.com . He has a job, friends, family, and basically a full life. It's almost impossible for one professional good samaritan to build enough content, marketing, and the relationships to make any kind of lasting impact at all. And if you want to turn your blog into a full time job that pays your bills to do good... it's even harder.

So, just bolt one #1 - #3. This is how:

A. Find the people who are PASSIONATE about
the same topic dear to you by downloading Seesmic Desktop. Create a full twitter search filter like so:

B. Twitter only goes back a few weeks so find even more people using
one of my own twitter web apps: http://untweeps.com . After you unfollow slackers, it lets you find quality REAL twitter users from our database who've used the same terms you hold dear to your heart. In this example, search untweeps.com for "human trafficing" and then repeat with "human trafficers."

C. Most people with only a few followers read all their twitter notices.
They will read the notice that says, "Dear YOU... @SureDoc just followed you. Do you want to follow this person back?"

For this case, make sure your own Twitter bio is deeply seductive. I mean, make yourself so alluring that if the person you just followed reads your bio and sees your blog, they can't help but hit the "Follow" button.

I've found that just by doing this, I personally get a 30% follow-back ratio. BUT with my next technique, I get an astounding 90% follow back ratio:

D: Tell all YOUR followers why THEY should follow the people YOU just followed.
Give to get back. Don't beg. Don't ask. Give the people you just followed some props. DO NOT send an auto DM that says, "Hey, thanks for following you should check-out my site. www.imaspammer.com."

Set a trend of giving and ONLY work with the people who are smart and savvy enough to give you back a follow back.

Even better, FAV the people to reciprocate and tell their own followers to follow you. SEE: http://twitter.com/Jahiwitness/statuses/4351282469

E. Again, set the trend by listening and retweeting
those people YOU just followed. Introduce them one to another. When YOU finally want a blog post retweeted... you'll have the full reach of all your friends put together.

F. inally, after several successful family collaborations, ask your friends to co-blog
with you. And to drive more traffic to your co-bloggers, ask them to link FROM their blog and do the same (this is NEED #2 from above - even if nobody co-blogs with you, just get them to link to your site. You may have to lead by example again and start the trend... like I did... see my sidebar http://journik.posterous.com ). The major side benefit is that GOOGLE will pick up all the links coming to your site and within 10 days, when someone googles: "human trafficing," YOUR website will be on page one.

What ensues from there is that reporters from the NY Times, WSJ, Time Magazine, and more... will finally have you on their radar. Hell, they may even ask for an interview for a feature. That's how I got into the NY Times. See Sera Baek's story: http://twitter.com/SeraBeak/statuses/4157291694

- http://twitter.com/journik

Be heard by the MOST people If you like what you see, retumble, reblog, retweet, reface, rewhatevah… Pass it on! =)

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“Holistic Health Myths You Still Believe or Don’t but Still Do:” http://herbholist.com Submit Your Site and Meet Partners. Team Up! http://jbni.us

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Let's face it. Let's be honest here. Let's ________ (insert whatever coloquial expression used to express surrender). Getting a commercial sponsorship to blog is not easy.

Most of us started a blog a while back when we heard that some people actually work from home and make money by selling square inches. "WOW, that's the ticket!" We exclaimed when exclaiming such was still considered hip and fitting to the parlance of our time.

So we went about sweatty palmsing through our first Google Adsense application. Then we spent the next few days on pins and needles excitedly awaiting a response as if to a pregnancy test. (in my case, please replace the former word, "excitedly" with petrifi-ed-ly)

People are like basketballs. You gotta keep on kicking-em till they get in the hole damm-met!

JES! You scream (if you are that one Cuban blogger who accidentally got approved) jumping up and down on your $25 office depot chair at the sight of your Adsense Approval Email and Code.

The following months are not so interesting. You earned twenty-five cents. This, for a click that you made (we will just extend you the courtesy of the word, 'accidentally') accidentally. Three years later, you get your first Google check for $100.25.

What went oh so wrong? Why don't I have the Proctor and Gamble 5 year advertising contract like @Dooce? Or the @apple contract like @ryanblock?

Simple.

You weren't positioned properly. PR companies charge bundles to create positing for their companies. Companies pay these bundles (Wow, for some reason, I just wanna bite that word, "bundle." In anycase...). THIS is how you position yourself.

TOP 5 KEYS TO BLOGGING RICHOCITY

1. Pick a narrow topic you're passionate about.
Make sure you are passionate enough to write DAILY
Make sure you are passionate enough to earn your own haters (they are great for comment content and google visibility.)

2. Target a manufacturer who would LOVE to be POSITIONED in the middle of this topical post.
#1 starts at your core. #2 starts with the end in mind.

3. Search Twitter using my app http://untweeps.com for people tweeting the same topics and complimentary topics
Follow them all. They will each get an email saying YOU followed them. If you're bio is dolled up enough, they will follow you back. The buddy making is all up to you now.

