The Social Media Policy I Followed to Drive Over 36 Million Pageviews

Here is the story on how I learned to communicate with target communities on social media platforms. You could read the transcript beneath the video.

Transcript

Miami, Florida circa 2003; i’m broke as a joke and selling crack is not option; in the suburbs crackheads are an endangered species – they capture them planting crack pipes on the sidewalk as bait and put them on exhibition @ the metro zoo. you’ll see the sign right next to the cage, like, “don’t feed the crack heads; and don’t give him any change.” and you’ll see the fine print on the bottom read, “Accepting fellatio in exchange for controlled substances is illegal and will be punishable by a fine of up to $500K or 20 years imprisonment or both.”

The internet marketing tips i picked up from from all the links to the Make $500 a day on a white-sand beach while sports illustrated swimsuit models pick the toe jam out of my feet, got me a help desk job, Bellsouth, $9 an hour.

Women screaming into my ear that their internet is down while their husbands are shooting possum in the backyard; “uhh, my internet’s down and why is it that when i turn on this contraption i get popups of Oscar de la Hoya in panties and a executioner’s mask; getting whipped by Heidi Montag and lady gaga.

then you hear the shot gun blasts!

blow! blow! “you got ’em honey” “yeah, i got ’em baby. get the kids in the house; we gon’ have ourselves some possum tonight”

anyway i started working on my ppc affiliate landing pages and adding keywords into title elements and meta descriptions; Neal the SEO boy is born.

fast forward to 2006; a few thousand search referrals later a few hundred a week in affiliate sales of databases to paid surveys and ebooks on how to get rid of genital warts from the privacy of your own couch; page one google for a few companies, donald trump, george foreman; the Google logo, some luxury brands and at this time a private jet company – i went from eating doughnuts and running Cat 5 to eating pizza and champagne on a G4.

around the same time i heard social bookmarking was the next internet marketing hard on, so i join Digg for no logical reason whatsoever; same reason a kid throws change on the floor to look up a woman’s dress;
– throws change
– looks up dress
– “Ahhh! Tarantula!”

I didn’t do anything with the account:

ignored it completely; treated it like a pelican caught in the bp oil spill. nobody’s interviewin’ the pelican; i spoke to one on my recent trip to florida and he’s like “i can’t go fishin’; i stick my beak in and come up with tar balls and sea weed with jerri curl.” it’s 2010, i don’t need no soul glo all i want is clean fish that don’t smell like a roll of dollars pulled out a prostitute’s behind.”

Anyway my ranking for a keyword was slipping down google front page; $100 mass directory submissions and free press releases weren’t working anymore. i tried to get a final answer from slumdog millionaire, but indian police were still knocking his teeth out.

So i posted a story offering Ron Paul a flight on a private jet – 146 diggs it got buried but i got like 50 links pointing to the site; and over 1,000 visitors in the 1st hour; now that site is pasted on google page one for the most competitive keywords in its industry; as if the owner of the private jet company gave larry and serje their private jet with a stripper pole, a gorilla costume, Kendra Wilkinson, and a camera man.

Months passed, i learned how to use digg and made the digg top 100 when it only took about 100 popular stories to make it. i join a media conglomerate; and they’ve got a whole division writing stories and willing to sell their kidneys to get some traffic to them. anyway michael jackson dies; fans are jumping off buildings. people are getting downsized; everybody’s wondering what the fuck do i, neal rodriguez, mutant seo specialist do but tell them that they suck because they’ve got duplicate content and 50,000 404’s that need redirection.

I say fuck it; let the search engine spider choke on all the flash, redirects to redirects, canonical issues; 404’s. me and my diggas throw on ski masks and turn into social media special forces if we’re navy seals social media platforms are the water – when they start shooting @ us with ak-47’s and ginsu knives we dive back into the water – in this case the water is digg

Case history:

Problem:
no traffic

Solution:

Story hunt – a story hunt for something which will resonate on major social communities is about as rough as changing channels on a tv i had when i was little with a wire hanger as an antenna; you want to change the channel you’ve got to crank that dial – crackitcrackitca – GIJoe ain’t on yet; back to Mork & Mindy crackitcrackitca nanoo nanoo.

My grandfather’s from the Colombian civil war so he thinks its machine gun fire; so i’m like its 4:30; time for Transformers – crackitcrackitc! – my grandfather throws himself on the floor; “a tierra!”

