So, The other day, I go to lunch with a friend of mine who isn’t into Social Media. I start showing him my personal fansite, my business site, Facebook, Twitter / TweetDeck, blip.tv, YouTube, Tumblr, Ustream, IRC, Skype, iChat, so then he goes:

“So how do you make money with all this stuff?”

So I laughed a little, because I knew I had a long, LONG explanation ahead of me. :D

Special Case

Before I get started with this, I need to mention that I’m a special case. PART of what I’m about to say will be useful to someone else. Most of it’s only useful to me.

My entire life is a special case. I’m very used to being the only… whatever. :D I’m usually the only non-white around in business situations. I’m normally the only MIT graduate in ANY situaton. I’m normally the only guy that’s messed with and quit more girls than most guys ever get to even TALK TO THEM ABOUT SEX in their entire lives.

I’m normally the only person that’s been videoblogging STEADILY since 2006 and put over 600 episodes on the net in that time. I’m normally the only Emmy Award-Winning video editor in a situation.

I’m normally the only person in the room that you can find on page 01 of Google if you search just my first name. On and on and on, so if you’re looking for some sort of “This will work for everyone” advice, this isn’t the article for you. :)

Why I’m Involved With Social Media

I’m involved with Social Media because that’s what I do. Period. Social Media is how I live my life. It’s how I interact with my friends. It’s how I do business. It’s how I learn about the world and meet new people. It’s how I express myself in a one-to-many fashion instead of a one-on-one fashion. It’s the reason I have friends in England, Hawaii, New Zealand, Japan, France, Mexico, Canada and all the way across the board in the United States of America. It’s the reason I’m in a YouTube video that’s been viewed one and a quarter million times…

Social Media enables us to be way more than we could be if we had to depend on physical interaction with people. It’s my own personal video game and I rock it to the best of my ability.

How Social Media Works For Me

Social Media’s about conversation and communication. The by-products include familiarity, endearment or infamy, and, in general, *ATTENTION*. Once you get that attention, you want to direct it somewhere so it can be useful for a purpose. In my case, I direct the attention I’ve generated to my blog.

Why my blog? Because I own it. My name is on it. Bill Cammack Dot Com. My name is not on Facebook (meaning not in the base address). My name is not on Twitter. My name is not on Tumblr or blip or YouTube. It’s on BillCammack.com.

Why does it matter that my name is on my blog? Because that’s what I want to show up in Google. Why do I want it to show up in Google? Because that’s what everyone on the planet uses to find people and topics they’re interested in. 67% (2/3) of my traffic comes from Google. So, to recap… I interact with my friends via Social Media. I use a bunch of 3rd party sites to communicate with people, but they all point back to MY website. Because of that, my site gets (relatively) a lot of hits and becomes more “popular” or perhaps relevant on Google. Good standing in Google makes more people show up at my site, because I rank higher in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). Ranking higher makes my site get more hits and the snowball keeps rolling down the hill, getting larger with each revolution.

How Do You Monetize Website Hits?

This is where the “Special Case” kicks in. :)

It just so happens that what I do for fun and self-expression is the same thing I do for business. The media that I put on the net stands as a consistently-updating resume of what I can do for you or your company. I’m constantly demonstrating to people that I can film, edit, compress, upload, tag and blog videos in a quality fashion. When someone sees this and wants that same quality for their business or personal site, I receive an email from a new potential client.

This is why it wasn’t going to be easy to explain to my friend how I make money from Social Media. I use my sites as loss leaders:

Loss Lead describes the concept that an item offered for sale at a reduced price and is intended to lead to the subsequent sale of other items, the sales of which will be made in greater numbers, or greater profits, or both.

So, What my sites do is a) demonstrate personality and b) demonstrate proficiency.

What my sites do *not* do is attempt to hook people into buying something in return for whatever entertainment or education they received from watching my videos or reading my blog posts. This is why my friend was confused. He couldn’t figure out how I convert people coming to my site or how I convert any of my other Social Media interactions into $,$$$.

My game is *awareness*. If you google Emmy Award Editor, you get *me*. If you google Video Editor Resume, you get *me*. If you google He Doesn’t Care, you get *me*. If you google Avoid Pregnancy, you get *me*. on and on and on and on and on. So what happens if you come to my site? My video editing demo reel is in my sidebar in an embedded flash player as well as a clickable link directly to an .mp4 file you can watch on your iPhone or gPhone right now. :D There’s also a direct link to my resume, if anyone felt interested in checking it out.