4. Seal content partnerships with these guys from #3. Build alliances.
If you, Sally, jog with a baby stroller daily, find a mommy blogger, Molly, who takes her kids to school daily. Your reader base will be the same but your commerical sponsors will be non conflicting. One gets a stroller sponsorship and the other gets a Ford Fiesta sponsorship.

Guest blog for each other. Guest tweet each other. AND co-link to each other!: For example, Molly would link to Sally's blog under the link term, "light-weight strollers for twins." Sally would link to Molly's blog under term: "fuel efficient cars for single mothers." Guaranteed you'll be on Google's page one for these searches. Next step is to simply use less words to increase target-find likelihood. Eventually, You'll be on page one of Google under "strollers" and "fuel efficient cars." BUT the key here is collaboration.

5. ReTweet Each Other!
Do you realize that it takes NINE to TWENTY tweet or ad impressions before someone clicks!?!?!?!? When I blog and tweet it out, I generally get 80 clicks av. So, I use twaiter.com to schedule that same tweet for 12 days in a row. You do the math, 80x12 should be 960 clicks. BUT NO! After 12 days, I always get about 3,000 clicks. True story. People are like basketballs. You gotta keep on kicking-em till they get in the hole damm-met!

And lemme know about #4. I'll explain if you have questions. @journik me

#6 BONUS: "Francois (an effeminate man born Frank, in Sandusky, OH), come quick, look: Sally's blog is already perfectly color calibrated to our own brand and color identity."

Make sure your blog design is perfectly compatible with your target-sponsor's graphic visual identity. Middle managers in marketing departments of major household brands actually spend their whole day by the water cooler making advertising choices based on these trivial merit factors!

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Intended Audience: Jr. High and High School Students looking to break into the web industry.

OK, so to be fair, I've spoken with OM a few times in the past but I doubt he remembers me. So let's just start from scratch. He is the leading industry leaders' thinker. He has almost a million followers. Getting him to say your name is like getting the NYTimes to mention you. It is. If you don't believe me... See my post of Twitter Data Visualization: http://journik.posterous.com/explaining-social-media-twitter-and-news-to-y

So, if you are trying to get into a meeting or a conversation with an industry leader, you've got to earn his trust. He became a leader by earning trust. How? Simplest way is to comment intelligently and meaningfully on his blog. It take about 5 impressions for a pro to recognize you. Then it takes a few more to feel comfortable with you.

Finally, if you send him a little tweet, he will respond to you publically so all million or five million of his readers recognize you too.

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Nowwadays, numbers in the millions don't really make us all dizzy in the cranium.

A million used to be a big number. But now, with CTRs and social media, 1,000,000 is for many, the basic rule of measure.

For example, CNN on Twitter has 2,543,638 followers. You realize that they got a major boost after competing with @aplusk for the million mark. Ashton Kutcher, @aplusk, has 3,122,483 followers right now. Again, not dizzying to the cranium. Until you compare these figures with "old *crusty* media."

Do you have any idea how many people watched the network news tv mega coverage of Obama's innaguration?

According to The Live Feed: 

Obama's speech was seen by more U.S. viewers than the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony (34.2 million).

Here's the part where you get to put your pinky finger in your mouth, CNN, only had 8.1 million viewers and has no more than 1.1 million views on a regular basis (source: Nielsen)

Think about this a second, @aplusk has more followers by 300% than regularly watch Ted Turner or Rupert Murdock (the guys that own CNN and FOX).

Is it time you took Twitter seriously? Is it time you worked with a net born native?

EDIT: THIS post just got atleast another 500 follower reach thanks to http://twitter.com/whitecoatstrat/statuses/3231710478

And another 300+ from Marketing Strategist: http://twitter.com/ybeitollahi/status/3232006209

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@nwcptr4me of something totally hard to remember asked me the jist of (what the hell is a "jist" anyways? Some sort of verb in the past tense?!) the title. It's really simple. The benefits are obvious. Instead of paying some other blogger or site to advertise, I can advertise on my friggin own blog and get ten times as many customers free.

You do realize that people who read your stuff are ATLEAST 10x's more likely to buy your stuff. Think about it. I only buy from people I know. When's the last time you bought a car or even a book from someone you knew nothing about?

So, I've got about 1,000 youtube videos and 2,000 blog posts. How do I do it?

Anger, NOT LOVE is the greatest motivator

This is the secret: I read blogs written by idiots. Every day, they piss me off (No, I'm not referring to @mashable. I actually think they are a load of smarties). And we all know that anger is the greatest motivator. Think about it. You think LOVE <3 is the greatest motivator. Gimme a break! How many people were you madly in love with but never said anything?!?!?

How many people slightly annoyed you that you just went off on?

So, I read idiocy for inspiration.

Now, here's the secret secret... see top half

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Ever since Biz Stone, a founder of Twitter announced that they have no plans to monetize the social media monopoly with ads, entrepreneurs and VC's jumped all over the opening. Even @seth, a personal friend of @fredwilson of Union Square Ventures, a Twitter VC, has a Twitter advertising webapp backed by IDG.