I’m like no abuelito those are munequitos that m-16 is photoshopped

See in Colombia you don’t know if its machine gun fire or mosquitos. you hear them whiz by your ear and be like – slap your ear – you look at your hand and see your palm’s got a red paint job; “like damn that was a fat one – he stocked up.”

Then you look down and be like, “yo, that dog’s chewing on my ear, man” the dog grips the ear between his paws and stretches his teeth.

Like, “hey, dog! that’s not a flip flop – gimme that damn ear, man.” then you get the shoe man to glue that shit back on; “juancho, u poquito de goma alli.”

Anyway here’s the story i found:

Story:

Michael Jackson Death Photos Sold for $500k

I’ll tell you, you play around on Digg long enough – you see a headline like that and you start shaking, you want to get to the submit button as expeditiously as possibly but you go into slow motion like you getting chased by Freddy Kruger in a Night mare on Elm street.

You walk in the hood they think you want to cop some dope.

Like you want to suck your own cock;

I’m your mother, i’m yo daddy, i’m yo digga in the attic; need a digg im me; i’ll give you an fp; you know me i’m yo friend; reciprocity is key; i’m yo pusher; i’m yo digga

So i submitted it; i had no karma because i hadn’t logged in in months; so i sent it out to my contacts – it made it to the front page of Digg.com – i would refresh the digg bar every 30 seconds and i’d get an additional 500 views; and pdnonline gets paid by cpm so that’s like $70 for every 1,000 impressions; my eyes are like; cha ching! cha ching! gawker picked it up 90k views in total.

That’s the beauty of social news; you could singlehandedly do damage without having to sell some big social media initiative for which employees are going to have to sell umbrellas outside of the subway on rainy days and fried zepoles with powdered sugar during san genaro festival just to finance it.

Let me give you an example: case study!

Problem:

digg stopped driving traffic to typical news stories and more stories are getting buried off the front page.

I promoted ozzy osbourne is bestowed the cokehead burnout of the year award;

“i’m honored to sniff i mean accept this award”

I show a friend of mine that it gets like 300 views; he’s like, “stop putting a gun into kevin rose’s mouth to get these front pages, man”

I’m getting hair implants to cover up the bald spots where i yanked my hair out of its roots.

We start work on the bestofthe2000s.com and build the biggest mashup of the funniest commercials of the 2000 to 2010 decade – on youtube. i sub it as a video; title: The Most Epic Commercials of the Decade

I pass it to a few bloggers and bam!

1.3 million pageviews

They make $70 cpm on this microsite; so thats $70,000 cpm after the 1st day; and about $90k in less than four days.

Even Ashton Kutcher twote it! – you’re not getting punk’d – i can’t do photoshop – that tweet added up to about 19k views.

Although you don’t hear it on the mouth of every CNBC commentator talking social media; news aggregation is not a limp dick. this is a real digital asset through which you could drive a shit load of traffic not just for yourself; you could provide this favor for many people on the planet build relationships; it’s not like Twitter you could get 100 retweets and get like 5 visitors; man u get a hundred diggs u may have to pee on your server so it doesn’t blow up in your face and you end up looking like you’re taking beauty advice from leatherface in texas chainsaw massacre.

I hit these quote unquote social media conferences and they’re like what’s your twitter? i’m like i’m on digg, baby

They’re like, “eww you need to be spayed.”

But diggers don’t die we multiply!

Let me give you a quick run down of some links which make using social media less like paying tiger woods future alimony payment.

This is a thread on webmaster world where members share how they ask for links from other webmasters; this is so when you go out on your blog outreach; it wont look like you’re a sidewalk beggar that smells like piss with a sign which reads will give head for crack.

Di66.net, socialblade.com, and friendstatistics.com allow you to study the popular section of digg and all kinds of stats on other users.
Think of it as a second life version of that lady with rollers in her hair sticking her head out of the window who tells you when your neighbor gets teabagged by her hairy landlord

These mashups list niche social sites you could use to build your own platform. some of these sites may not drive too much traffic but you may find that you’ll get more subscribers after participating.

Remember, each and every one of you are a mini new york times.

This is people media – if we are the people and the internet is the most revolutionary form of media since hieroglyphics – we are the internet

This is the people media movement; it’s not about just joining Twitter and Facebook to find out what soul glo Ron Jeremy uses to keep the hair on his back shiny before a jailhouse gangbang; it’s about finding where your people congregate online and communicating with them to help keep them from jumping off the ledge until 5 pm;

I thank you for watching;

How valuable do you think is the use of social news aggregation channels like Digg and blog outreach? please leave your responses in the comments below;

My name is Neal Rodriguez.