Is there a high rate of conversion to this situation? No. :) The thing is, there doesn’t have to be. It’s passively-generated attention. I go to sleep and people visit my website. I go out partying and people visit my website. I’m working, making money, and people are visiting my website. I put out ZERO EFFORT other than site maintenance, which I have to do anyway, and I’m advertising myself all day and all night, which my quantcast badge in my sidebar will attest to, which currently reads “7,687 Monthly People”. ==>

So, if only one person out of a thousand plays my demo reel or checks out my resume or watches videos I’ve filmed, edited or participated in, that’s seven people per month or 84 people a year that become aware of Bill Cammack without my ever having to go knock on their door and attempt to sell them an encyclopedia.. Capisce? ;)

oh….. And that’s assuming that that one person out of a thousand doesn’t tell AAAAAAAAAANYBODY they know about me or my site. Once you consider that someone might post a link to your content on their favorite Social Media site and start an entire conversation about it, where everyone they talk to can come back to the same site and see the same content they mentioned, you start to see how the viral nature of the internet works in the favor of he or she who makes his or her own site and populates it with quality content…. Who comes up FIRST when you google Dating Women NYC ?… Facebook? Twitter? FriendFeed?… Nope. *I* do. :D

So, if sidebar content is low-percentage for conversion, where does the real action take place?….. On the back-channel…

The Back-Channel

In Social Media, there are interactions that go on in front of everyone’s eyes and then there are interactions that only occur privately, which I refer to as “The Back-Channel”. As much time as I devote to public media output, I devote way more to back-channel conversation. On any given day, I’m doing 16-20 hours of private online interactions with people, which really translates more to ~35 hours a day, because, since I don’t use the telephone, I get to hold several conversations simultaneously.

This is why I don’t have to do my wheeling & dealing in public. The public side is for me to explain to people what I can do for them. The private side is for people to contact me about their projects, and for us to decide whether we want to work together.

This also occurs IRL. You might see me standing in a bar, having a brew with someone, but what you don’t know is that we’re talking business. When you walk over, the conversation suddenly changes, because *YOU* aren’t involved in our business dealings. This gives you the impression that I’m always frivolously socializing, when, meanwhile, I currently have 431 Linkedin connections and almost four times as many Facebook connections (1589).

So the blogging, which I do for my own entertainment, satisfaction & socialization, serves to populate the back-channel and also to give people an idea of who I am, what I’m about and the level of quality I can bring to their productions. I don’t have to make money directly from my sites. In fact.. Other than clients I already had before I got involved with Social Media in 2006,*EVERYONE* I currently do work for found out about me on the internet or was introduced to me by someone I was connected to online.

Could I make a few dollars with Google Ads? Probably… A Few…. I found that it wasn’t worth it (to me) to have random ads incessantly littering my pages. I’d rather endorse companies that I believe in or that I’m affiliated with or that are clients of mine. I’ve run ads in the past and I’m not saying I’ll never do it again. I’m saying I’d rather offer my audience a quality reading experience, which IME causes them to read more and feel like finding out more about who Bill Cammack is, which adds more people to my back-channel and eventually more $,$$$ to my bottom line.

What If I Don’t Have A Marketable Skill?

A lot of people that have websites don’t actually *DO* anything… They just REPORT about stuff that other people did. If that’s your game, and you can’t put the attention you garner from the internet to work for yourself, you need to put it to work for someone else. The best way to do that, IMO, is sponsorships. Look for people that believe in what you’re doing, believe in your content and believe in you as a person and find out from them what they would like to receive in return for funding you to do your site.

Let’s say for instance that your game is aggregating information you read on Twitter & Facebook and regurgitating that to your viewers/listeners/readers. You may very well be able to get someone (or several “someone”s) to sponsor you, because they would rather read what you selected than search for it themselves. It might be worth a couple of dollars to them to enable you to do what you already do, except better and more often. I you didn’t have to go to work so much, you could spend more time aggregating content and repackaging it for your fans & followers.

Other options are affiliate ads or Google ads.

Another route you can go is to align yourself with blogs that will pay you to blog for them. Dunno how lucrative that is, but it might be better than flippin’ burgers @ McDonalds…. Maybe.

Shilling

The opposite of what I do is what I refer to as shilling. This would be when every time someone contacts you, there’s something they’re hoping to get out of it. To the uninitiated and uninformed, this seems to be the way to go, which is why everyone’s trying to figure out how to get more Twitter followers. They think that having more people supposedly reading their twitter posts gives them more influence, when, in reality, it’s as low-percentage as my sidebar-game.

I have 2,595 Twitter followers. I’ve seen people with TEN TIMES AS MANY followers host live streams and have exactly the same amount of people in it that I can pull, if not WAY FEWER. Twitter is not some kind of walkie-talkie. People aren’t waiting for your post so they can jump into action. Unfortunately, a lot of people act like that’s the best utilization of their “voice”, and turn their “channel” into 100% infomercials and advertisements.

What do *I* do with these people? Ignore them. If I see an email from them, it gets skipped. If I see a twitter post from them, I don’t bother to read it so I can have something advertised to me again. They’re like television commercials in the age of DVRs (digital video recorders), easily fast-forwarded.

