Come on, admit it: Sometimes you wish you were famous. In the old days, you had to be discovered, but now, thanks to this little thing called the Internet, you can become a star without even leaving your comfy crib. Or, if fame isn’t your thing, then you can just as easily find friendship, companionship, recognition or an outlet for your creativity on the World Wide Web too. So what are you waiting for, newbie? Here are the basics and some strategies for getting you noticed online.
Blogs
Do you have a lot to say, but no one listening? Maybe you need a blog. Derived from the word “weblog,” blogs are the most basic means of self-promotion—sorry, self-expression on the Internet. Essentially online diaries, they’ve gone beyond just the drudgery of self-absorbed, slice-of-the-simple-life entries to encompass news, opinion and analysis, satire, advice and a whole lot more.
It’s All About Me
The first thing you’ll want to do is set up an account with one of the online blog hosts (see Block of Blogs) and, in a matter of minutes, you’re ready to blog! If you’re not sure how to begin, resist the temptation to start with your entire life history or, even worse, try to explain who you are.
Start slow—write a post about your day. The important thing is to get in the habit of doing it regularly. Write like you’re having a conversation with someone. If you write the way you speak, not only will it make your blog easy to understand, but it also adds personality.
So, you’re writing—now it’s time to attract some readers. There are as many bloggers out there as there are stars, and a new blog is born every second. How do you get noticed? Well, just like in the real world, networking is key. Blogrolling, or trading links with other bloggers, can do wonders for your visitor count as well as your reputation. Aim high: Try to get yourself listed on popular blogs so you can ride their coattails.
Try to keep up with what’s popular too. This way, you’ll stand a better chance of your blog popping up on www.technorati.com (a site that tracks millions of blogs around the world) and search engines like Google and Yahoo!.
Success Story
In 2003, a self-obsessed local girl with a knack for descriptive bitching started posting her stories of her daily life and self-obsessed images online. Four years later, Xiaxue (xiaxue.blogspot.com) is now one of the best-known bloggers in Asia, with around 20,000 hits daily. Loved (and hated) by many, she has appeared in tons of magazines and newspapers, and even has her own online reality TV show called Xiaxue’s Guide To Life at www.clicknetwork.tv.
The Last Word
There are many factors that contribute to the success of a blogger. The quality of writing is important, but don’t overlook the look—design, color and the use of images matter too. When you sign up for a blog, you usually get a plain default template, which means that, design-wise, your blog is not going to stand out. If you don’t know how to design a website, there are number of tutorials online, such as www.csstutorial.net.
Social Networking Sites
Social Networking Sites (SNS) are online communities of people who are known by their self-created profiles, which might contain things like interests, physical characteristics, marital status, education, profession and so on. On many sites, you can also upload photographs, music, videos, blogs and calendars.
If this sounds more complicated than a humble blog, it is, but SNS such as industry leaders MySpace and Facebook are pretty easy to use. Let’s put it this way: If you can send an email with an attachment, you should be able to use MySpace.
Ostensibly, the goal is to make new friends with similar interests, but people also use them to find love, make business contacts or as a promotional tool for themselves or a product or service.
MySpace
There are many social networking sites out there (see Be Friend), but MySpace is statistically one of the best if your goal is maximum exposure. No longer just a “place for friends,” MySpace has developed into a vehicle for self-expression full of budding artists, filmmakers, singers, actors and comedians.
Not only can they promote their work on the Internet, but fans who add them to their friend lists help expand their network. Tools like messaging and chatting are another way for fans to get in touch with their favorite musicians.
The new kid on the block that’s taking the world by storm, however, is Facebook. Like any SNS, you can create profiles, post photos, blog posts and even videos. But what makes this one different is that you can add cool, funny and downright weird applications (or apps) to your profile. Stuff like Superpoke allows you to innocently “wave” at your friends or go so far as to “dry hump” them.
More than most other SNS, Facebook allows for constant communication and interaction between friends—making it the hottest commodity on the World Wide Web today.
See someone who catches your eye? Why start things off with a boring message when you can easily poke them!
Success Story
Lily Allen’s (www.myspace.com/lilymusic) chick angst hit “Smile” was originally posted on MySpace. Her link was passed from “friend” to “friend” until finally music magazines and record companies took notice. The world’s biggest entertainment companies now mine MySpace for talent; they are also posting content on MySpace to promote their films and bands. In addition to the arts, MySpace is being used to influence public opinion and to promote US Presidential candidates for office—you can now befriend Hillary at www.myspace.com/hillaryclinton, for example.
What (Net)works
Just like blogs, you will not get any attention if all you have are a bland description of yourself and boring photos taken with your mobile phone.
On MySpace, you need to pimp your profile with colors, graphics and music. Don’t worry if you’re not a tech whiz: There are pre-made templates out there for you to just copy and paste into your profile (try www.pimp-my-profile.com).
For Facebook, however, try to get as many cool apps as possible, but don’t go overboard or your profile’s just going to be an endless stream of nonsense.
Digital Galleries
If you’re a decent photographer or visual artist, you have even more options for getting yourself noticed on the web. Starting a blog and posting your pictures on it may be easier, but specialized sites cater to your specific, artistic needs and give you admission to communities of like-minded artists.
Flickr
FlickrThe most widely used and accepted site is Flickr (www.flickr.com). Though the focus of Flickr is photography, you can pretty much upload any kind of picture file. However, most of the photos on Flickr are by professionals or near-professional quality—so the snapshots of your neighbor hosing down the dog won’t attract a lot of interest.
When it comes to maximizing your exposure, the first thing you want to do is sign up for as many groups as you’re interested in: Black-and-white, travel photography, Lomography, models, whatever. In these groups you’ll be sharing your photos with people who give a damn, and you can learn a lot from other members. Another cool feature of Flickr is that other members can attach comments to your photos. In addition, blogging is as easy as clicking “Blog This” on your Flickr page.
With Flickr, you are forced to tag each photograph that you upload. While this may seem like a pain, this is something you would—and should—do anyway, because the more descriptive you are with tags, the easier it is for people to find your photos; and the easier it is to find your photos, the greater the chances are that they will find you.
Success Story
Two years ago Hamad Darwish (www.flickr.com/photos/darwishh/) was a university student without any formal photographic training. Now, five of his pictures are featured as wallpaper in Microsoft’s new Vista operating system. How did this happen? He posted his newbie snaps on Flickr.
How well known musicians make use of technology as a form of distribution