The biggest news is that now the average non celebrity mortal tweeter can also get paid to tweet with sponsored tweets. No longer is advertising the domain of blogs and Google Adsense. Advertisers are swimming upstream to the tweeple. And you get paid to tweet mercenary tweets.

The obvious benefit of this evolution is that advertisers get far more impressions. Most people get attrocious CTRs (Click Through Rates to a blog or site) blipping at between 0 - 00.01%. Even Brittney Spears, the #1 leading Twerson in @wefollow with 2.6 million followers only has a 2% CTR on her sexy boobalicious photos - much less when she links to articles that require nonsexual cognitive function. This means that one tweet is worth about 200 adverts on 200 blog pages.

This means that one tweet is worth about 200 adverts on 200 blog pages.

So if you want to get in on the action, you've got to create a topical follower base. Think about it. If Louis Vuitton offered $20 per tweet and you have 100 followers, but only one of them is a female hipster, It ain't gunna work. Your followers must alllllll be in the same market demographic for you to be a value to your sponsor. Personally, I don't plan on selling tweets. But, this IS why I have 5 twitter accounts. One account only has computer programmers. Another account only has new agey granola crunchers who could use a good shave. And my last account is for me to just communicate at will without worrying about flooding anyone's timeline.

But the real question here is, If YOU accept payment to tweet a sponsor's tweet, will you loose your precious followers? I remember when this question was asked 5-7 years ago about blogs accepting sponsorship. And the answer is still the same. A: Will you loose followers for sponsored tweets?

Join me on twitter: @journik

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I love my job. I don't have one.

I live by delivering content: blog posts, videos, and mp3s to the world (and helping startups go big). So technically, I can be anywhere. (You can too. This is how)

So before I go exploring a life somewhere, I compare global currencies. Since I get paid in Cuid, Pounds, Yen, Pesos, Dollars, and Euros, I shortlist my favorite countries then sort by currency devaluation.

I select my favorite countries based on the following criteria:

1. No guerrilla insurgencies

2. No mosquitos (coulda bundled with #1. seems to go together.)

3. Cobblestone streets

4. Modern civilization

5. Beautiful Women

I sub qualify this criteria based on the following:

a. shaves

b. flosses

c. freckles (works out wonderfully when you want to play a game of connect-the-dots)

6. High speed wireless broadband (to pursue #5)

7. Most favorable male:female ratio

So based on this criteria, I came up with 

1. Seoul, Korea

2. Reykjavik, Iceland

3. Buenos Aires, Argentina

4. Croatia

When their currency valuations were compared over 2 years, the winner is obvious. My money will go twice as far in Iceland.

 

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@WOnet wants to return to Jamaica but this time, with his family. Where do you want to live? Costa Rica? Fiji? Argentina? Prague?

There are many places on earth where you could live like a duke, maybe not a king, but atleast like a duke if you just had a non local income. Local incomes require you to be in a location. Hence, it's called "local."

I can live well in any of these countries because I have already built my non-local value delivery mechanism aka ecommerce website. I sell mp3s and videos.

You may think at this point that you have nothing to sell. This is where you are dead wrong. You'll realize how much precious knowledge you've acquired along the way if you try to teach an apprentice what you do. You'll realize all the subtle nuances that you've absorbed through observation and osmosis. You'll realize that you have a wealth of value in your head. This is why you get paid. It's for that wealth.

You may think at this point that you have nothing to sell. This is where you are dead wrong. You'll realize how much precious knowledge you've acquired along the way if you try to teach an apprentice what you do

The master mechanic who fixed that major steamship with one bang of his monkey wrench didn't get paid for his work. He got paid because he knew WHERE to bang.

You have this knowledge. I know this because my secret superhero identity is a meditation teacher. The value of meditation is that you can objectively observe your own mind. If you did so, you'd see a sea of opportunity.

The mechanics of how is simple as well.

All you have to do is start a warm oceanfront bonfire on a cool lonely evening and people will sit around it. Get sponsors to pay for the wood and the blankets embroidered with their logos. Take the money and move to Ghent, Belgium. That's where I'm going. It's older than Budapest, and brighter than Prague.

Oh, wait, I'm still in meditation teacher mode talking in metaphor, lemme take off my cape. Download and install the latest PHPBB forum. Add the SEO plugin. Every single time you have a realization, a dillema, a conflict, an issue, a solution... create a forum post about it. People in your line of work will google and find your entry in this cold dark world wide waterfront.

To make it easier, start a tumblr.com to just call in your realizations. But remember to write them down so google can find them. To make it even easier, start a posterous so you can just txt message them into a blog post.

To make yourself more visible in google, swap links with other bloggers and forums that you ALREADY find in google. Google trusts it's own. Pretty soon, some marketing director in some florescent cubicle will find you and ask you to take their money. How you speed up this process is another discussion. Ask me about it Twitter: @journik. But I recommend you buy "33," You'll see how I live the way I do and how simple it really is to break your florescent shackles.

 

 

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