This is what people expect to see when they come to your site. They expect you to try to SQUEEEEZE some money out of them for what you’re offering. Don’t play yourself. If what you’re offering has value which you can demonstrate to them, that’s all you need.

Why Bill Cammack Gets Pizaid

Ultimately.. I get paid because I can do things other people can’t do. Period. I do it better. I do it faster. I’ve spent time learning things that people don’t know, so if they don’t want to pay me to do it for them, they can pay someone else or take the time (if they have enough time) to learn it for themselves, buy the proper equipment and DO IT FOR FREE (minus equipment purchase costs) on their own.

Most people don’t have time to waste, learning skills that they’re never going to be able to use again. If they teach themselves how to edit, they’re never going to get a steady job editing. Also, the time they’re spending learning what I already know is time they’re *not* spending making money for themselves. This is why I don’t need to convince or persuade people that they should hire me. The reasons are obvious and there are more reasons every single day.

This is why I don’t need to directly advertise myself to people. I don’t get PAID from my websites. I get ATTENTION from my websites, and then I do whatever I want with my Social Capital. I’ve also built a foundation for any business endeavors I choose to become involved in. Whatever I want someone to pay me to do, I have at least two years’ worth of examples of my being involved in internet website and content creation. I have over TEN YEARS of experience editing videos, including several years of being an Emmy judge and an International Emmy judge.

I don’t have to convince anyone of anything. I don’t have to sell anybody anything. I don’t need to monetize my websites. I don’t need to get money for the hours that I spend writing articles like this. I build my community through Social Media so that when I come up with an idea for business, I have THOUSANDS of people that I can inform about my idea RIGHT. NOW… TODAY!, and if someone’s interested, we can definitely make this happen.

Interestingly enough… NOT SELLING THINGS TO PEOPLE works so well for me that I often have to AVOID business conversations with people, because I really, HONESTLY didn’t approach them to try to get some money from them. :) I have to actively steer the conversation away from what I do so I’m not associated with the people that only walk up to you, shake your hand and give you a hug because they’re trying to get paid. Let’s have fun when it’s time to have fun and do business when it’s time to do business. ;)

~ Bill Cammack | @BillCammack

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Roxanne & Shane, founders & owners of Bare Feet Studios & Beachwalks.tv have been consulting and in the internet industry a lot longer than I have and I was fortunate enough to receive some vital coaching from both of them concerning Time, specifically relating to being a freelancer.

I physically met Roxanne Darling two years ago in November 2006, but I knew her already from the Yahoo Videoblogging Group. We had some great and important conversations and I knew she had her finger on the pulse of what was going on in this new “New Media” world I was diving into from my Corporate and Broadcast video background.

Rox & Shane did their own show, Beachwalks.tv, but what I didn’t know at the time was that they were also very, very, VERY busy with their consulting business where they have 12 years of experience working in internet technology, streaming media, audio & video podcasting, new media creation and consulting, content management systems, event production, and public speaking.

Fast Forward to March 2007, and I accompanied Rox to NYC’s BlogHerBiz ’07 conference. We were filming or attending discussions all day, which probably amounted to 6 or 8 hours, tops, before we shut the productions down and got ready to socialize for the rest of the evening.

When Rox turned her computer on, she said something about having 80 emails since she had last checked this morning. I remember laughing at that, thinking “ha ha, you have all this spam/bacn to get rid of, hahaha” To my shock & horror, I found out she had 80 actual legitimate BUSINESS emails, with more coming in.

At the time, I was probably only getting 30 emails a day… like, meaning in a 24-hour period… and those were mostly garbage. There was something about Rox’s email situation that told me to pay attention, because I was looking at my future. We headed to the socializing events with both of us knowing that by the time she returned from having a good time (and, less importantly, business networking at the same time), even MORE email would be stacking up…

Vaporware & Future Money

I became bored of the Broadcast/Corporate video world and found out about putting video on the internet/iPod from my good friend & colleague, Athina Krikeli one day when she showed me a commercial she created, one day after a session of Emmy Award judging.

Athina Krikeli & Bill Cammack

As soon as I watched Athina’s work and saw how clear it looked on this little box-thing, and how the stereo sound was perfect, my mind instantly expanded as I considered an entirely new form of self-expression.

It was suddenly clear to me that I didn’t have to put my work on television and watch it disappear. My news articles showing for an hour or two, then disappearing. My commercials playing until they rotated them out for the next big thing in the focus groups, never to be seen again. My segments disappearing forever once they cancelled Studio-Y or GameFace or changed the focus of a channel from Youth to Sports and then to Fashion. Suddenly, I had the opportunity to do good work, put it “on the air” and have it STAY THERE. Also, I was no longer restricted by local or even national broadcast limitations. People could watch my videos in France or Japan, anytime they wanted to and as many times as they wanted to! Amazing! :D

This is how I became involved in the world of vaporware & future money.

