Internet Paparazzi: The 4 Best Ways to Catch Their Attention

And now, for some comic relief from Lady Gaga (hint: not kid friendly; not that kids would be watching this. But that’s my general disclaimer.) Fun Fact: Lady Gaga was named #1 on Fast Company‘s list of The 100 Most Creative People in Business (June 2010). Go Gaga!!!!! Chicks rule.

Who Are the Internet Paparazzi?

Internet Paparazzi are people – many of them are bloggers and social media addicts – who make it their business to tell everyone about your business. IF you can catch their attention.

These paparazzi are different than the Hollywood kind (or the notoriously scandalous UK paparazzi). These people are fantastic. They are social mouths. They spread the word. And they might spread YOUR word. IF you can catch their attention.

Here’s how.

#1: Use social media already.

I’d say it’s about time to get off the high horse and figure out how to make social media like YouTube (video), Flickr (artwork), Blip.fm (music), and, well – your very own blog – work for you. Don’t be like a prescriptive linguist – pretending that holding onto ways of the past preserves your dignity. It might, but it also makes you obsolete. This isn’t the time to do that.

#2: Be visible.

The #1 law of blog commenting that I wrote is about visibility. No one can spread your message if they can’t see it. Maybe you don’t have cool videos, photos, or music to share. That’s OK. You can be just as visible by commenting on other people’s blogs, especially those with CommentLuv enabled. Also try press releases and solid (not shabby) article marketing, and try avenues such as HubPages and Squidoo.

For those of you who are just out of the gate or haven’t even launched yet, this post from SocialMouths.com on blog promotion is for you.

#3: Choose social channels appropriately.

Part of understanding your target market is understanding how they prefer to receive information. Market Research. There are differences – however subtle – in the Facebook crowd and the Twitter crowd and the YouTube crowd and the StumbleUpon crowd. It behooves you to spend time in all of the various channels, doing some testing. A book review that I did that included a list of 50 Questions to Ask Yourself has received over 30,000 views in StumbleUpon, with no less than 500 views per day, and with two days that reached over 10,000 views (one reached 17,000 views).

I would have NEVER thought something like that would be so interesting to people and I wasn’t even the one who submitted it. The post had successfully caught the attention of a member of the Internet paparazzi who saw it come through Twitter. (In case you don’t know, the more people that “like” a URL in Stumble, the more views it will receive). I already know that StumbleUpon isn’t a good channel for BizChickBlogs, but now I know it can be a good channel for book reviews and inspiring material.

#4: Produce something great.

This is not to say that what you produce every day isn’t good. It is. But you have to go over and above sometimes, especially if you want something to go viral and you want to catch the attention of people who will tell other people about you. There’s a reason for the phrase “blood, sweat, and tears.” Sometimes it takes just that to make something awesome.

It took John from FindingTheMoney.net quite awhile to come up with 100 Ways to Write a Better Blog Post, but it turned out amazingly. If you haven’t read it, go by, read it, leave a comment, Stumble it, etc. It’s a fantastic list – and what’s more – he didn’t hide it behind a $47 ebook. So thank him for that.

There are more ways than these.

There are more ways than these, and of course, within each point there are about 100 ways to execute it. The farther you stretch yourself, the more you put into it, the more it costs you, the more you will see good things come from it. Going back to that 50 questions list above, do you know how many times I thought, Okay, I’ll make it 30 questions…no, 35. Okay, 40. But I knew that 50 would have a greater impact so I really pushed myself to come up with 50 good ones, even though I definitely wanted to quit while I was ahead.

Good luck. And when you reach Internet fame, you better come back and let me know!

— Tia Peterson

Technorati Tags: Fast Company, Lady Gaga, social media, StumbleUpon, twitter

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