Social Media

In my post on how to become a niche rockstar I said that in order to be at the top of your industry (in a lot of cases online) it’s important to know as much about it as possible. What your competitors are doing, how they’re making money and how they’re getting traffic are just a few things that you can discover with some in-depth niche research.

In that particular post I looked at the green industry from the perspective of a blogger and shared some of my findings. Based on some of the comments and emails I received at the time, a few of you were interested in how I collected the stats I did and how you could go about investigating your own niche further. I’m going to expand on that topic today, in the way I always do.

Though the title of this blog is ‘viral marketing’, regular readers will know that it’s far from being the only thing I talk about. Sometimes I’ll share a case study to inspire you. Sometimes I’ll offer insights to educate you, and sometimes I’ll give you step-by-step advice so you can take action.

This post is, purely and simply, for those who want more from their lives. If you’re happy with the position you’re in or at least like how you spend your days, then skip this post and come back next week (I have $7K/m case study on the way). Today I’m simply sharing what I wish someone else had written a few months ago when I was once again at the busiest point in my life and questioning the direction I found myself heading.

There’s more documentation on ‘how to make money online’ than most subjects out there, yet I can safely say that 99% of people who try to replace their offline income fail to do so. Many of you have seen the case studies of marketers – who clearly already know what they’re doing – building another successful website. Inspiring? Without a doubt. But obviously there’s still something missing.

For a long time I wondered what it would take to fill that gap. What would increase the number of people who follow advice in this space and actually achieve some form of success. Then the answer came to me. Or rather, she did.

A common desire for humans, once we’ve surpassed our basic requirements for survival, is to be part of something bigger than ourselves, while making a contribution to the world. The huge growth of online sites like Youtube, Twitter and Facebook, which have the potential to give anyone a large audience are a great example of this in action. This same desire is why there are over 100 million active blogs out there, each with authors trying to connect to the bigger whole.

Even though there are thousands upon thousands of micro-niches and active communities discussing the most peculiar topics, there’s still only room for a handful of ‘rockstars’ to emerge from each of them. There are always going to be fewer influencers than there are people to be influenced. That’s common sense, not helped by the fact that gaining a following isn’t some paint-by-numbers process, and it certainly doesn’t happen overnight.

Just looking at the to-do-list of projects I have lined up for ViperChill is tiring enough, never mind the part about actually putting my ideas into action. One such idea I’ve discussed a lot with my friends was that of a social voting system for Tweets and Facebook shares.

Basically, all users would get a ‘score’ for how valuable a Tweet from their Twitter profile or Share on their Facebook fan page actually is. Then, they would accumulate points based on those shares or tweets they make for others. In return they could spend those points and get actions (Facebook likes / Tweets) from other users.