In the real world (IRL, in real life) budget comes before production. If you don’t have any money… you don’t get anything done. Period. If you have a little bit of money, you can get your job done poorly and slowly by someone that doesn’t really know what they’re doing. In the internet world, people come up with ideas and then try to figure out how cheaply they can make that idea a reality. This is because (which I didn’t realize for a loooooong time) we’re living in a “startup culture”. Everybody’s always working. It’s never enough. You don’t get paid NOW, you get paid when your company gets funded and eventually gets bought. It’s all about the bottom line, because everyone’s scrambling for funds and then scrambling to prove that they deserve ANOTHER round of funding. Meanwhile, everybody knows this is all “future money” and could collapse at any time, so every dime needs to be accounted for in terms of ROI.

That’s all well and good, except a) like I’ve been saying for two years already (“Monetizing Digital Video” February, 2007), there’s no revenue stream for monetizing internet video because you can’t prove demographics, and b) video, as far as internet communications are concerned, is only ONE of SEVERAL formats in which you can get your point across. You can use SMS, email, RSS subscriptions, text blogging, audio recordings, static websites… If you want to put something on television, there’s only one way to do it. You HAVE TO make a video. On the net, the question is “Why should I spend the money to make a video when I could just type some words and get the same number of hits to show to my advertisers?”.

This is why professionals avoid web video. There’s normally no budget at all, and if there is, it’s whatever allowance was afforded that group by a sponsor or they’re hoping to make their money back via CPM (= impossible). Of course, there’s money in doing Corporate Video that just happens to be on the internet, or, at least, inTRAnet, but that’s the same-old same-old for me *yawn* and I wanted to pioneer something like JetSetShow or SomethingToBeDesired.

So basically, instead of having an actual REASON to do videos which would cause them to have an actual BUDGET to do videos, you have a lot of people and groups that know that internet video is hot and only getting more and more popular, and they want to be involved, but they really have ZERO idea of what they’re doing because it’s only another business concept to them. They’re not actual artists. They’re not actually media makers. They have no idea AT ALL about what it takes to bring a project from concept to completion. This would seem to be a good thing, but it isn’t hahaha.

Handout-Based Environment

This combination of lack of funding, lack of ROI on video projects and this “We’re all trying to make it with a startup” mentality has created this weird, handout-based environment. I was introduced to a woman at a party (so what’s new about THAT? ;) haha) and literally RIGHT AFTER she was told what I do, she goes “Oh… if you have some free time, blah blah my project!” I don’t remember her exact wording, because I go to networking events to hang out with my friends, not to field sporadic questions & comments about business in the middle of the night when I obviously have a drink in my hand and I’m tryin’na chat with the ladies.

Chrissie, Leora, Flo & Bill

So anyway… I exchanged contact information with her… Meaning that I took her business card and told her to Google “Bill”… I sent her an email the next day, and her response had nothing about budgeting in it. ????

That’s when I accessed my visual/audio memory to try to figure out EXACTLY what she had said to me. I believe she had said “If you have free time, maybe you can help me with my project!”. I’m assuming the operative word was “help”, which, to me, implies “I can’t do this, so I need someone to help me”, as in “My car isn’t running. I need someone to help me fix it”, which would be the MECHANIC, who is going to BILL YOU for the time he spent working on your car and the materials he utilized in the process. It was clear from her correspondence that she meant “do it for free”.

I had another situation where I had just come from a REAL job out of town and I went to a party. At the time of my arrival, I had nothing planned for the entire rest of the week. A friend of mine asked me, in the course of conversation “What are you doing tomorrow?” to which I replied “nothing”, which meant to me “Nobody’s offered me my day rate to do anything tomorrow other than EXACTLY. WHAT. *I*. WANT. TO. DO, so I might do ANYTHING or NOTHING AT ALL tomorrow, and that’s the way I like it”. His response to finding out that I had nothing to do the next day was “Oh.. I’m doing blah blah event tomorrow. Could you come to the event and film it? :) ” After I finished sipping my brew, I said something to the effect of “Nah”. He looked incredibly perplexed by my answer… Almost as perplexed as this guy.

I attempted to explain the situation to him by saying “I just worked three days in a row. I’m not doing [jack] tomorrow”. Of course, this only confused him EVEN MORE because of this startup mentality that we all have of “everybody’s always working” and “everybody’s always scraping to get out of the barrel” and “if you’re not working on something that makes you money, you may as well spend YOUR time on something that improves MY life”. I’m not saying that’s what HE was thinking. It’s pervasive. Every time I ask someone what’s new or how they’re doing, I get some kind of report about their business endeavors. Meanwhile, people are hiding “Significant Others” left and right and either don’t want to talk about them AT ALL or will bring them up while specifically avoiding saying even their FIRST names!…. “the person I’m seeing, blah blah blah”.