Until next time.

As I noted in my first video on The Social Media Policy I Used to Drive Over 36 Million Pageviews, if the video is something you would like to relay to your community, I will be featuring publishers who embed the video and link to this web address on my section of the Huffington Post as supporters of The People Media Movement, aiming to make social media platforms as user-friendly as possible.


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Comments

  1. Your video blogs are highly informative and hysterically funny. And I say that not just because you’re my teacher, but also because it’s time to give grades.

    • neal says:

      great strategy, Jack. but my bribe policy warrants private island getaways on a private Airbus corporate jet with Shakira as my masseuse 😉 a couple of tickets to the World Cup finals would also get you on my good side.

      Thank you for your support, Jack. keep coming back; i’ll try to keep it interesting.

  2. […] Neil Rodriguez’ People’s Media Moverment Category: UncategorizedTags: funny > marketing > money for people > neil rodriguez > nsfw > pop culture > rants > Social media > wtf […]

  3. […] You can voice your comments and opinions below or Here! […]

  4. Very cool, with your help this whole social media outreach gig is finally making sense. Your class on Media Bistro has been the best. I learned alot and am greatful for your dedication to helping your students.

    • neal says:

      it’s my pleasure, Lorri; thank you for stopping by; a lot of what was learned in the Media Bistro course will be reinforced here. so you’re welcome any time.

  5. Eric Sornoso says:

    Great stuff like always Neal.

  6. […] I Drove Over 36 Million Pageviews Following This Social Media Policy The social media policy I followed to drive over 36 million pageviews to web properties worldwide, is based on a social […]

  7. Ajay Chavda says:

    Completely blown out by the video…

    I never knew about Neal Rodriguez before I found you on search engine journal and now completely fascinated by the way you speak rather than your strategy for social media …

    Looking forward to reading and watching more of your videos/case study…

  8. Lou Gaskin says:

    Hi Neal

    Loved the energy, the humour and the message. It’s great to have been pointed towards your post and as you say it’s ultimately about the people, no matter the network, it’s the bare bones of humanity that many forget.

    If marketeers think of their target audience as just a number, then they’ve lost sight of what makes a business function, its the individual people you want to click the link, who click the buy button or the ad. Obviously success is measured in numbers but thats why social media is more than any one person or expert, its a continuous user experience that grows, because interaction is what gets results, its what builds individual and company brands nowadays.

    • neal says:

      hi Lou; thanks for watching; I like your perspective – it points towards a wisdom of crowds that makes everybody collectively an expert. sort of like a mastermind shared with everyone on the social web.

  9. Penny wise pound foolish for businesses that try to attempt their own social media and simply allow things to fizzle out before anything gets started. People sometimes think that it is just one tweet and you are done.

    • neal says:

      duly noted; there are so many points of exposure that can be adopted when tweeting; hashtag, @reply, a link;
      – a hashtag if used frequently can be used by additional people who want to jump into your hashtag assigned conversation or tweetchat.
      – @reply lets people know you’re alive and the titanic rescue team shouldn’t leave without you.
      – links of course can point back to your site; but you shouldn’t overdo those on Twitter; the twitter culture is more of building a community on the platform and having a percentage of that community visit your site when you’ve got something in which your following is interested.

  10. inkodeR says:

    I thought you were just taking the piss – but this is freaking deep. Had to watch it twice because you speak too fast for my brain. Sh*t is impressive.

  11. That was fantastic! I mean this with all do respect. I have been doing viral marketing for the past two years and let me tell ya’, it is nice to hear a “Guerrilla Voice” amongst all the new age/digital Guerrilla marketers. These days there are still so many people that just don’t get! Thanks for being the “Guerrilla Voice” activist for “The People Media Movement!”

  12. Niharraj says:

    Thanks for your gr8 information on how to to drive traffic by using social media policy.
    Keep post on similar kind of tips to increase site traffic.

    Best Regards

    • neal says:

      will do, Niharraj; i’ll be touching on specific case studies where i was able to drive colossal influxes of traffic through social media platforms.

      take care.

  13. […] media platforms by employing three levels of adoption. The Social Trinity is the foundation of a social media policy that allows you to use communication tools on digital networks for the purpose of building your own […]

  14. very very interesting videos, look forward to check more videos from you!!

