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I have the rare pleasure of working with Jamie Wilkinson at 140 Proof, and Jamie has the rare talent of being an expert on “internet fame.” He gave a great talk at the Vimeo Festival on promoting your work online, and I’ve summarized his presentation for those of you who are too lazy to watch the whole thing. Link and the full video follow at the end.

1 - Write Blog Poetry

Encourage many interpretations of your piece by combining multiple catchy headlines (some used in post), pictures, video w/music.

2 - Ride the Wave

Make work that’s relevant to existing online things that that are already popular and trending (remixes, riffes, parodies)

3 - Publish Early and Often

It’s impossible to predict what will become a hit, so don’t bother — instead, release as quickly as possible — ideally spend less than a day on a project — in order to increase the chances of pick-up.

BONUS 1 - The “Eggbasket Theory”

There are no “influentials”; anyone can launch an awesome project that goes viral, don’t focus on being the “influential” guy, focus on making LOTS of projects.

BONUS 2 - The “Min. Effort / Max. Output” Curve

Strive to hit the fast, valuable left side of the curve, quantity is better than quality.

BONUS 3 - “Pre-Document”

Telegraph your intent first with a page / blog post / video (ala Kickstarter), and you might even get press even before you start

WATCH FULL VIDEO HERE:

THEN GET FAMOUS.