It’s not just individuals either. Companies… Like actual well-known companies that have tens if not hundreds of employees that are all drawing salaries… want handouts. The reason they need guidance is that they JUST found out what I knew in 2006 and people like Jay Dedman & Kenyatta Cheese knew in 2004 if not earlier, that internet video is the wave of the future.

Because nobody seemed to notice this while we’ve all been putting hundreds and hundreds of episodes on the net for years already and handing out entirely free information that entire time to the entire world in the Yahoo Videoblogging Group, NOW, companies are scrambling to try to get on the bandwagon and nobody that they’ve already hired knows what they’re doing AT. ALL.

So it took me a LONG TIME to figure out what was really going on in the space, because I didn’t imagine it was going to take them this long to figure out how to monetize digital video to the degree that they could afford to pay professionals to handle the business. In the meantime, I watched my daily email count rise and rise towards Rox’s level and I stopped using my phone entirely. I literally did. not. have. the. time. to. waste. listening to the long-version of what people wanted from me. Put it in an email and I’ll get to it when & if I get to it.

Time

Rox & Bill

At some time during this period, I ended up speaking with Rox & Shane individually about TIME, because I knew that they had already been living the life I was now living for years. I needed AT LEAST a starting point or some kind of foundation that I could build my own concept of TIME on.

People with staff jobs have it easy. :) You go to work when they tell you to. You come home when they tell you to. You go back to work when they tell you to. You get a check every other week.

Freelancers in the real world have it easy. Here’s my rate. You can afford it or you can’t. You have my money or you don’t.

Freelancers in an handout-based society have to work with the lowball budgets presented to them or pass on the project entirely (as not worth spending the time to even THINK about) while constantly fielding ?deflecting? ?deleting? all kinds of RFCs (hahaha I made a funny! hahaha Requests For Charity! hahaha) from acquaintances AND NON-ACQUAINTANCES!

Just 11 days ago, on January 01, 2009, my ideas about TIME completely solidified for me, and that’s what this series of posts is going to be about. How do you efficiently organize your time so that you can do the REAL work, do what YOU want and/or need to do, accommodate lowballers and hand out charity all at the same time? :D

~Bill Cammack, January 12, 2009

Continued in “Time, Part 02″

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I just read this article by Sarah Lacy where she describes part of her journey into becoming a brand and then attempting to leverage her new positions. The pivotal paragraph for me was:

Sarah: That take-on-the-world morning, I was having coffee with Steven Levy, then of Newsweek, now of Wired, who challenged this whole idea of whether this “Sarah Lacy” brand was actually translating into things that mattered, like book sales, money, something real and tangible, or whether it was a just smokescreen of hype. And I granted his point. I’ve long been dubious of Internet celebrity’s staying power. It seems the Internet famous hit that moment where they’re on the Today Show, and just about to close a deal with ABC or HBO or pick the big money, you’ve-made-it acronym, but it never really materializes.

I’ve watched this happen several times since I entered the scene in 2006. Internet Celebrities attempting to take their game to the next level. The first, and most obvious example from the paragraph above being Amanda Congdon, formerly of Rocketboom fame, who went on to do Amanda Across America and then a derivative show for ABC where they attempted to emulate Rocketboom, but severely overproduced Amanda, stomping the life and fun out of the personality that she had brought to the Rocketboom anchor chair AND forcing 30-second pre-roll advertisements that had lots of people clicking off the site before they ever got to Amanda’s performance.

Another example would be Lisa Donavan (LisaNova), who went from YouTube to MADtv and then back to the internet. Then, there’s Ze Frank, who made up his own brand of show and viewer interaction, soared to immense popularity, deliberately quit his show after a calendar year and last I noticed, was on the lecture circuit.

So the question is whether the Personal Brand you’re creating “is actually translating into things that matter”. I touched upon this in August, 2008, in Conversion of “Cred”, but Sarah sums up my own personal experience here:

Sarah: But when it comes to stats, the synergy and the cross promotion hasn’t been as easy as it would seem on paper. I’ve been pretty aggressive about linking between things, and if you follow me here or on Twitter, you get a pretty clear day-to-day account of my life. Yet, I’m stunned by how many people read this blog, but never go to TechTicker. Or how many people watch TechTicker, but have no idea I write a BusinessWeek column. Or how many people follow me on Twitter, but still think I’m on staff for BusinessWeek full-time. Or– I swear to God– the number of people who know me from any of those platforms and say, “You wrote a book?” If my life were a reality show, you could insert a montage of all the times I’ve said “my book” in the last year and it would be a mini-series in length. Whenever I get recognized and someone asks if I’m Sarah Lacy, I smile and say yes, but then coyly ask how they know me. Because I’ve learned it’s different every time, and it’s never all-of-the-above.