  15. […] media platforms by employing three levels of adoption. The Social Trinity is the foundation of a social media policy that allows you to use communication tools on digital networks for the purpose of building your own […]

  16. Thia was so good I came back for another viewing. Your video blog is as entertaining as it is informative. It’s impossible not to stay glued to the video waiting for you to drop your next incredible phrase of SEM/SM tip. Great work.

  17. Paul Tech says:

    I love your video, Neal. It helps me to understand the various social networks at our disposal. One question often asked is why some people derive traffic from social networks effortlessly but not others?

    BTW, the way you put across of putting the message of building up trust and injecting our unique identity on the web is hilarious. Will catch up on your tips again…

  18. […] I noted in my first video on The Social Media Policy I Used to Drive Over 36 Million Pageviews, if the video is something you would like to relay to your community, I will be featuring […]

  19. andrew says:

    I do not know how I found your blog. I watched laughing and lisening. Went back to your transcript, (good idea) to understand what you were actually talking about. I like the other idea of letting people embed it on their sites. good luck !

  20. Raza says:

    Neal,

    Needless to say, you got skills. But what I respect most is that you reply to every comment on your blog. That says a lot. Glen Allsop is the same way, and Gyutae Park used to be too before he took a hiatus from WTW.

    My question is how do you get bloggers to accept your guest post requests, bite your link bait, accept link requests, etc? In most cases, they don’t reply to requests. Maybe my content is crap… maybe they’re lazy, don’t know.

    I just launched an e-commerce store and thought it would be cool to create an app that shows you how much fat is in your favorite coffee drink. (click my name and then click the “Is Coffee Making You Fat?” banner once you get to my site) People love coffee and are obsessed with losing weight, so I think this could be big. I’m just not sure about the best way to get relevant bloggers to write about it, other than the Eric Ward style of emailing webmasters one by one. There’s gotta be a way to leverage social media to really get the word out.

    Best,
    Raza

  21. […] your story. People will be able to see their avatars on the Digg Who Dugg This? page; as per my social media policy, this documented activity creates a point of exposure – the first point of adoption in The […]

  22. […] your story. People will be able to see their avatars on the Digg Who Dugg This? page; as per my social media policy, this documented activity creates a point of exposure – the first point of adoption in The […]

  23. […] your story. People will be able to see their avatars on the Digg Who Dugg This? page; as per my social media policy, this documented activity creates a point of exposure – the first point of adoption in The […]

  24. […] your story. People will be able to see their avatars on the Digg Who Dugg This? page; as per my social media policy, this documented activity creates a point of exposure – the first point of adoption in The […]

  25. S.S.C. says:

    Neal,
    You are going to save me lots and lots of hair. Thanks! I have a lot of work to do!
    S.S.C.

  26. bogemandre says:

    Hello Neal,
    Actually i am newbie on internet marketing. Started from last 4 months, then i realize that link building is kind of very important thing on internet online business. Your great and clear information here open my eyes about how powerfull social media is. I’ll try to follow your guidance.
    Great Work, thanks..!!.

    • neal says:

      thank you, Bogemandre, for coming through and watching. absolutely practically in all disciplines of internet marketing link building will be the foundation of your success; links constitute the web’s circulatory system through which most traffic is directed.

      Love your focus on rubber stamps, man; I used to use them tag up my records when I was a DJ.

      come again.

  27. Hi, Great post thanks for sharing. You have some awesome ideas.

  28. Tashana says:

    Wow Neal, I just ran into your site today and I am all over it. I follow problogger and I saw you interview with him at the Web 2.0 seminar – GREAT INTERVIEW BY THE WAY. I absolutely love what you’re doing here. GIVE GIVE GIVE GIVE…Zig Ziglar said it best, “If you help enough people get what they want you will ultimately get what you want.” The principals of reciprocity at their best.

    Well just so that you know, your vids are working and I will work on becoming a reformed baby Twitter’er and start Digging around more – lol. Oh, and I have to admit if you weren’t so cute, this video would have been much harder to watch and understand — shallow me…forgive forgive…

    Great job Neal.

  29. pantelis says:

    Hey Neal,
    I gotta watch your shit a couple of times, cause I get lost in the lingo,
    however
    I’ve never heard social media described so eloquently.
    love your style
    keep it coming!

    Pantelis

  30. Good ideas to obtain traffic and earn money. I´d like to find a web project where I could work 4 hours a day and be sure to obtain $100 at the end of that day.

    thanks………

  31. Brad Smith says:

    Hi,

    Nice Concept on social media .Thanks for such a new idea!

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