What I’ve found is that people in general tend to cherry-pick when it comes to content on the net. There *is* no overall “Let me see what Bill Cammack is doing now”. Instead, it’s actually “Let me see what Bill Cammack is offering me that I’m interested in at this particular point in time”. Actually, it has nothing to do with ME in particular. It’s just that I happen to be talking about or showing them something they came to the table already interested in.

This is the reason why when it comes to your Personal Brand, there’s no crossover. People in general are interested in ONE aspect of your character or personality. Without something drawing them to feel like they want to get to know more about YOU as a person, they will NEVER find out about the other elements of your Personal Brand.

I believe it was Hermann Mazard that replied to one of my Twitter posts about Personal Branding with something to the effect of “Doesn’t defining yourself as a brand limit you?”. The answer to that question is whether or not YOU are limited as a person, personality or character. The reason I mention this is that Sarah Lacy is saying she’s a brand with multiple branches or elements. If you’re only willing to “advertise” one element of your brand, then “yes… It is limiting”. Otherwise, your brand is actually a COMBINATION of the different skills and qualities you’re bringing to the table. The only limit to your personal brand is YOU… and the amount of “YOU” that you’re willing to publicize.

However, as Sarah points out, there’s a difference between broadcasting several elements of your Personal Brand and each viewer or reader receiving all the elements you’re publicizing.

This became obvious to me rather suddenly, as I was hanging out at some party last year, in what I refer to as “mixed company” (people that don’t know each other, but know me). Someone that I hang out with every chance I get and that I also know reads my DatingGenius dating advice column was visibly and audibly stunned when this other person he had just met mentioned that I was an Emmy Award-Winning video editor. So, this guy that I’ve been hanging out with for MONTHS already and has been reading one category of my blog never ventured into any of my OTHER categories or looked at my sidebar, where it’s clearly marked, what I do, and what I’m into. :D

That’s when it REALLY clicked for me that people cherry-pick. Personally, I’m the opposite way. Once I determine that I’m interested in one aspect of a person, I E-Stalk them until I feel I have a full grasp of who they’re expressing themselves to the internet to be. I Google them and look for them on Facebook, Twitter and other social sites. What I’ve found when it comes to what people absorb or take away from the media I float out onto the internet is the exact same thing that Sarah states. They know me for ONE THING, and not the combination of things that I project/express.

Having said that, :D Before this particular article, my only awareness of Sarah Lacy was that Twitter blew up one day, talkin’ ’bout some chick interviewed the Facebook dude and asked him a bunch of questions that put him on the spot. This was accompanied by videos and other commentary. So I knew what Sarah looked like, I saw the video of her interviewing Zuckerberg, and I saw one or two other videos on the net of her speaking about that incident, and that was the extent of my “knowledge” about her. Essentially, had I met her in person, I would have fallen into the “oh, You wrote a book?” category of people.

I think that part of the reason for this is that this is a search-based culture, which is why Google’s doing so well. People want to know about what they want to know about when they want to know about it. They search for specific things, serially, and really aren’t interested in HOW they got the information or from whom. So if someone searches “Dating Women NYC” and hits my site, they’re not concerned about WHO IT IS that gave them this informaton. They’re concerned with the information itself.

This is why there’s no crossover. People can come to my site looking for dating advice and not care about social media posts, or care about social media and not production & post-production or care about text blogging but not videoblogging…. It’s actually even more specific than that. They can show up here looking for one particular topic and then not delve into ANY of my other posts on the exact same topic! :D

I think that what this amounts to is “You can’t take it with you”. I had this discussion with Tyme White back in March, 2008. The question was, essentially, “If there’s a hostess (Eye Candy) of a show, and the show fails, does that become a negative mark on her resume?”. Tyme said “yes”, because the actress would be associated with a failure. I said “no”, because it’s clear to people that the Eye Candy has NOTHING to do with the actual content or production of the show. She’s merely reading a script, so that’s the extent of her culpability. As long as she looks good and can read as if she graduated from college, she’ll thrive regardless of a history of failed shows that she hosted.

Similarly, in response to Hermann’s question and Sarah’s personal observations, I believe that people cultivate several simultaneous and completely separate brands, under the “umbrella” of *A* Personal Brand. This is why a personal brand is not limiting… because you can make as many of them as you want. It’s also why you can’t cross-monetize. People that love one aspect of your umbrella of brands don’t give a damn about any of the other aspects.

IME, people that like my dating blog don’t care about my social media blog. People that like my social media blog don’t care about my videos. People that like my videos don’t care about my bike. People that like my cycle stuff don’t care about my video editing content. People that like my video editing content don’t care that I hang out with a bunch of chicks all the time. People that like my photo sets don’t care about what I do to get money…..

So, ultimately, it comes down to how “sticky” your fans are. There’s no guarantee that you can say to your dating blog fans “Hey! Check out this social media post I made! :D ” and that they’ll actually look at it. ‘Matter of fact, there’s no guarantee that you have ANY ability to persuade ANY of your viewers or readers towards doing anything at all. Sarah pointed this out, and I think her point is valid & documented:

Sarah: I’ve written before that one of the advantages of the Internet– the relatively low barrier to click on something– is an advantage for building brands and gaining distribution online, but it’s also a disadvantage. People flock to you as a side-show, but don’t actually want to invest real dollars to support whatever you are doing. Honestly, how many of Tila Tequila’s million MySpace friends buy her CDs? There’s a currency in mild watching-a-train-wreck-fascination and even hate online, that doesn’t exist in the offline world in the same way. And, to date, it hasn’t translated.

I think the ‘side show’ analogy is perfect. People will come to see the bearded lady IN THE CARNIVAL, but if she releases a CD of Barry Manilow covers, nobody cares. They were fans of hers as a FREAK, not fans of hers as a talent that they wanted to hear/see more from. As soon as you take the freak out of the carnival, you hear the crickets at her performances.

Another issue is that you can’t discount the effects of the fishbowl / echo chamber. A lot of the internet fame that’s generated amongst “geeks” can’t be duplicated amongst “real people”. Let’s say you’re a reporter who talks about gadgets or tech stuff. As soon as you’re placed in front of an audience who doesn’t care about that, you’re finished.

On top of that, there are a lot of people that “follow” other people on the net because of that person’s access to information, as opposed to them actually thinking that this person has any “sticky” personal value. This is another reason why crossovers don’t tend to work out. People weren’t paying attention to that person because of their actual personality. They were looking at their physical appearance or leeching off of the fact that that person would get information about tech gadgets before other people. If you remove them from the genre or niche that they’re internet-famous in, they have no star power at all.

So, the song remains the same when it comes to MSM. You’re not going ANYWHERE unless you have some form of talent or personality trait that people outside of the fishbowl are going to appreciate and latch onto you for.

Meanwhile, there’s no cross-monetizing Personal Branding elements under your umbrella. You have separate audiences for each of your niches. The amount of TIME that you dedicate to maintaining your internet presence will determine how many of your branches you can cultivate simultaneously.

This year, 2009, is going to be all about Personal Branding and positioning. It doesn’t help you to have 5,000 Twitter followers if you can’t get a job from ANY of them. It doesn’t help you to host a tech gadget show if your aspiration is to be an actual actor/actress. It doesn’t help you to create social media destination sites if nobody wants to socialize with YOU, or, more importantly, with EACH OTHER.

The game’s going to change this year. Live Broadcasting & Character Development are going to be the route to developing Passionate Viewers and consequently “sticky” Popularity / “Cred”. Just like rap music, internet video has gotten to the point where ANYBODY can get on the mic. The only way you’re going to successfully cross over and gain traction outside of the fishbowl / echo chamber is by demonstrating UNIVERSAL value.

As opposed to the sum total of your branding efforts, your position & success in 2010 is going to depend on the branch(es) of your Personal Brand that you invest your time cultivating and demonstrating to people that you’re a viable, universal talent that can make it to AND THRIVE IN “The Big Show”.

~Bill Cammack

Social Media Category: billcammack.com/category/social-media
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Walt Ribeiro does a new video every single day… Like “Rejected”:

Meanwhile, I have at the very least *100* show ideas, and I’m not doing ANY of them. Not ONE of them. The last video I uploaded was “Social Media Observations”, almost exactly two months ago:

Granted, that was my 315th episode in two years, but still, I didn’t stop because I needed a break. I stopped because something that I couldn’t place my finger on wasn’t making sense.

I met Walt on May 16th, 2008 @ MashBash NYC. He left the afterparty right before we took this picture:

At some point, I became aware that Walt is extremely enthusiastic! hahahaha He really seems INTERESTED in things, and PSYCHED! :D I then found out that he does a show about music, teaching people about music via the internet. Of course, one of my myriad shows was about music, so I watched a few episodes.

This is when I realized that Walt was outputting so much material. Doing a daily show is really amazing. I already knew how to do it, but at least three things were stopping me…

1) I wanted to make shows instead of, let’s call it, “video documentation of events”, which calls for a lot more production and a lot more time spent to output each episode.
2) I didn’t have consistent crew to do an ensemble show with, and didn’t feel like doing a show featuring mainly myself.
3) I didn’t have a reason at the time to do a show about myself.

Meanwhile, my site evolved from a work-based, Emmy Award-Winning Video Editorial site to a documentation of the NYC Videoblogging scene to its current form, which is simply a Bill Cammack fansite.

I used to do videos about stuff that I do, like visiting the World Trade Center (Ground Zero) with my friend Joey in the middle of the night, when we were on our way to the club:

 
… or hanging out with Masami, Masako & Laetitia:

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

So here comes Walt, :) Sitting down in front of his video camera or iSight or whatever, and just KICKIN’ IT. How simple is it? He doesn’t need extra crew. He has a goal (teaching people music). It’s something he’s enthusiastic about and something he does naturally. The show doesn’t revolve around gimmicks or graphics. The show revolves around what Walt has to offer to whomever’s interested in watching.

I named this season of my videoblog “Delusions of Grandeur” because you have to have them to assume that ANYBODY is watching your material. Meanwhile, one of my four (4) videoblogs on blip.tv recently surpassed 45,000 views:

WAY more importantly… I’ve become aware over the season of quite a few people that I know personally or that I’m related to that are subscribed to my blog in one format or another. I’m going to make a separate post about that, but it makes an immense difference when you personally know someone… ANYONE that you’re communicating to through your articles and self-expressions on the net. It makes a MAJOR difference, and now I know to whom I’m speaking when I do my “documentation of events”. I’m also glad when people that I’ve met IRL go back to their home cities, states or countries and “tune in” when I’m doing my thang. It’s cool and all that that people read some of my blogs essentially around the world, but a few of those markers belong to people I know, Like Rox in Hawaii or Phil in the UK or Masami in Japan.

Bill Cammack Recent Visitors Map – August 22, 2008, originally uploaded by Bill Cammack.

August 22, 2008 – Recent Visitor Map for Bill Cammack dot com

So.. What does all this have to do with Being Like Walt? :D He’s found what he wants to do, and he’s doing it. It’s Quick & Dirty and serves his intended purpose. He’s doing what feels good TO HIM and doing what HE wants to do. Would he love to have his own television show? Maybe he would and maybe he wouldn’t. Until that time, he’s doing HIS thing, and I’m gonna do MINE. :D

So what’s the Q&D show going to be about? Nothing. Everything. Whatever. hmmm… I guess that spells “new”. Anyway… Cheers to Walt for his enthusiasm and for leading by example, and let’s get this show on the road! :D

AIIIIITE?

LET ‘EM KNOW!!!

Walt Ribeiro & Bill Cammack

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I’m experimenting with Google Ads. I don’t actually LIKE them, so this experiment will probably be rather short-lived. :D

I used to use them a long time ago, but then I stopped. The general point was that they were poor-looking and at the same time generated close to *ZERO* revenue, hahaha. I think that when I went to reactivate my account, I had accrued like $10 or like $9.50 or something. Meanwhile, I could have stood in front of McDonald’s opening doors for people and requesting change from them as they left the establishment and made that much in one day…. well… actually in just a couple of hours.

The reason I decided to bring them back was that I get a lot of random traffic now. Most of the traffic I got before was from my posting links to social media sites, so it didn’t make sense to tell people “Come to my site to look at advertisements! :D “. At this point, most of my traffic comes from Google, and they tend to bounce pretty quickly, so if they decide to bounce to an ad link, that’s fine with me. :D

Still, I didn’t want the ads to show up to people who ‘normally’ browse my site, like actually going to my home page and seeing what’s on it. For that reason, I took Tyme‘s advice and implemented the ads in my single post code.

I decided to use link units instead of ad units, because I could get link units that were only 15 pixels high. The “thinnest” ad units I could get were 60 pixels high.

I immediately noticed a problem with relevance… Not that adsense was having trouble parsing the text on the page, but because I talk about so much different stuff in my posts. I don’t even TALK about cars, yet they were posting automobile links on my pages. One of my titles included the name “Nichelle”, so all the ads on the page were for “Helle” shoes or something. So, without the ability to specifically say “give me these type of ads”, there’s an incredible relevance ‘problem’. They would probably work better if my posts were only a couple of paragraphs long and about specifically one topic.

In general, I’m not a fan of random advertising anyway. I’ve been saying for probably a year now that product placement and sponsorship is the way to go. This is another reason these ads will probably have to vamoose immediately. :) I don’t enjoy seeing mentions of items that don’t have anything to do with anything on my pages. I also can’t imagine why anybody would want to click on the random words they come up with. Then again, I’m not aiming them at ME, I’m aiming them at people who randomly search through google for topics they want to read about at that point in time.

I guess part of the experiment is to gauge the worth of random google ads vs sponsored ads… which is practically ZERO since you’re guaranteed to get paid whatever amount by a sponsor by the nature of the relationship. Google ads are like a gamble. “I DEFINITELY show your ads, and I MAYBE get a couple of cents out of the deal”. :)

Anyway, it’ll be an interesting experiment. I’m up to 83 page impressions since this morning, with ZERO clicks and ZERO page CTR, hahaha. I’ll most likely be done with this experiment when I wake up tomorrow morning. :D

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